Animism, view of the exhibition, © Arwed Messmer
Marcel Broodthaers, Caricatures – Grandville, 1968, Colour slide, © Courtesy Estate Marcel Broodthaers, Brüssel I Brussels
Animism, view of the exhibition, © Arwed Messmer
Len Lye, Tusalava, 1929, Filmstill, © Courtesy New Zealand Film Archive Nga Kaitiaki O Nga Taonga Whitiahua and Len Lye Foundation / Govett-Brewster Art Gallery, Wellington

Mar 16–May 6, 2012

Animism

Exhibition, conference

Mar 16–May 6, 2012

Animism is a multi-faceted exhibition project that addresses the reevaluation of modernity currently taking place along the lines of Bruno Latour’s We Have Never Been Modern. The exhibition’s starting point is the artistic-aesthetic process of animation, best known from cartoons and animation films, and examines its relationship with the categorial definitions and limits of the modern world-view.

How do we distinguish things from beings? The exhibition Animism examines the delineation between life and non-life on the basis of aesthetic symptoms.

The scientific positivism of modernity was based on the categorical separation of nature and culture, of the subjective and objective world. Animism stood for the counter-image of this self-concept. It is at this juncture that the exhibition intervenes. With works by some 30 international artists, curator Anselm Franke transforms the Haus der Kulturen der Welt into a self-reflexive “anthropological museum of modernity”.

With works by:
Adam Avikainen, Artefakte//anti-humboldt, Angela Melitopoulos und Maurizio Lazzarato, Tom Holert, Martin Zillinger und Anja Dreschke, Dierk Schmidt, Jimmie Durham, Daria Martin, Paulo Tavares, Agentur, Len Lye, Walt Disney, Ken Jacobs, Marcel Broodthaers, Didier Demorcy, Vincent Monnikendam, Candida Höfer, Yayoi Kusama, Victor Grippo, León Ferrari, J.J. Grandville, Rosemarie Trockel, Erik Steinbrecher, Daniel Spoerri, Istvan Orosz, Lars Laumann, David Maljkovic, Anna und Bernhard Blume, Roee Rosen, Hans Richter, Jean Painlevé, Walon Green a.o.