25. – 30.10. 2015

In a State of Play

Standby. The room of the Intermedia class at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig (HGB). It is here that class meetings, lectures and discussions take place, conversations about how to develop content, form and the processual nature of an artistic work. The room is dark. Almost. Small red dots are visible. Gradually the eye discovers the accompanying pieces of technical equipment. Adsum, Latin equivalent for I am ready in English. It is a promise that is made during priestly ordinations – to always serve. Adsum. Anytime. On. Off. On. The room transforms itself into an exhibition space. And with the staged exhibition Lichtung* the class for Intermedia proposes a tempting offer for every individual: To switch the exhibited art works on and off at their own accord. Even works that do not necessarily shine for themselves, are integrated into the exhibition display. They can either be switched off or illuminated by a theatre spotlight via a toggle switch. The exhibition situation invites you to play. Is this the state in which we find ourselves?

Taking inspiration from Giuseppe Ungaretti’s famous poem M’illumino d’Immenso, in Ingeborg Bachmann’s German translation „I flood myself with the light of the immense“ – a poem out of a period of literary modernism, which, consisting of only two words, hardly surpasses minimalism – the exhibition will offer the viewer the possibility to explore themes of enlightenment and cognisance. There is, if you will, enlightenment, that is brought to the individual from the outside, and enlightenment that come from within. Both modes of enlightenment fall within the concept of energy: energy that manifests itself as a physical value. Continuous. When one form can be converted to another and neither lost, nor created. And energy that is not visible or verifiable per se. One that grows. Generated from itself, and able to expand into a d’Immenso. So, do we rather believe in the natural scientific or the esoteric and mystical enlightenment, that forms the world? The artistic works in total do not favour one side over the other – why should they. Prior to the exhibition, there was a considerable debate over what hocus-pocus was, the divine, as well as hippy-philosophy – and what is left of it or what has returned. And why. For example, the phenomenon that is referred to with the term degrowth. The retraction of growth. Off or at least on standby. Nearly off. And it seems like we can decide. Constantly. The existence of the choices 0 / I – adsum brings us into a position of action. The exhibition brings the observer back into their active role. In this light, the offer that the exhibition Lichtung presents, is more than just an offer to play.

*A clearing (forest)