Wunder

WUNDER – is the book accompanying the exhibition on the limits of Western rationality. Circling around works of contemporary art, exhibition and book address what falls outside the frame in our world: from the inexplicable cure, the incredible natural spectacle and the wondrously alien through the unexpected technical innovation and the artistic idea to sheer chance. The exhibits from all areas of society trace how Christian religion and ancient natural philosophy have shaped our conception of the miracle. In the process it becomes clear that in the West the miracle embodies an opening in the world – an opening out of which art, science and technology have emerged in interplay with religious questions. Exhibition and book set this unique combination of religious, scientific and artistic motifs against the perspectives of other cultures – the Islamic, for example; this lends additional urgency to the discussion of the Western world view and of its capacity to create meaning, a capacity called into question again and again from within as well as from without. Works by, among others, Francis Alÿs, Joseph Beuys, Dara Birnbaum, Cosima von Bonin, Ceal Floyer, Andreas Gursky, Jonathan Horowitz, Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, Julia Kissina, Dieter Krieg, Kris Martin, Henri Michaux, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Sieverding, Roman Signer, Thomas Struth, Larry Sultan & Mike Mandel, Fiona Tan, Javier Téllez, James Turrell, Franz West, and Erwin Wurm, as well as a large number of scientific and cultural-historical exhibits such as the V2 “wonder weapon,” the Hamburg patent for the sparkler, historical wonder glasses, votive pictures, a healing-magnetic Benedict cross and beatification files, a magnificent medieval Koran, deep-sea fish, lottery balls, broadsheets from the sixteenth century, a perpetuum mobile as well as magic wands, magic lamps, miracle pills, witches‘ cauldrons and Goethe’s magic box.

Exhibitions:
Deichtorhallen Hamburg, 23/9/2011 – 5/2/2012
Kunsthalle Krems, 4/3 – 1/7/2012