Kunst Meran: the individual in community

Kunst Meran Merano Arte places the theme of community at the centre of its programme – at a time in history when it is being challenged from many different sides. War and violent conflicts face us with the most horrific and destructive aspects of living together. The pandemic brings great challenges to social life, constantly forcing us to rethink and reinvent forms of
community. Opening 24^th June at 19. Visit the exhibition from the day after to 25^th September.

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Isabell Kamp a Merano Arte con Discussions

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Why visit the TOGETHER at Kunst Meran?

The exhibition poses such questions as: What meaning does community have in contemporary society and what types of community exist? What possibilities open up and what risks do we run when the power of the individual joins forces with that of the many to form a community? The collective show entitled TOGETHER. Interact – Interplay – Interfere aims to investigate the various forms of community via the works of: Adrian Piper, Anna Maria Maiolino, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Bart Heynen. Brave New Alps and MAGARI, Christian Niccoli, Daniel Spoerri, Francis Alÿs, Franz Erhard Walther,
Hannes Egger, Isabell Kamp, Jivan Frenster, Karin Schmuck, Marina Abramović and Ulay. Melanie Bonajo, Norma Jeane, Officinadïdue, Rirkrit Tiravanija, SPIT!, Tania Bruguera and Yoko Ono. It will on the one hand include a series of works that show how we can grow beyond ourselves in a group to achieve meaningful goals while. On the other, questioning the tendency of groups to repress differences, individuality and diversity.

Works and artists at Kunt Meran

The video When Faith Moves Mountains (2012) by Francis Alÿs (Antwerp, 1959), for example, proves that together we can literally move mountains. A total of 500 volunteers made the impossible possible, moving a dune of almost 200 metres in
width by just 10 centimetres. Artist himself called this gesture “futile and heroic, absurd and necessary”. Constrictive, discriminatory aspect that society can take on with regard to individuals or communities is We the enemy by the collective known as SPIT!. The Greek artist Despina Zacharopoulos lists of insults aimed at LGBTQIA+ people, retracing a history of persecution and rights denied while redefining the role of “enemy” as a strategy of linguistic violence.
Ambivalent face that collectivity can assume instead emerges in the large wall drawing Different Forms of Togetherness (2022) by Hannes Egger (Bolzano, 1981). She confronts us with the different facets that the concept of “union” can
take on, and how it brings with it both commonality and potential conflict.

Society and people

The same stylised and essential design also returns in another of the artist’s works, which transforms a visit to the exhibition into a shared experience. A specially designed ticket, available from the shop, allows visitors to return free of charge
together with someone who as yet does not know Kunst Meran Merano Arte. TOGETHER looks at the concept of community from different perspectives and presents an extensive programme with various collective actions. In the exhibition
the public is repeatedly invited to leave its “comfort zone” and take an active role so as to participate in new and unusual experiences. Indeed, the pivot of the exhibition lies in the exchange, in the game that always requires a counterpart. In
the critical confrontation with important topics of our time such as migration (Bruguera) or global warming (OfficinaDïDue / Brave New Alps and MAGARI).

Sections of exhibition at Kunst Meran

INTERACT brings together collective actions and participatory projects to be realised on site. This is the case of Orto volante, a collective vegetable garden created on the terrace of the “Kunsthaus” by Brave New Alps from Rovereto and MAGARI from Meran. Together with other local organisations and all those interested in joining in. The garden is conceived as a space for cultivating ideas, friendships and plants, a space where visitors from different generations can come into contact and create a new reality together. They are invited to engage in a critical discourse about nature, the way we treat the environment and the future of our planet. Conceived during the spring as a participatory project, during the exhibition period it will host workshops and get togethers before migrating in autumn to the homes of the various associations.

Wish Tree (1961-2021) by Yoko Ono (Tokyo, 1933)

The work is also a work that develops and has the sense of existing from a direct relationship with the participating
public. The artist in fact invites visitors to leave a trace of their own wishes by taking a pencil and writing them on cards that will then be hung on an olive tree. This is a project that the artist has been realising for decades, one in which more than one million people have participated. All the wishes are then returned to the artist and collected in the IMAGINE PEACE TOWER, an installation in Reykjavík dedicated to the memory of John Lennon.

INTERPLAY

It concerns works in which visitors can interact with one another in a playful manner. Untitled (Tomorrow is the question), by Rirkrit Tiravanija (Buenos Aires, 1961), invites to challenge each other in a ping pong competition. Thus become an active part of the artistic project while questioning the future that awaits us in political, ecological and social terms. The artist questions the boundaries between artistic and non-artistic practices, shifting the focus from the object in the traditional sense to the mechanisms of confrontation. With #OneLove (2022), Norma Jeane (an artist with no body, no gender and no biography) instead proposes a version of a work exhibited at 2011 Biennale. A room is initially seen, empty except for a large cube of coloured plasticine. Public be able to take possession of the work, using it to write or draw on the walls and the floor, thus producing a continuous transformation.

INTERFERE

The sections efers to art that appeals to political and social commitment, to visitors’ empathy and sense of responsibility.
Exhibited here are artists who have questioned and denounced systems of power, sometimes at the expense of their own personal freedoms. This is for example the case of the activist Tanja Bruguera (Havana, 1968), who has been imprisoned on several occasions. The artist’s work reminds us that “the poor treatment of migrants today will be our shame tomorrow”.
Funk Lessons (1983) by Adrian Piper (New York, 1946) relates how the artist lectured to university students on the history and political significance of funk music in African-American culture. Officinadïdue (Vera Bonaventura and Roberto Mainardi) offers the public seeds rom the poplar tree, a plant capable of absorbing huge amounts of CO2. Taking a stand on the environmental crisis and human-made global warming. Inviting people to collect the seeds and spread them around the world is a metaphor for the fact that each of us can take an active role and play our part. The title of the work, Zoocoria (Seedbombs) (2022) (like so-called “guerrilla gardening”) uses a term from warfare (i.e. bombs). It encourage us to perform an entirely peaceful act – combating global warming.

Giuseppe Desiato performance at Kunst Meran

Finally, a project that has played a very important role in the cultural and artistic scene of the area will be revived during the exhibition. A reenactment of the action by Daniel Spoerri (Galati, 1930) at Castel Fontana in Tyrol in 1985 at the invitation
of the collector Francesco Conz. This occasion saw the presentation of a collection made in collaboration with Fritz Schwegler, namely Zehn Suppenrezepte (Ten Soup Recipes; 1984). Soups were cooked all night long, accompanied by songs sung by the performer Giuseppe Desiato. As well as recreating this event and inviting visitors to take part, there will be a photo-documentation by Fabrizio Garghetti and oral testimonies from people who took part in the original initiative.