Curator | Ursula Zeller

【INTRODUCTION】

 Europe is growing together and the world’s regions are getting closer to each other, borders are becoming permeable to traffic and exchange. The old concept of national cultures is becoming increasingly obsolete as a distinguishing criterion now that values and special characteristics are coming to resemble each other more. Cultures are interlinking and penetrating each other as they work towards a ”world culture”. As yet this cannot be grasped precisely. But today’s fine art can give us an idea of how it might sometimes look. The fact is that contemporary art has been at the forefront of this process from the outset. Its international quality is clearly demonstrated in art events that are increasingly prepared for a world-wide public and losing more and more of their national imprint in the process. Global unity has long been a reality on an art scene without borders.

 Artists are spiritual nomads on our globe, they are the pioneers of the global players, mobile wanderers between cultures in a post-modern present that has lost its borders in time and space. In the fifties, many German artists moved to the artistic metropolis that was Paris, or to New York from the sixties, then in the nineties artists of other nationalities increasingly focused their lives and work on Germany. Their integration can be seen in the fact that they have given new impulses, which are today perceived as an integral part of the art scene in Germany. Many of them took on teaching posts in German academies and colleges of art, and their internationally acclaimed impact made these institutions attractive places for not only German young people but also those from abroad.

 The exhibition is organized by ifa, it throws another light on Germany as a ”space of art”, whose development has been promoted to a large extent by open, Federal German culture policies. In Taiwan, the exhibition is presented by the Kuandu Museum of Fine Arts and the Goethe-Institut Taipei. It transcends the genre boundaries of fine art, groups of works by the artists Armando, Candice Breitz, Tony Cragg, Marianne Eigenheer, Ayşe Erkmen, Christine Hill, Magdalena Jetelová, Per Kirkeby, Joseph Kosuth, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Spagnulo and herman de vries represent artistic diversity within transcultural unity. The exhibition is extended by works of Wang Jun-Jieh and Yuan Goang-Ming. It explores above all their significance and influence on themes, media and expressive forms within current discourse.

Artists | Armando, Candice Breitz, Tony Cragg, Marianne Eigenheer, Ayşe Erkmen, Christine Hill, Magdalena Jetelová, Per Kirkeby, Joseph Kosuth, Marie-Jo Lafontaine,  Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Spagnulo, herman de vries, Wang Jun-Jieh, Yuan Goang-Ming