Do you have expectations?
27th April – 17th May 2008
Opening: Friday, 25th April 2008, 6 pm
Finissage: Saturday, 17th May 2008, 2 pm – 6 pm
Opening hours: Thursday – Saturday, 2 pm – 6 pm
Wartesaal
exhibition room in Perla-Mode
Langstrasse 84 / Brauerstrasse 37
8004 Zürich, Switzerland
Patricia Bucher (CH), Florencia Colombo (AR), Benedikt Hipp (D), Alicja Kwade (D), Asli Sungu (TR), Sebastian Wickeroth (D)
The international group exhibition Do you have expectations? displays artistic positions, who deal in their works with the question of expectations as a phenomenon. In the scope of the position, expectations are discussed as a tangible communicative pattern, which people as well as institutions orientate on. From a psychological point of view, expectations emerge from experiences. They are the consequence of knowledge processing through cognitive and emotional processes in order to make developments and changes of a personal habitat predictable to individuals. Expectations arise, change, come true or can be disappointed. They happen on a chronological axis. According to the system theorist Niklas Luhmann, expectations are an important element that helps us to orientate ourselves. Yet they are based on uncertainty, as they refer to an absolutely unpredictable and undeterminable external reality. This opposes to the conception that expectations are built upon stable identities, such as objects, individuals, occurrences, values, terms and norms. Such a point of reference is also a kind of art. Along the lines of this, we could ask: What do artists expect from art and from their topics? What does the audience expect from art? In an artistic context, do expectations serve to build up a stable identity? To what extent do expectations serve as orientation in art?
Based on the presence of expectations in different spaces of communication, Do you have expectations? aims at exploring this phenomenon on a creative level. The participating artists approach to this question that is asked in the title, in different ways: Patricia Bucher's multipart collage containing text and images called Mein Präsident, ein Visionär! (2008) questions the visionary as an element of expectations in politics. In her photographic series Face of our time (2007/2008) Florencia Colombo deals with the symbols of the history of photography. Her work focuses on people within their social context. Through the acquisition and the digital manipulation of the images, an empty space evolves, that reflects expectations of expectations. In her video work Ganz die Mutter / Ganz der Vater (2006) Asli Sungu deals with the phenomenon of expectations, particularly in social activities in the family environment. For the purpose of the theory of roles, according to which individuals (in this case the artist herself) is being determined exclusively by external expectations regarding the official role model. Benedikt Hipp visualizes in his Indian ink drawings the theme as a premonition or a prophecy and thus captures moments of the unpredictable. The video works Junge Sterne Rauchen and No Light Left – die Erschießung der 1.2.3. Dimension (2007) by Alicja Kwade describe the process of the non-fulfilment of expectations on a metaphorical level. Sebastian Wickeroth’s space-oriented installation, which he has created for the purpose of this exhibition, suggests an occurred event with narrative means, which eventually confuses the audience’s expectations. Finally only one question remains unanswered: “Do you have expectations?”
Artists:
Patricia Bucher (CH) *1976, lives and works in Berlin
Florencia Colombo (AR) *1977, lives and works in Frankfurt a.M.
Benedikt Hipp (D) *1977, lives and works in Munich
Alicja Kwade (D) *1979, lives and works in Berlin
Asli Sungu (TR) *1975, lives and works in Berlin
Sebastian Wickeroth (D) *1977, lives and works in Düsseldorf
Curator:
Cynthia Krell (ROU/D), *1978, lives and works in Zürich