indifference

INDIFFERENCE (is bliss)

”Just because I don‘t care, doesn‘t mean I don‘t understand.” Homer Simpson

The English word Indifference and its German translation Gleichgültikeit can obviously be read in different ways. The common meaning of indifference is the of apathy, being not involved or a lack of interest. The German version Gleichgültigkeit however stresses the equality of validation, being on the same level, being equal.

The collective exhibition Indifference (is bliss) that will open on the 30th of October 2008 in the labyrinth like premises of an old doctor’s practice in the council estate building ‘Forum Kreuzberg’ on Skalitzer Strasse133 in Berlin will present artistic positions that follow these aspects on indifference.
The show will expose works by German and international artists. Some of them follow fully their own leads intheir professional approach beyond common practices of the art market and its institutions.
Part of the exhibition will be e.g. the Australian artist Adam Nankervis who has run his own museum for several years already.

MuseumMAN manifests itself wherever the artist stays and it then becomes home, meeting point and exhibitionspace for local and visiting artists. Through that Nankervis has build a self-reliant structure that makes him independent from state supported fellow institutions. Other examples of the shown works will more or less directly reflect upon the theme indifference in the their content. The Dutch artist Sebastiaan Schlicher e.g. establishes in most of his big formatted humoristic post-punk phantasms on paper one protagonist that so to speak drowns in a multitude of forms, colours, materials and text tags. The viewer then is confronted with a plethora of propositions and an excess of statements and it behoves oneself to decipher them or not.

The initiators of the exhibition, the Berlin based artists Johannes Buss and Eduardo Raccah, look at the phenomenon Indifference as an oppositional power. As an attitude that in itself denies to take position, it always also automatically becomes a statement. Indifference fills in the space, in which one willingly does not take a posture or not a definite one. The participating artists will regard the theme from different viewpoints, may it be Indifference towards social, economic, political or artistic conditions.