[artinfo] Deutsches Hygiene-Museum presents THE TEN COMMANDMENTS

[e-Flux]

THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
An Art Exhibition of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Curator: Klaus Biesenbach
June 19 Through December 5, 2004

Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden
Lingnerplatz 1, 01069 Dresden (Germany)
http://www.dhmd.de

The exhibition was supported by Kulturstiftung Dresden der Dresdner Bank.

This art exhibition, developed by Klaus 
Biesenbach (Kunst-Werke Berlin, PS1/MoMA New 
York), shows contemporary art's ways of seeing 
the world of today, and in so doing importantly 
questions the Ten Commandments from a current 
perspective: Is the millennia-old system of rules 
of the Ten Commandments still binding in a world 
marked by globalization? Gathered on an area of 
1,500 m2 are around 100 works by 69 international 
artists.

Curator Klaus Biesenbach: "The Ten Commandments 
and their possible meanings in the world of today 
stood at the start of the planning of the 
exhibition. We have also kept the number ten as 
an ordering principle for the exhibition. The 
works shown were not created in direct engagement 
with the individual Commandments, nor do they 
illustrate them, but were rather chosen so as to 
show ways of seeing social and ethical fields of 
tension in the world of today."

Many of the works of art on display develop an 
individual picture of, as well as surprising ways 
of observing, the highly current political and 
ethical background that lies in the medial, 
political, and economic networking creating new 
questions for the individual and for society. The 
globalized world is marked by extreme economic 
inequality, and it is growing only the more clear 
that the lifestyle of the privileged cannot be 
implemented as a standard for everyone. Just as 
the biblical Ten Commandments speak explicitly to 
the individual, the works of art direct their 
questions at the individual and his or her own 
ethical convictions.

What conditions of life determine the individual 
today, and what systems of values offer a morally 
binding orientation? Is there a new significance 
in store for religiosity? Religious motifs are 
not only reappearing within societies 
characterized as Western; opposing the pressure 
of modern, rationalized forms of business and 
living worldwide is an - at least religiously 
motivated - fundamentalism that calls into 
question the thesis of a thoroughgoing 
secularization. Religiousness today seems caught 
between spirituality and fundamentalism on the 
one hand and consumer hedonism and 
instrumentalization on the other.


PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Adel Abdessemed, Laylah Ali, Francis Alys, Yael 
Bartana, Marc Bijl, Maurizio Catellan, Janet 
Cardiff, Minerva Cuevas, Henry Darger, Jirí David 
, Thomas Demand, Elmgreen & Dragset, Cerith Wyn 
Evans, Harun Farocki, Sylvie Fleury, Parastou 
Forouhar, Kendell Geers, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, 
Shilpa Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Mathilde ter 
Heijne, Carsten Holler, Martin Honert, Jonathan 
Horowitz, Mustafa Hulusi, Emily Jacir, Christian 
Jankowski, Yeondoo Jung, Kimsooja, Sigalit 
Landau, Armin Linke, Mark Lombardi, Jan Maneuska, 
Teresa Margolles, Tony Matelli, Adam McEwen, 
Aernout Mik, Boris Mikhailov, James Morrison, 
Gianni Motti, Olaf Nicolai, Tim Noble & Sue 
Webster, Orlan, Tony Oursler, OVNI-Observatori de 
Video No Identificat, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paul 
Pfeiffer, Daniel Pflumm, Daniela Rossell, Thomas 
Ruff, Anri Sala, Nebojsa Seric - Shoba, Efrat 
Shvily, Santiago Sierra, Shazia Sikander, Taryn 
Simon, Dayanita Singh, Aleksandr Sokurov, Erik 
Steinbrecher, Stih & Schnock, Ricky Swallow, 
Fatimah Tuggar, Usine de Boutons, Anne Wallace, 
Marijke van Warmerdam, Jasmila Zbanich, Andrea 
Zittel.