Horst Münch: Unser Krieg

The nervous laugh

It's a nervous laugh that can come over you when you open the newspaper and take in the major geopolitical discussions. What is the flavour, what is the crisis? Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, Somalia ... We fear again and again and more and more that the sky is falling on our heads. So the world of the new peace orders swings blithely from one side to the next; Horst Münch is always in the thick of it with a "skewed view". Even the small screens, but of course even more so the large ones, obscure our view of every problem on and with the map. Where they could explain something, but ... should they? Isn't this Berlin? No, it must be China! I clearly recognise Russia, but why does Europe start up there? The conversations in front of the pictures are the same. Everything starts and ends where it is connected to. The demarcation of the USA at its own borders looks as much like a drawing board as the borders of Iraq; is that the much-vaunted proximity? This is how the world has always been depicted in the history of art, whether on the maps of the Mercator brothers or in abstract paintings. Here, too, there are battles between coasts that could be animals and surfaces that are dull or glaring like nothingness or the collapse of the echo sounder. And Horst Münch? Is he responsible for this? If he could explain something to us, it would be in his text! And there he says: "Nature is wasteful without measure, indifferent without measure, without intentions and consideration, without mercy and justice, fertile and barren and uncertain at the same time; it is indifference as power."

Exhibition:
Künstlerhaus Palais Thurn und Taxis Bregenz, 24/11 - 30/12/2007