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until 30.07. | #3397ARTatBerlin | Galerie Brockstedt presents from 28. April 2022 the group exhibition Die Kunst des Vergessens – die Kunst des Erinnerns (> The art of forgetting – the art of remembering) by the artists Hoa Dung Clerget, Lucas Gabellini-Fava, Mohamed Lekleti and Fatiha Zemmouri.
“Every man carries a world within himself, composed of all that he has ever seen and loved, and to which he always returns, even when he thinks he is roaming and inhabiting a foreign world.” What the French writer, politician and diplomat François-René de Chateaubriand (1768 – 1848) formulated here on the basis of his intensive experiences abroad is as relevant today as it once was.
In today’s multi-ethnic society, this question of homeland security and cultural identity has even taken on a central role and is additionally of the highest political topicality due to the new critical approach to the subject of colonialism and also due to the threat from autocratic forms of government.
Hoa Dung Clerget, Broom-Lady (Red 1), 2021, 240 x 150 x15 cm,
Straw from Vietnamese brooms, acrylic, jute
Galerie Brockstedt presents the exhibition “Die Kunst des Vergessens – die Kunst des Erinnerns”, curated by Philippe Hostaléry, in which four international artists conceptually rework the theme of the colonial era with their works, some of which were created especially for this show. Significant reminiscences in a wide variety of materials from their home countries tell their very personal stories in highly symbolic pictorial metaphors and invite us to enter into a fruitful dialogue with them via these expressive objects.
Fatiha Zemmouri, Fragility, 2022, 30 x 30 cm, textile collage on paper
Our need to record essentials for ourselves and for others is as old as humanity: even in ancient Egypt, scribes had the social rank directly below the Pharaoh because, in contrast to the majority of the population, they mastered the art of the newly born script and thus recorded things worth handing down from the fields of administration, poetry, literature, mathematics and medicine on papyrus and clay or stone shards – the essential cornerstones of every culture. In this way, essential and basic human experiences were saved from oblivion: these general cultural roots still have meaning and validity for us today, because human beings basically always remain the same with their questions and fears, their happinesses and longings. The essential references of all times to earth and sky, birth and death, closeness and distance, vastness and narrowness still affect us today, and so we can learn a lot from history and also find support and comfort in it.
“Memory is the present” – as the romantic writer Novalis (1772 – 1801) once postulated, and the latest results of brain research have proven that we remember the most emotionally moving experiences best.
Lucas Gabellini-Fava, Untitled, 2022, variable sizes, photographs processed
For this precise reason, the vital themes of forgetting and remembering are to be addressed in a universal language that appeals to our emotions and our own creativity: The language of art!
“Art plays such an important role in the current process of change in our society. Ancient cultures show us how to preserve values. Truthfulness, boldness and dignity will help us to flourish and endure. And art and the love of it is part of this dignity. It is high time to bring art back into our daily lives. Creating and admiring art is one of the most dignified activities we can make a habit of, because at every moment we put our economic and rational selves in the background and our feelings and ideals come to the fore. Art reminds and reminds us that it is the ineffable that actually matters.”
Achilles Tsaltas, journalist from the New York Time in London
The objects of the four artists, fused from international and traditional visual worlds, also invite us to explore with a curious and non-judgemental gaze and let ourselves be captured by the poetry of their surreally alienated native memories, in which their bright colours, but also their scars, have space. Like them, their works have already become part of the local culture – a new world of cultural diversity in which art can make an important contribution to tolerant and open encounters and stimulating exchange.
Text: Barbara Brockstedt
Opening: Thursday, 28. April 2022, 6:00 – 9:00 pm
Exhibition dates: Thursday, 28. April – Saturday, 25. June 2022 – ATTENTION: extended until Saturday, 30 July 2022
To the gallery
Image caption title: Mohamed Lekleti, Gravé au burin de l’histoire, 2022, 110 x 160 cm, mixed media on paper on wood
Exhibition Die Kunst des Vergessens – die Kunst des Erinnerns – Galerie Brockstedt | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Exhibitions Berlin Galleries | ART at Berlin
