Europa, Die Zukunft der Geschichte

Our Theme

What im­age rep­re­sents Eu­rope? Is it the fall of the Berlin Wall, uni­ver­sal hu­man rights, the Eu­ro­pean Foot­ball Cham­pi­onships and the Eu­ro­vi­sion Song Con­test? Not since An­tiq­uity has a sin­gle im­age stood for Eu­rope. To­day, Eu­rope is a mul­ti­fac­eted mo­saic that, de­spite tec­tonic ten­sions be­neath the sur­face, is no longer at risk of break­ing apart. This is the the­sis un­der­ly­ing the ex­hi­bi­tion, which pre­sents over 100 paint­ings, draw­ings, pho­tographs, videos and in­stal­la­tions by some 60 mod­ern or con­tem­po­rary artists. They en­counter lit­er­ary and po­lit­i­cal state­ments by well-known fig­ures in an ex­plo­ration of Eu­rope as peace pro­ject.

Renationalization versus Internationalism

Cu­ra­tor and art his­to­rian Cathérine Hug and the Vi­en­nese writer Robert Menasse, who is act­ing as ad­vi­sor to the ex­hi­bi­tion, base their pre­sen­ta­tion on a po­lit­i­cal in­sight. At the be­gin­ning of the third mil­len­nium, the con­ti­nent of Eu­rope finds it­self in a para­dox­i­cal sit­u­a­tion. More states than ever have de­mo­c­ra­tic con­sti­tu­tions, yet the symp­toms of cri­sis are ever more ap­par­ent in coun­tries such as France, the United King­dom and Ger­many that were once in the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal avant-garde. Cit­i­zens per­ceive a de­mo­c­ra­tic deficit and are ex­press­ing a de­sire for re­na­tion­al­iza­tion through the choices they make at the bal­lot box. This is the sec­ond para­dox: for in a Eu­rope that is in­ter­linked tech­no­log­i­cally, eco­nom­i­cally and eco­log­i­cally, na­tional ac­tion alone no longer suf­fices to re­solve prob­lems. Eu­ro­peans are bound to­gether by more than just ter­ri­tory: they share a com­plex past and, fol­low­ing the hor­rors of the Sec­ond World War, a re­solve to shape a fu­ture founded on sol­i­dar­ity and peace.

Art in search of a peaceful Europe

The ex­hi­bi­tion tells of utopias and dreams – and of re­al­ity. By trac­ing the his­tory of ideas, it sets out to con­vey how the seem­ingly ab­stract vi­sion of a peace­ful Eu­rope is made man­i­fest. Back in 1826 Hein­rich Heine an­tic­i­pated what every mod­ern-day spe­cial in­ter­est group has re­al­ized: ‘Day by day the ridicu­lous prej­u­dices of races are dis­ap­pear­ing; all harsh pe­cu­liar­i­ties are dis­ap­pear­ing in the uni­ver­sal­ity of Eu­ro­pean civ­i­liza­tion, there are no longer na­tions but par­ties.’ What party, then, is art? Why does a mu­seum line up be­hind a po­lit­i­cal pro­ject; and does that pro­ject then be­come cul­tural?

Liberty, Identity, Universal Sentiments

The ex­hi­bi­tion spans an arc from the 19th to the 21st cen­turies, fo­cus­ing on the pe­riod from the rise of na­tion states to the post-na­tional in­ter­de­pen­dence of the pre­sent day. Switzer­land has con­tributed much to al­liance and un­der­stand­ing be­tween states. The coun­try was ex­em­plary in its ap­proach to mul­ti­cul­tural chal­lenges that Eu­rope still faces to­day, achiev­ing a con­sen­sus among every sec­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. A dozen works from the Kun­sthaus Zürich and other renowned col­lec­tions such as the Cen­tre Pom­pi­dou, Paris and the Neue Na­tion­al­ga­lerie Berlin bear wit­ness to artists whose var­i­ous im­pacts have been brought to­gether here. But this is not about show­cas­ing na­tional iden­ti­ties or us­ing art to il­lus­trate a his­tory book. The rigour and method­ol­ogy of his­to­ri­og­ra­phy are set aside. Rather, our con­cern is with art and Eu­rope: two avant-garde forces that are more top­i­cal to­day than they have ever been. Sev­enty years af­ter the end of the Sec­ond World War, the con­ti­nent’s po­lit­i­cal, eco­nomic and cul­tural co­op­er­a­tion with­out im­pe­ri­al­is­tic as­pi­ra­tions has set an ex­am­ple that oth­ers have im­i­tated.

From London via Brussels to Kiev: More than 100 works

Many artists are dri­ven by an in­ter­gen­er­a­tional, ac­tive ques­tion­ing of na­tion­al­ism and a con­tin­ual quest for peace. In works from Lon­don to Kiev, they pre­sent their in­di­vid­ual re­flec­tions on Eu­rope, free­dom and art. Many of the paint­ings, draw­ings, pho­tographs, films and in­stal­la­tions on dis­play in the large ex­hi­bi­tion gallery of the Kun­sthaus are the prod­uct of years of in­tense re­search. While the pre­sen­ta­tion re­volves around cul­tural con­stants, the ex­i­gen­cies and symp­toms of Eu­rope’s cur­rent predica­ment are not ig­nored. Themes such as the paths of de­mo­c­ra­tic de­vel­op­ment, war and peace, home – wan­der­lust – home­sick­ness and the cul­ture of mem­ory, am­ne­sia and nos­tal­gia are in­ter­laced with Eu­rope’s event­ful his­tory and pre­sent.

Political Art makes a comeback. A paradigm shift

Po­lit­i­cal art is now back in fash­ion. It re­sists the com­mer­cial and he­do­nis­tic ap­pro­pri­a­tion that is prac­tised by more and more in­sti­tu­tions be­cause it op­ti­mizes at­ten­tion eco­nom­ics. It says much about the times in which we live when the Eu­ro­pean Me­dia Award is be­stowed on Er­dem Gündüz, an ac­tivist and dancer who came to fame as the ‘Stand­ing Man’, his silent protest draw­ing global pub­lic at­ten­tion to the de­mo­c­ra­tic deficits in Turkey. Is cul­ture now putting right is­sues that pol­i­tics and eco­nom­ics have failed to ad­dress? By il­lu­mi­nat­ing dif­fer­ent states of mind and modes of ac­cess, the Kun­sthaus Zürich is con­tribut­ing to a dis­course that, through art, re­vives re­flec­tion on a his­tor­i­cally evolved ‘Eu­rope as peace pro­ject’. Dani Gal’s video film ‘As from afar’ was ac­quired by the Zürcher Kun­st­ge­sellschaft spe­cially for the ex­hi­bi­tion. Marc Bauer, Karen Geyer, Thomas Im­bach, Her­linde Koelbl and Valeska Peschke have ex­panded or adapted their works specif­i­cally for their pre­sen­ta­tion at the Kun­sthaus. Marc Bauer’s frag­ile work, known for the use of his­tor­i­cal sym­bols and quo­ta­tions, seems threat­ened by de­cay – just like many an idea or tan­gi­ble as­set. What Ukrain­ian artist Nikita Kadan, win­ner of the Fu­ture Gen­er­a­tion Art Prize at the Venice Bi­en­nale in 2013, has to tell us is every bit as top­i­cal as the con­tri­bu­tions by the Greek Ste­fanos Tsivopou­los and the artist duo Maria Io­rio/Raphaël Cuomo, whose work ad­dresses the plight of refugees on the Ital­ian is­land of Lampe­dusa. In ad­di­tion to those men­tioned, the ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tures the work of dozens of other artists.

Sup­ported by Swiss Re – Part­ner for con­tem­po­rary art and by the Dr. Georg and Josi Guggen­heim Foun­da­tion, the Erna and Curt Bur­gauer Foun­da­tion, Ars Rhe­nia, the foun­da­tion for the tran­sre­gional pro­mo­tion of art and cul­ture, the In­sti­tut français and by UNIQA Fine Art In­sur­ance Switzer­land. The wall colours are spon­sored by Far­row & Ball.

Publications

An app with an au­dio­gu­ide ex­am­ines the so­cio-po­lit­i­cal en­vi­ron­ment that pre­vailed when the works were cre­ated. In ad­di­tion to his­tor­i­cal vi­sual and sound doc­u­ments, it fea­tures ex­tracts from in­ter­views with fig­ures from the worlds of pol­i­tics, cul­ture and eco­nom­ics but also pre­sent-day wit­nesses – sources that shape our im­age of Eu­rope. The cat­a­logue con­tains new ar­ti­cles by Melinda Nadj Abonji (writer), Dag­mar Re­ichert (ge­o­g­ra­pher), Aleida Ass­mann (cul­tural sci­en­tist), Zyg­munt Bau­man (so­ci­ol­o­gist), Horst Bre­dekamp (art his­to­rian), Burcu Do­gra­maci (art his­to­rian), Cathérine Hug (art his­to­rian), Robert Menasse (writer), Ul­rike Guérot (po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist), Alexan­dre Kostka (cul­tural sci­en­tist), Ju­lia Kris­teva (psy­cho­an­a­lyst), Kon­rad Paul Liess­mann (philoso­pher), Thomas Mais­sen (his­to­rian) and Jan Zielonka (po­lit­i­cal sci­en­tist). Their es­says and aca­d­e­mic texts are ac­com­pa­nied by some 60 an­a­lyt­i­cal de­scrip­tions that ex­am­ine the works of mod­ern and con­tem­po­rary artists from a Eu­ro­pean per­spec­tive. Pub­lished in Eng­lish and Ger­man by NZZ Li­bro, this 320-page vol­ume is avail­able from the Kun­sthaus shop and book­sellers.