Utopia Matters
dal 22/1/2010 al 10/4/2010
Segnalato da
22/1/2010
Utopia Matters
Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin
Through nine movements spanning 130 years: the Primitifs, the Nazarenes, the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris and Arts and Crafts, the Cornish Art Colony, Neo-Impressionism, De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and Russian Constructivism, many of the forms utopian artistic groups can assume are explored. Utopia Matters allows for dialogues between a diversity of these groups from Europe and the United States so that historical movements and avant-gardes with like aims of collectivity and idealism, normally separated by national and chronological divisions, are seen alongside each other. The presentation concludes in the early 1930s, when the ascendancy of fascism brought about the close of the Bauhaus in Berlin in 1933 and Stalinism reframed Russian Constructivist projects in the Soviet Union.
curated by Vivien Greene
The realization of an utopian society has always been an aspiration of humankind, but its achievement has been countered by the paradoxically dictatorial precepts upon which it must be founded. Mainstays of Western thought have alternately attempted to formulate an utopian paradigm that could function in practical terms or condemned the hope altogether. When governments have put utopian theories into practice these efforts have historically failed, suffocated by the numerous rules required to maintain a presumably perfect world. Yet, the need for the idea of utopia to live in our imaginations is an important one for our culture.
Utopia has long been a subject of investigation for artists, as well as a model for artists’ communities, where an ideal society has sometimes been more easily realized than in larger contexts. Though many were short-lived, these collectives functioned as the catalyst for intense and fecund periods of exchange and creativity. Artistic movements with utopian foundations emerged in the wake of the Enlightenment-fueled revolutions in France and America and were nourished by Romantic principles. They range from the nineteenth-century brotherhoods premised on the example of the medieval guild to the colonies which burgeoned by the end of the nineteenth century when artists retreated to remote locales, looking for respite from the problems of urban life. With the avant-gardes following World War I—when there was a turn toward the idea of truth and harmony in pure, abstract forms—utopian groups optimistically endeavored to recraft society through art and design.
Through nine movements spanning 130 years: the Primitifs, the Nazarenes, the Pre-Raphaelites, William Morris and Arts and Crafts, the Cornish Art Colony, Neo-Impressionism, De Stijl, the Bauhaus, and Russian Constructivism, many of the forms utopian artistic groups can assume are explored. Utopia Matters allows for dialogues between a diversity of these groups from Europe and the United States so that historical movements and avant-gardes with like aims of collectivity and idealism, normally separated by national and chronological divisions, are seen alongside each other. The presentation concludes in the early 1930s, when the ascendancy of fascism brought about the close of the Bauhaus in Berlin in 1933 and Stalinism reframed Russian Constructivist projects in the Soviet Union.
Utopia Matters includes temporal interventions by contemporary artists—banners by Luca Buvoli and a new version of the RMB City internet-based project by Cao Fei—which signal the endurance of utopian themes today.
The catalog Utopia Matters: From Brotherhoods to Bauhaus (German and English, € 32) accompanies the exhibition.
Luca Buvoli has created Flipbook 2 (from Flying – Practical Training for Beginners), 1999-2010 as Edition No. 50 for the Deutsche Guggenheim. The flipbook is available exclusively in a limited and signed edition of 20 and an unsigned edition of 1,000. For information call + 49 (0) 30 20 20 93 -15 / -16.
Image: El Lissitzky, Untitled, ca 1919-20 © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2010
For further information please contact: Sara Bernshausen
Phone 0049 (0)30-202093-14 Email berlin.guggenheim@db.com
23.01.2010, 11 am - Curator’s Talk with Vivien Greene
Dr. Vivien Greene, Curator of 19th- and Early 20th-Century Art,Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, gives a guided tour of Utopia Matters.
In English
23./24.01.2010, 10 am - 8 pm - Utopia and Fashion - "…how nice without utopia"
The haute couture designer Annette Kölling from Antwerp presents collages and unique pieces under the motto Drawing as Utopia, Fashion as Shaped Environment. Films on the themes of fashion, art and utopia will be shown in parallel.
In cooperation with Epicentro Art and Fly Magazine within the frame of the Berlin Fashion Week Showroom Mile
Deutsche Guggenheim
Unter den Linden 13/15, 10117 Berlin
open: daily 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Admission adults € 4, reduced Rate € 3
Children under 12 Admission free