Opening 09.09.2022, 18 - 22h

curated by Mohamed Almusibli
with: Debbie Alagen, Mathis Altmann, Djelza Azemi, Lou Cohen,Rob Kulisek, Jack O' Brien
feat. Sue Tompkins and a perfomance by Nils Amadeus Lange starting at 20h

Chômage Technique

The idea behind this exhibition is to demonstrate the various ways in which Authority may be played with and ridiculed as either a social and collective concept or, alternately, as a well- established State Apparatus. The philosopher Hannah Arendt wrote in her 1972 book Crises of the Republic: Lying in Politics; Civil Disobedience; On Violence; Thoughts on Politics and Revolution that "The greatest enemy of authority, therefore, is contempt, and the surest way to undermine the laughter." In reality, artists have used shapes and images to present contrasting views, to show that political laws and constraints can be mocked and even rejected.

In the selected works, there is a search for symbols to analyze relationships between dominance and mental alienation, as well as attempts to fetishize these situations. There is a sense of the melancholy of "fascist dramaturgy," to use Sontagian terms, that centers on the orgiastic material transaction between mighty forces and their serfs, despite the fact that society is seen as being bound by its own chains.

A constant transfer of energy, as well as a piece of one's own personality and identity, are present in capitalistic relationships of labor and are destined to be lost in the pursuit of the Absolute Surplus-value. What happens when the machine fails? When the computer refuses to turn on? What can we do? What should we do? Forced unemployment demonstrates the fragility of a system, as well as the flaws and weaknesses of an untouchable leadership that is losing ground. By revealing the experience of a presumed unbreakable bound, it is possible to reassemble a new narrative that has the power to momentarily overthrow Authority in a state of oblivion.

Open by appointment