Sebastian Lütgert: no-show

Due to the current situation, the artist could not consistently be reached for comment. He is expected to present a retrospective of installation, performance and video works created between 2007 and 2019, and has cited the following paragraph as a major source of inspiration:

United Nations Plaza. In 2010, I had the immense privilege of watching Europe from the outside as it disappeared under a volcanic cloud—an ash signal from one of the first post-capitalist microstates in the region, a people who chose to be relegated to the status of subsistence fishers rather than sell out to the failing financial institutions of the European Union, which were then scrambling to protect their investments in the failing airlines (I heard that the streets of Berlin were almost deserted, while the sky over the city was clear for the first time)—I couldn’t help but smile. What had become conceivable again was the planet, as something other than the globe of the capitalist market, the toxic remainder of capitalist production, or the domesticated natural reserve of capitalist ecology. There is more to climate change than global warming, fear of frequent flying, or the panic among most Europeans that their impending failure to sell another hundred million oh-so-eco-friendly cars to China will immediately result in a hundred million drowning or starving Bangladeshis. None of whom, of course, they have ever met or spoken to—whether out of political principle or as a simple matter of misguided politeness – in order to discover the possibility that they could be doing fine, just like all the other imaginary others of the capitalist self, and that the climate might just as well change in their favor.

[Sebastian Lütgert, e-flux journal #17]

The Pulverturm (Powder Tower) belongs to the former castle wall and is the only remaining building of the fortifications of Oldenburg. Its history goes back to 1529, when Count Anton I (1505–1573) renewed the city’s military facilities. Since 1996, the Pulverturm has been used for cultural purposes during the summer autumn months.

Pulverturm, Am Schlosswall, 26122 Oldeburg

Opening times:
Friday: 2–6pm
Saturday and Sunday: 11am–6pm

This exhibition was a joint project of the Edith-Russ-Haus and the
Dynamic Archive project at the University of the Arts Bremen
(thedynamicarchive.net).