Graduation exhibition: World’s Rainbow

Osama Al Rayyan, Samuel Bron, Joaquim Cantor Miranda, Pauline Coquart, Robert Finn Curry, Marie Do Linh, Gerome Gadient, Jeronim Horvat, Maya Hottarek, Mio Lena Itschner, Damien Juillard, Marlijn Karsten, Lysann König, Lea Isatou Marong, Mäschi, Jasper Simeon Mehler, Laurie Mlodzik, Anita Moser, Kerstin Mörsch, Mariana Murcia Arévalo, Alexandra Münger, Leah Nehmert, Jacob Ott, Diogo Pinto, Michael Ray-Von, Sophia Remer, Sergio Rojas Chaves, Kaltrinë Rrustemi, R. Sebastian Schachinger, Jennifer Merlyn Scherler, Lotte Rose Kjær Skau, Mariana Tilly, Melissa Absarah Torres, Thy Truong, Daniela Vollmer, Lola Willemin, Vital Z’Brun, Selina Zurkirch

Curated by Claire Hoffmann and Chus Martínez
Curatorial Assistance Alice Wilke

This year’s master’s and bachelor’s graduation exhibition of the Institute Art Gender Nature, FHNW Academy of Art and Design in Basel presents newly produced works by 38 artists. It is hosted for the sixth year by Kunsthaus Baselland in Muttenz/Basel.

World’s Rainbow. What comes to your mind? Imagine a planet (ours or another) embraced by a ring of colors. The clouds that loop around the sphere have pastel colors and they playfully form figures. The winds caressing the Oceans produce a calming sound, like an intimate whisper spoken to all animals and humans and plants. One can sense some microscopic life smiling at us. A safe space, a caring space, a joyful space, a trusting space, a common space. This is what this exhibition is. What do these artists have in common? They all graduated this summer. They all pursued their studies during these pandemic times. They all care immensely for each other and have managed to produce a response in the form of an artwork to a situation that demanded imagination and nerve. What was that situation? A health crisis, yes, but also the sense of a large transformation happening in the world of culture. We sense a shift, an end to some formats and forms of interactions, an end to a certain sense of relevance. But we also expect much more in terms of justice, impact, climate, responsibility, language, and care. Do we also experience precarity? We do. The scarcity of resources and opportunities, the rise of complete control by capital, the indifference toward the impoverishment  of the public sector, the segregation of the social…

What should one expect—in this exhibition, in this rainbow, in this world? Attentiveness. If there is a trait common to all the artworks offered here, it is a delicate approach to the processes that condition perception and touch. The possibility of presence emerges hand in hand in the exhibition with the responsibility towards life. The exhibition emerges as a place in which to exercise the senses while thinking about the role that art and artists play helps to maintain a sense of freedom. Freedom… The word is no scream, no code for further violence and bias, the idea is not ideologically presented to you. It is something you feel in your skin, you wish everyone would sense, keep, cherish, fight for even in a time when energy is so low. Oh! I forgot! The works are charged. Yes, they do emanate a force that bonds us to them, creating a flow inside the space that reminds us that a quality of young art is to believe in the continuation of the discipline and to find new forms for it. We should move into a new intersectional world. Artists of different generations having their studios in public schools, in hospitals, in elderly homes… every neighborhood possessing a small place to exhibit, artists-in-residency in myriad residences. Every mall, every supermarket, every garden should include artworks. We should populate the world with rainbows. It is not a fantasy but an antidote to stop the incrementation of the technocratic colonialism that is being over-imposed on every process that claims to manage our public and private life. Make space for art, we need it.