Object is Meditation and Poetry

Object is Meditation and Poetry / 2015

An exhibition marking the 250th anniversary of the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig (HGB) in cooperation with the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts and the German Institute for Literature in Leipzig
2nd April – 28th June 2015 in the GRASSI Museum of Applied Arts, Leipzig

Website

The formation and the development of the GRASSI MAK is closely tied to the history of the academy and its earlier emphasis on the applied arts. Within the scope of the exhibition “2.5.0. – Object is Meditation and Poetry…” the newly structured permanent collection from 2007 to 2012 will become the site of a reunification of the applied and fine arts, questioning at same time the existing division between the two. Curatorial interventions, additions and eliminations as well as pointedly placed works from alumni, professors, students and international partners of the HGB, will transform our accustomed perceptions. The focus of these works and interventions is on the exhibited cult and everyday objects, fashion and design trends and their epistemic function within the fragmented narrative of the museum.

The project was launched already on the 6th of March with a “literary” exhibition. Texts by the students of the German Institute for Literature (DLL) accompanying the contemporary artworks, were placed in the future locations oft he art works making the exhibition “readable”. Until the date of the opening, the texts were gradually replaced by the artworks.

The temporary and process-orientated exhibition project thus enables a new legibility of the collection, which especially examines and discusses three clusters of current themes:

1) The function of the museum as a place of collecting and safekeeping in a time of excessive production and environmentally conscious approaches towards that which has been eliminated – objects that were not chosen to be included in the museum and as such must be disposed of – as well as the question of energy, which must be spent on the production, preparation or disposal of objects.

2) The artistic reflection on gender-specific issues represents another level of debate. It connects with an aspect of the museum’s collection that shows many everyday objects, which create associations beyond the cultic and representative and into the intimate – located since a long time primarily in the feminine realm.

3) Transfer processes, such as movement and the migration of people, goods and conventions over the past centuries, that led to our current understanding of Central European cultural identity.

The exhibition marking the anniversary of the HGB Leipzig has been particularly supported by the Saxony Arts Council.