Can’t simulate freedom

Announcement

»Analogies, metaphors und symbols are the strings which keep one’s mind connected to the world. Even if it, absent-minded, has lost its immediate contact to the world, they guarantee the unity of human experience.«
-- Hannah Arendt, The Life of the Mind

»The meaning of politics is freedom.«
-- Hannah Arendt, The Promise of Politics

In regard to the 100th anniversary of the German Jew and philosopher Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) on October 14th, 2006 a comprehensive five-weeks-long exhibition will be realised in Berlin, the town she fled from in 1933. It is to honour Hannah Arendt’s political thinking and to make visible the topicality and the interaction of her literary, philosophical and political work with contemporary fine arts.

In Hannah Arendt’s political science and in her written work main terms occur, revealing outstanding sense, impact and topicality and explaining interhuman relations as culturally defined. Among these terms are: working, producing, acting, thinking as well as understanding and loving. These connected terms characterise the potentialities and abilities of human beings as conditions of human existence. They seem topical and may help through their values to discuss burning questions of comtemporary crises in society, politics and work more efficiently.

This approach of Hannah Arendt corresponds with contemporary work styles and concepts of fine arts. Although not only operating in metaphorical thoughts, but in fresh and surprising combination of opposite elements, they seek for initiating new ways of looking and seeing.

At this point we want to settle our idea for the concept of the exhibition »Hannah Arendt Denkraum« charging the invited artists (see artists’ list) with the formulation of new location-related works of art and installations in reflection of Hannah Arendt and the topicality of her thinking. We aim for the forming of an topic-oriented exhibition, prolonging the modernity of Hannah Arendt’s thinking into the present age. The artistical contributions are peculiar and original approaches in formulating the imagery and the way of thinking developed in Hannah Arendt’s work. ...

Press release by the curators Dr. Peter Funken and Dr. Wolfgang Heuer (excerpt)

I.
to do something for appearance’s sake
in a time like this one
an excellent idea
that clarifies nothing
everything changes
between the conditions

you think so
a nice model
I know the thing
in the ideal
it’s an irony
thoughts without aim

II.
so that it’s clear
how unnecessary
responsibility
this is the key
you must act
even in hell

the world out there
a gigantic circus
manifestation of images
the show must go on
relative prosperity
do you understand now

III.
language without error
the essence of the world
struggle over approach
without qualities
social events
it’s as simple as that

it shows itself again and again
the vitality of life
to act
any small thing
to put to paper
it lies in infinity

IV.
fifty years of effort
why work
after that it’s yesterday
what shall we do
two things are there
fully understood

but as I said
we can try
to generate effects
on this everything depends
wherever in the world
values are felt

V.
language changes
to free thinking
verbal and factual
to really understand
where the truth lies
practical action

between subject and object
we utilize every possibility
a conception of the human
something of soul and flesh
to deem the world believable
a kind of irrationality

VI.
beyond the truth
what is that after all
I almost want to say
that everywhere it’s about
making things superfluous
so as not to communicate

what I want to get at is
it must be clear
that we have desires
what people always do
after all a problem is only
that which I don’t understand