CONTEMPLATION AND MEDITATION IN CONTEMPORARY ART – MUSEO COMUNALE D'ARTE MODERNA ASCONA – JUNE 23 TO OCTOBER 13, 2019
The exhibition Colour, Form, Emptiness – Contemplation and Meditation in Contemporary Art came about through the successful collaboration between the MUSEO COMUNALE D'ARTE MODERNA DI ASCONA and the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Arts and Culture Foundation in Hannover. It marked the continuation of the museum’s cycle of exhibitions on European art after the Second World War, a period which has had a significant impact on the contemporary art world.
The late 1950s and early 1960s saw the emergence of various groups of politically-engaged artists who radicalised the achievements of the first historical avant-gardes (Bauhaus, Dada, Futurism, Constructivism, etc.), a counterreaction to other artistic movements of the time, including Abstract Expressionism, Arte Informale, and Socialist Realism. The distinctive new artistic languages developed by these groups made a significant contribution to redefining the role of both art and artists. This language should not be understood as a form of subjective expression, but rather as a ‘cooler’, international mode of expression, based on contemporary discoveries in science and technology.
The result was the creation of visual objects which served to revolutionise the role of the spectator. The viewer of the artwork was no longer the passive observer or recipient of an underlying message within the culture of their time. Instead, they became an essentially active and creative contributor who, on various levels, could trigger the work’s effect, either by mechanically moving the work or, in a more virtual sense, by shifting their perspective. Suddenly the viewer was placed at the centre of aesthetic experience, with artworks becoming devices, capable of setting off sensory and cognitive responses and thus raising the viewer’s awareness, allowing them to shift perspectives and reflect on the visual mechanisms at work. The spectator was invited to let go, activate their imagination, and ‘construct’ the image of the work in their own way.
This meant the artist assuming a pedagogical role, as a provider of stimuli, awakening psychophysical experiences which attest to the inherent spatial-temporal dynamics of human existence and which invite the viewer to open themselves up, without prejudice, to a ‘floating field’ of perception. The approach is more meditative and thoughtful than reactive: it opens up the human being to a new and indomitable dimension, revealing the cosmic and universal potential of the future. As human beings, we are at last called upon to move towards new horizons and locate the dimension of freedom that can truly give meaning to our existence. This perspective is informed by a hope that our world will always tend to become the best possible version of itself. In this way it can become a place of peace and harmony.
The central core of works in the exhibition was drawn from the collection of the Dr. Christiane Hackerodt Arts and Culture Foundation, which has been developed around themes of contemplation and meditation. These criteria informed the acquisition of every work in the Foundation’s collection. The collection’s focus is on works by the artists of the Zero Group, based in Düsseldorf, as well as by other artists in their circle, including Heinz Mack, Otto Piene, Bernard Aubertin, Hermann Bartels and Raimund Girke. However, another important part of the collection consists of works by artists from the Far East, including Morio Nishimura, Kazuo Shiraga, Kwang Young Chun, and Yuko Nasaka. The collection’s perspective is thus directed towards two different worlds, allowing its works to be comprehended from a historical perspective.
Above all, however, the exhibition seeks to offer a genuine, concrete alternative to our hectic contemporary lifestyle. This represents the exhibition’s real originality: it presents an alternative to the lifestyle of our globalised and digitised society, in which the Internet, for all its undeniable advantages, and its historical significance as an invention, is also bringing about an increasingly anonymous, individualised, and unemotional life. The exhibition seeks to address this central discontent of our era by inviting visitors to enter into dialogue with the works on display, to absorb their forms and colours. They are invited, in other words, to immerse themselves in the atmosphere of tranquillity and allow themselves to be transported to another dimension.
Museo Communale d’Arte Moderna
