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House of Arts
This year’s exhibition title was taken from Cyndi Lauper’s song of the same name.
In the same way, as this catchy pop song stands for a serious socio-political message, the paintings displayed in this exhibition deal with colour and composition only at first glance. Even though art is always self-sufficient and does not need to convey a political, social, ecological message or deal with issues of society, but can and may be “l´art pour l´art”, it will always be created in the context of the present. Artists are seismographic observers of their time and have the means to translate complex subjects in a visual manner. They challenge us, the observers, to look more closely – not just for the famous 11 seconds that a person allegedly remains in front of a picture – and to discover details and to reflect. They invite us to leave the familiar territory and to change the perspective. Sometimes, they bluntly show us the precarious relationship between perception and reality. Naturally, art cannot change the world. Hence, we cannot expect artists to deliver solutions. What we can expect, though, is for them to offer insights that we gain if we allow ourselves to engage with their artworks. The painting displayed in Hangar-7 is not radical but rather subtle, critical and, sometimes, filled with narrative poetry. At first glance, it moves within the familiar categories of paintings and, thankfully, does not shut itself off to our learned classification systems. Though only to fall out of these abruptly – mostly without any prior warning. Reassuringly, even then, any sort of moral positioning is avoided, meaning that the art will throw us back to our own judgement even more. At this interface between perception and irritation, the decisive question arises among the philosophical loops of thought that force themselves on us: May art be thought-provoking?
The exhibition is on show from July 27, 2023 until September 12, 2023 at Hangar-7.