WeGetCloser: a collective announcement of process or intention. In this interdisciplinary and intercultural exhibition project, artists and their works – from performance, sculpture, painting, digital art and installation to works that oscillate between all these media – encounter us. Those participating in and shaping the accompanying programme, those visiting the exhibition – we meet in this idea of convergence.
The exhibition’s artists come from diverse backgrounds that one way or another are interwoven with social or international contexts of origin in the United Arab Emirates, Israel, Morocco or Germany. Without explicitly dealing with specific questions of incompatibility or stereotypes that often burgeon when these countries are named, the exhibitions reflect on the idea of coming together– on individual artistic coexistence, on being with one another. The participants can’t be reduced to a debate over frequently prejudiced distinctions or national boundaries. The artistic positions stand for themselves alone and should be understood independently from one another, although they simultaneously allow connections to be made. They enter into a dialogue, step outside their differentiation from one another and into their ambiguity and equivalence, without this encounter – which is their momentary context – being thematically directed. Whether in their artistic practice or simultaneous presence in the exhibition spaces, they meet in the idea of mutual responsiveness. They stand alone and yet together – close yet individual.
Thanks to the selection of artistic positions and their neither work-specific nor thematic placement, the curator Katie Eva Gaj is able to give tangibility to the associative possibilities and tensions between the artistic works. The curatorial narration, which deliberately places the focus on the works themselves instead of a stringent exhibition concept, enables a convergence that can’t be planned but that unfolds organically.
The accompanying programme – from the opening to participatory performances or a wide variety of events throughout the exhibition – is full of opportunities to come together. The temporal impermanence of the events gives rise to shared experiences that outlast the presentation’s duration and extend the boundaries of exhibition, artwork, social context and site-specificity.
The exhibitions are made possible by the federal government commissioner for culture and media. The Abraham Accords Institute Germany created the framework conditions for the exhibition as a space for artistic interchange with the aim of fostering a dialogue between Abrahamic cultural traditions in Germany and abroad, and between Israel and its neighbours. Together with the participating artists the curator is able to realise a format that sees itself as a platform for interchange without representing or delegitimating political positions.
WeGetCloser – an idea of convergence that stands for meeting in the form of artistic tension and new symbioses.
Text by Simone Schmahl