Calendar

Participating artists:
Sarah Browne, Ruth Buchanan, Andrea Büttner, Cevdet Erek, Emma Haugh, Christin Kaiser, Robin Kirchner, Stephanie Kiwitt, Luise Marchand, Florian Meisenberg, Julien Prévieux, Barbara Proschak, Grazyna Roguski, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Maja Zimmermann

Venue:
neue Gesellschaft
für bildende Kunst
Oranienstraße 25
10999 Berlin


Opening of the exhibition with the performative intervention »pants« by Grazyna Roguski

The central theme of the exhibition is touch in different contexts of meaning - as sensory perception, as an expression of empathy, as a physical encroachment, as a healing process or as a gesture in computer technology. Shown are contemporary artistic positions that point out contemporary contradictions in society in the concept of touch.

The haptic, supposedly close-to-the-skin communication via sensory touch surfaces makes touching an important part of our everyday communication. While superficiality creates a desire for sensual stimulation that seeks its gratification back into virtual forms of touch, the basic human need to be touched is served by a diversifying range of physical and healing practices that include touch. Against the background of this social development, the artists of the exhibition explore new forms of access to the body.

Negotiating proximity and distance in touch reveals cultural and social ideas and value systems. Although the sense of touch precedes seeing, in the Western world the potential for gaining insight through the haptic is little reflected in the past compared to visual perception. From a queer-feminist perspective, for example, the question arises as to whether the dominance of the visual could be a consequence or condition of the centuries-old patriarchal and colonial power structure of our society.

nGbK project group: Bakri Bakhit, Nadja Quante, Thomas Rustemeyer, Anna Voswinckel, Maja Zimmermann