Art from the postcolonial era can no longer be regarded as a consistent environment, as differentiation can be observed in all segments. Consequently, contemporary artistic practice and the history of art must incorporate the culture of immigrants, indigenous artists, women artists, LGBTQIA+ artists, and individuals with diverse ethnic and cultural identities, along with the paradoxes and complexities they introduce to modify the established cultural paradigm. The 60th International Art Exhibition, curated by Adriano Pedrosa, with the topic of Foreigners Everywhere, spotlights artists from diverse and historically marginalized backgrounds. Also, the exhibition The Beauty of Diversity, curated by Angela Stief, demonstrates the broadness of the ALBERTINA Museum’s collection and redefines the collection’s richness in terms of its heterogeneity.
Sungi Mlengeya Wallow, 2022 Acryl auf Leinwand 150×140cm Privatsammlung © Sungi Mlengeya, Foto: Courtesy of Afriart Gallery
The exhibition The Beauty of Diversity shows the richness and diversity of the ALBERTINA’s contemporary collections and the indispensable attention to women and LGBTQIA+ artists, people of color, aboriginal positions and autodidacts, who stand out against the contrasting backdrop of Old Masters.
Artists:
Jean-Michel Basquiat, Eva Beresin, Amoako Boafo, Verena Bretschneider, Cecily Brown, Nyunmiti Burton, Miriam Cahn, Alexandre Diop, Ines Doujak, Jean Dubuffet, Stefanie Erjautz, Jadé Fadojutimi, Gelitin / Gelatin, Aïcha Khorchid, Soli Kiani, Basil Kincaid , Jürgen Klauke, Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Elena Koneff, Maria Lassnig, Daniel Lezama, Angelika Loderer, Claudia Märzendorfer, Jonathan Meese, Sungi Mlengeya, Tracey Moffatt, Michel Nedjar, Tony Oursler, Grayson Perry, Marc Quinn, Franz Ringel, George Rouy, Iris Sageder, Cindy Sherman, Sarah Slappey, Kiki Smith, Tal R, VALIE EXPORT, Jannis Varelas, August Walla, Franz West and Kennedy Yanko.
Today, the art world is intensively concerned with identity-political issues relating to class, race and gender. The broad spectrum of artistic approaches, stylistic and content-related approaches represents a necessary addition to the art historical canon represented in the ALBERTINA, from Michelangelo and Raphael to Dürer, Rembrandt and Rubens to Goya, Schiele, Picasso and Warhol. (ALBERTINA Museum)
In various chapters, the exhibition at the ALBERTINA MODERN develops an aesthetic of diversity that goes against the grain of the ideality of a classical desire for style and form as well as the design of a one-dimensional human being – it pursues the beauty of the grotesque, the impure and the repressed and gives visibility to the marginalized, the abject and the deviation from the norm.
The exhibition can be seen at the ALBERTINA MODERN from 16 February to 18 August 2024.
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