[artinfo] WKV Stuttgart: Post-Peace

[e-artnow]

Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart

Post-Peace

From February 24 to May 7, 2017, the 
Württembergischer Kunstverein will be showing the 
exhibition 'Post-Peace' curated by the 
Amsterdam-based Russian curator Katia 
Krupennikova. The exhibition, which includes 
works from nearly twenty artists from different 
cultural areas, traces the present-day 
manifestations of and relationships between war 
and peace. How much war is embedded within our 
peace? This is the pivotal question.

On the Censoring and Cancellation of the Post-Peace Exhibition in Istanbul

'Post-Peace' was the winning exhibition of the 
Akbank Sanat International Curator Competition 
2015. Jury members were Paul O'Neil (director of 
the graduate program at the Center for Curatorial 
Studies, Bard College, New York), Bassam El 
Baroni (curator and tutor at the Dutch Art 
Institute, Arnheim), and Hans D. Christ and Iris 
Dressler (directors of the Württembergischer 
Kunstverein). The prize was meant to finance the 
exhibition to be hosted at the venue Akbank Sanat 
in the heart of Istanbul. However, it was 
censored and cancelled by the bank four days 
before the opening in March 2016.
Open and subtle censorship in the art world is on 
the rise, even in democratic societies- often 
these acts of censorship are kept secret and pass 
off discretely behind the scenes. However, if a 
case is made public, it often turns out that 
those who had been censored are accused of being 
the aggressors themselves, as they supposedly 
were only interested in producing a scandal. At 
the same time, quite a few protagonists in the 
art world appear to have internalized censorship 
as a sometimes unavoidable means to an end.
The directors of the Württembergischer 
Kunstverein, Hans D. Christ and Iris Dressler, 
together with their colleagues Valentín Roma and 
Paul B. Preciado, also experienced a case of 
censorship, in 2015, at MACBA in the context of 
the exhibition The Beast and the Sovereign. Only 
due to public pressure was the cancellation of 
the exhibition finally undone. MACBA has still 
never publicly addressed this scandal. As in the 
case of The Beast and the Sovereign, the 
exhibition 'Post-Peace' can no longer be 
negotiated without the topic of censorship, which 
now appears to count among the main symptoms of 
'the time after peace.'
The presentation of 'Post-Peace' at the 
Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart aims 
not only to lend strong public visibility to a 
brilliant exhibition on peace and war, but also 
to continue the highly tabooed debate on open and 
subtle forms of censorship that are increasingly 
restricting the liberty of art in the minds of 
many artists and curators.
Artists:
Lawrence Abu Hamdan, A.S.I. group (Ehsan 
Fardjadniya), Sven Augustijnen, Ella de Búrca, 
Anna Dasoviç, K‘ken Ergun, Johan Grimonprez, 
Alevtina Kakhidze, Yazan Khalili, Jaha Koo, 
Lyubov Matyunina, Adrian Melis, Pinar Ög˜renci, 
Dorian de Rijk, belit sag˜, Aleksei Taruts, Anika 
Schwarzlose, Radek Szlaga, Anastasiya Yarovenko
Curator:
Katia Krupennikova (Amsterdam)

Conference:
'How I learned to Start Worrying: Symptoms of Post-Peace'
February 25 - 26, 2017

On the opening weekend of Post-Peace, a two-day 
conference will be hosted for international 
artists and theorists. Titled How I Learned to 
Start Worrying: Symptoms of 'Post-Peace', it will 
first contextualize and reflect on 'Post-Peace' 
as a concept. Moreover, the conference will 
embark on a detailed analysis of the phenomena of 
censorship, self-censorship, precarious working 
conditions, neoliberal structures, and lack of 
transparency in the art world- along with the 
pertinent forms of resistance. In addition to the 
case of the 'Post-Peace' exhibition in Istanbul, 
as well as the special situation in Turkey, other 
examples of censorship will be discussed, along 
with basic censorship mechanisms.

www.wkv-stuttgart.de

<mailto:zentrale at wkv-stuttgart.de>zentrale at wkv-stuttgart.de

Württembergischer Kunstverein
Schlossplatz 2
70173 Stuttgart
Germany