Freedom!
12th April–30th June 2013
Kunstpalais
Marktplatz 1
91054 Erlangen, Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm
Wednesday 10am–8pm
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Freedom!
Nedko Solakov created an in-situ work.
Ai Weiwei shows his project WeiweiCam for the first time in an exhibition.
Lars Ø Ramberg presents his project about and with Mordechai Vanunu.
CAMP show their dOCUMENTA 13 installation, The Boat Modes.
Bouchra Khalili presents Speeches for the first time in Germany.
Nikolaj Bendix Skyum presents Promised Land for the first time in Germany.
The Kunstpalais dedicates a group exhibition to the topic ‘freedom’ due to the 200th anniversary of the decisive battle of the nations of the wars of liberation in 1813. Recent revolutions in the Arab world are regarded as the starting point for the exhibition and some of the artworks are dealing with this subject. The concept of the show seeks to investigate the topic of political liberty, the fight for democracy and human rights, the desire for departure and the struggle for self-determination.
What does freedom mean today? Ilija Trojanow, Juli Zeh and Mathias Döpfner have already warned to give up freedom in order to apparently achieve more security. In his book Die Freiheitsfalle (The Trap of Freedom) Döpfner writes that for Europeans liberty is solely an emotional, subjective experience whereas for other people, freedom often means an existential struggle for basic rights: ‘Europeans marvel and comment on how Americans, Chinese, Indians, Brazilians and Arabs change the world. The defence of freedom as a universal value has hardly a powerful voice in Europe any more. The old world has become old.’ Is that true?
The exhibition brings together artists whose works are considerably affected by the concept of political freedom and who are fundamentally concerned with questions of democracy and human rights. The main focus of the exhibition is on a non-European perspective.
Participating artists:
Alexander Apóstol (Venezuela), Johanna Billing (Sweden), CAMP (India), Haejun Jo (South Korea), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco), Nikolaj Bendix Skyum Larsen (Denmark), Klara Lidén (Sweden), Lars Ø Ramberg (Norway), Nedko Solakov (Bulgaria), Ai Weiwei (China) and Artur Zmijewski (Poland).
Curator: Claudia Emmert
The Kunstpalais
In June 2010 the Kunstpalais was opened in the Palais Stutterheim as a new venue for contemporary art in Erlangen. In three solo exhibitions and one group exhibition every year, relevant contemporary approaches in the international art scene are presented. They are linked to contemporary discourses within and beyond the world of art. There is a particular emphasis on issues that bear conceptual relevance to literature, philosophy and film. Interdisciplinary supporting programmes help to establish the artistic contents on a broad social level.
The exhibition Glück happens with Mona Hatoum, Tobias Rehberger, Runa Islam, Christian Jankowski, Erwin Wurm, Aleksandra Mir and others served as a prelude. In 2011 the exhibition iRonic. Die feinsinnige Ironie der Kunst (The Subtle Irony of Art) with John Bock, Mark Dion, Ragnar Kjartansson, Anton Henning, Peter Land, Shannon Bool and Brigitte Kowanz and others followed. In 2012 the exhibition Töten (Killing) brought together the artists Jenny Holzer, Taryn Simon, Björn Melhus, Anri Sala, Yves Netzhammer, Kitty Kraus, Eva & Franco Mattes and Parastou Forouhar.
