NATION, NARRATION, NARCOSIS
Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories
28.11.2021 to 03.07.2022
Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin
Nation, Narration, Narcosis: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories at Hamburger Bahnhof addresses art’s relationship to political protest, historical trauma and social narratives from the 19th century to the present. At a time when icebergs are melting faster than societies are reacting to this new reality, and the end of the world is more conceivable than the end of capitalism, the exhibition considers the climate and environment not only from an ecological standpoint but also from a social one.
In this context, Nation, Narration, Narcosis: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories poses questions about the often brutal processes of nation-building, the role assigned to art in that process, and which hegemonic as well as alternative forms of community and accompanying narratives are conceivable and reflected in artworks. Based on Beuys’s concept of social sculpture, the exhibition reflects on the significance of “nation” contained in the name “National Gallery”, along with other concepts of connectedness, solidarity and individuality.
An International Collaborative Project with Works by over Fifty Artists
Works by more than fifty artists are on display, including Amanda Heng, Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Arahmaiani, Ho Tzu Nyen, Käthe Kollwitz, Kawita Vatanajyankur, Marina Abramovic, Melati Suryodarmo, Tita Salina, Willem de Rooij and many others. An ongoing international collaborative project, the exhibition brings together for the first time artworks from the collections of the National Gallery of Indonesia, MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, Singapore Art Museum and the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.
Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories is a research dialogue initiated by the Goethe-Institut in 2017 and funded by it to date, between the participating curators and their selected collections at the National Gallery of Indonesia, the MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum, the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Singapore Art Museum. In the spirit of the shared collection, the exchange between the participating curators and institutions will continue in the future. The exhibition at Hamburger Bahnhof is accompanied by the Cluster of Excellence 2020 Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective.
The exhibitions at the participating institutions are curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap.
A special exhibition of the Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin in dialogue with the collections of National Gallery of Indonesia (Jakarta, Indonesia), MAIIAM Contemporary Art Museum (Chiang Mai, Thailand), Singapore Art Museum (Singapore), initiated by the Goethe-Institut Südostasien, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes (German Federal Cultural Foundation) and the Goethe-Institut
NARRATION AND EMBODIMENT – A VIDEO LECTURE SERIES
Kawita Vatanajyankur
Narration and Embodiment – A Video Lecture Series brings together twelve short presentations by internationally active artists, scholars, and curators. Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Anne Duk Hee Jordan, David Teh, Eisa Jocson, Işıl Eğrikavuk, Kawita Vatanajyankur, Lins Derry, Mi You, Natasha Ginwala, Natasha Tontey, Sin Wai Kin and Ute Meta Bauer investigate materials, research questions, and provocations that pertain to both historic and contemporary narratives, examining the potential for collection, transmission, and worlding. The videos contribute to the project's broader inquiry into how embodied creative practices, such as performance, can unfold alternative narratives, practices of embodying histories and the transfer of embodied knowledge.
Narration and Embodiment – A Video Lecture Series is part of the research transfer project Circulating Narratives – Entangling Communities: Case Studies in Global Performance Art, which explores how diverse histories inform performative practices and shape communities as embodied knowledge. In collaboration with Hamburger Bahnhof – Museum für Gegenwart – Berlin, the project accompanies the museum's exhibition Nation, Narration, Narcosis: Collecting Entanglements and Embodied Histories, curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers with Grace Samboh, Gridthiya Gaweewong and June Yap, funded by the Kulturstiftung des Bundes and initiated by the Goethe-Institut, which opened in November 2021 in Berlin. The project primarily focuses on the intersections between Southeast Asian and so-called 'Western' performative practices, while addressing the blind spots in traditional historiography in 'the West', as well as the consequences of colonialism and relationships capable of advancing the deconstruction of the 'Western' canon. Conceiving the global cultural institutions of the future involves addressing the questions of how traces of history – embodied both in actual bodies and in artifacts in museum collections and archives – can be made visible, and how forms of memory can be both preserved and treated respectfully.
Programme: Anna-Catharina Gebbers, Siobhan Leddy, Annette Jael Lehmann, Lieselotte Schinzing
Organisation: Siobhan Leddy & Lieselotte Schinzing
EXC 2020 Temporal Communities, Freie Universität, Berlin
Research Area 2: Travelling Matters
Project: Circulating Narratives – Entangling Communities: Case Studies in Global Performance Art
Project Lead: Prof. Dr. Annette-Jael Lehmann