Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis – Print

*This catalogue is currently only available in English.

English:

The exhibition Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis looks at the ways in which knowledge is used in a political game where manipulation and obfuscation is the norm rather than the exception. It poses fundamental questions on what it means to know and not know, while being acutely aware of the fragmentation and relativisation of knowledge in a multipolar world. The exhibition is curated by Mi You and David Garcia.

At a time when populists and demagogues routinely denounce experts and expertise, a movement of interdisciplinary artists has emerged whose work unapologetically foregrounds knowledge, factual analysis and evidence. Spanning different generations – from emerging artists to others who have been active for decades – they have crystallised into a research-driven movement that one of the exhibition’s participating artists, Paolo Cirio, has dubbed ‘Evidential Realism’.

Really? Art and Knowledge in Time of Crisis includes but goes beyond works based on forensic methods, and historical studies – practices in which artists as civil actors participate in creating new ways of knowing. Central to Really? is the realisation that we are in the midst of a crisis in knowledge and a crisis in politics, which are one and the same thing. The exhibition aims to expand a space of practical reasoning, recognising that knowledge is not a zero-sum game. As much as we can and should validate facts in the public domain, we also need to learn to navigate when we are not knowing.

This catalogue features an introductory essay by the curators, and a special text by exhibition designer, Ruben Pater.