Involved - Curated by Philippe Pirotte

In relation to recent turmoil happening in and around a certain vigorous and performing China, the Western world seems to hold to an eerie misconception of the historical condition of geopolitical initiatives today. This situation is not new, but perceived as such by a West that has difficulties abandoning its grammar of superiority. This attitude is of course combined with a fascination and an urgency to participate in the Chinese economical ‘hyper-growth’. The artistic project at hand here, rather than ‘celebrating’ naively the effects of globalization and the encounter between different cultural spheres, cannot deny that it is partly motivated by such a particular mixed set of feelings. We chose to bring a group of artists together under the title Involved. ‘Involved’ can mean as much as being implicated in a crime or concerned in some intricate affairs. As an exhibition Involved addresses content, which is not announced explicitly but becomes something understood by the observer of the work as it is experienced. It is focusing on subject matter underneath that what is rendered public. By careful use of subtexts, the exhibition instils a sense of purpose or focus to an anticipated future. Not necessarily optimistic, this future is covered in an aside, sometimes through recollecting a past, suggested through that what is left out of a conversation. Philippe Pirotte, Shanghai, September 2008