• Thu 26 04 2018 •
Artists as Historians

With MADHUSREE DUTTA, AHMED GOSSAIN, RAJKAMAL KAHLON

In contemporary art, the remains and residue of the past are rearranged, enabling a new understanding of our own history: artists turn into historians, resisting the disappearance of objects or even entire cultures in their creative work. With a feeling of increasing urgency, artists turn to these remnants of days gone by: photographs, audio and film recordings evoke forgotten places, lost things, or seemingly irrelevant documents that connect to a present seen in a whole new light – a new light that also shines on this historical material.

The works of the different artists in the exhibition are discrete, yet they communicate with one another. They reference historiography as an open-ended, incomplete narrative that can never come to a conclusion, likewise pointing to a polymorphic future that is shaped by innumerable forces.

But what facilitates such a detailed, multifaceted, perhaps completely new interpretation of “things?” Is it the special tactile approach of artists, or is it a subversive agenda that works against the “order of knowledge,” as asserted by institutions of national, colonial or hegemonic alignments?

Such questions are up for discussion by the three artists of the exhibition Global Positioning System Not Working, who present themselves and their work to the Cologne public. The evening is moderated by Madhusree Dutta.

Venue: Academyspace, Herwarthstraße 3, 50672 Cologne
In English
Free admission