The door opens inwards (2)

Some weeks ago, Galerie Tanja Wagner curated the first exhibition explicitly linked to the metamodern. It would be an understatement to say that the exhibition was a success in terms of either popular appreciation or critical acclaim. Art glossy Monopol instantly put Wagner on the front page. Art-Magazin called her the ‘absolute Newcomerin’. Der Tagesspiegel spoke of Wagner as the future of the Berlin art scene. And Die Zeit put lavish praise on the five young artists.

Notes on metamodernism decided to have a look for themselves. Timotheus Vermeulen reports.

Vectors of the Possible

Waiting for the Demonstration at the Wrong Time

Lagomarsino & Tirén (2003/2007)

Last week the group exhibition Vectors of the Possible opened at BAK in Utrecht, the Netherlands. As the press release looked promising (very promising, indeed), and the exhibit was curated by Simon Sheikh, some of our writers decided to attend the opening. 

"The exhibition examines the notion of the horizon in art and politics and explores the ways in which art works can be said to set up certain horizons of possibility and impossibility, how art partakes in specific imaginaries, and how it can produce new ones, thus suggesting other ways of imagining the world. Counter to the post-1989 sense of resignation, curator Simon Sheikh suggests that in the field of art, it is the horizon - as an "empty signifier", an ideal to strive towards, and a vector of possibility - that unites...and gives...direction. The art works in this exhibition can be seen as vectors, reckoning possibility and impossibility in (un)equal measures, but always detecting and indicating ways of seeing, and of being, in the world. The exhibition thus suggests an ontology of the horizon..."

Although most of us could relate to the intentions of many of the works on display, we could not avoid feeling slightly disappointed by the lack of expressiveness of the exhibition as a whole. An intention to transgress boundaries was still too often expressed by means of mere deconstruction, so that instead of a moving apparition of the future, the horizon more often than not became a haunting specter of the past. This is not to say that Vectors of the Possible is not worth the visit - it most definitely is. 
For us, two pieces are particularly worthwhile. The billboard art of FREEE and Matthew Buckingham's depiction of Mount Rushmore, 50.000 years from now. We will extensively review Vectors of the Possible and these pieces at a later date, but for now we are keen to hear your thoughts.