GOOD! SPACE

„Community presupposes loss,“ this was the headline with which the Esslinger Zeitung introduced its report on the opening of the phenomenal show „Good! Space“. The impressive presentation is an exhibition essay that challenges our sensory experience intensely and playfully at once, focusing from the perspectives of contemporary art on the ways in which communities take shape. Social diversity is realised in exchange; the cohesion of communities is both the cause and the result of supra-individual values and conceptions of identity as well as of concrete norms and rules. Yet inscribed in what unites is always also what demarcates and excludes, which is why the question of what determines the „we“ is charged with explosive force – political force included. Thus the works of the exhibiting artists navigate along architectures of power – the consequences of colonialism are addressed and its devastating repercussions recorded –, they bring the continuum of time and space into play – technology and spirituality intersecting in the process –, they call ideas into question – such as the notion that our life is free, self-determined and full of opportunities for self-realisation –, they demand unrestricted respect for the right of animals to a self-determined life – the human–animal relationship as well as plant communities come into thematic view here –, they bear witness to paradoxical human relationships – as in the case of housing concepts in the context of architectural Brutalism –, and they show us that films provide powerful collective experiences not only in the cinema; the isolated community of a small submarine crew also comes into view. The exhibition essay understands itself as a plea for a coexistence guided by curiosity, respect and appreciation, one that constantly seeks to define needs and to negotiate differences. In 2016 „Good Space“ dealt with the handling of unused spaces and wasteland; in 2019 questions of how to bring these spaces to life and of how communities function are to be examined, for the political mood has changed considerably, and not only as a result of the debate on migration.

Artists:
Martha Atienza, Fatma Bucak, Melanie Gilligan, Mikhail Karikis, Mary Reid Kelley & Patrick Kelley, Frédéric Moser & Philippe Schwinger, Gabriela Oberkofler, Katrin Plavcak, Tabita Rezaire, Julika Rudelius, Lin May Saeed, Rob Voerman, Alberto Zamora Ruiz

Exhibition:
Villa Merkel Galerien der Stadt Esslingen, Merkelpark, Hallen der Königl. Württ. Eisenbahnwerkstätten; 2/6–1/9/2019