Blind Faith

Geopolitical tensions as well as unsettling ecological, social, and economic developments are challenging the current world order. Faced with such growing uncertainty, trust in the pillars of our society is continually waning. Although it is certainly not the first time in history that the world appears to be a precarious place, there is a crucial and unprecedented difference which has fundamentally changed the way we perceive and cope with current conflicts: the world is now digitally mediated.

The artists in the exhibition Blind Faith share a growing doubt about this means of viewing the world. Consequently, they question the current conventional methods of measuring and evaluating our existence and respond by taking recourse to the human body and mind as a source of knowledge and a resonance chamber for political and social realities. Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art brings together 28 international artists who view the body not just as a metaphor, a site for examination or a source of information, but also as their material in the most literal sense. In the search of reality and truth in the world, sensual perception as well as alternative psychological states are investigated with a view to their potential for expanding consciousness. The informative value of body parts and organs is examined, and both the functionality and the vulnerability of the body are put on display. Adopting a wide range of media such as drawing, sculpture, video, installation, robotics, animation, sound and performance, the artists explore our understanding of the present. They probe the limits of language and knowledge production, reconsider models of historiography and fiction, and plunge into the origins of life itself. They suggest new systems of learning, establish alternative narratives, or show rituals in a new light. While the expression “blind faith” seems, at first glance, to address the methodological dangers associated with a pathology of the contemporary moment, the artistic visions in the exhibition demonstrate a new and critical, yet holistic means of seeing and understanding that encompasses both the physical and spiritual.

Participants include Ed Atkins, Kader Attia, Olga Balema, Melanie Bonajo with Théo Demans and Carolin Gießner, Mariechen Danz, Cécile B. Evans, Andrea Éva Győri, Benedikt Hipp, Nicholas Hlobo, Marguerite Humeau, KAYA (Kerstin Brätsch and Debo Eilers), Hanne Lippard, Wangechi Mutu, Otobong Nkanga, Jon Rafman, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Mary Reid Kelley with Patrick Kelley, Lili Reynaud-Dewar, Raphael Sbrzesny, Jeremy Shaw, Teresa Solar Abboud, Jol Thomson, and David Zink Yi with Angie Keefer.

The exhibition catalog Blind Faith: Between the Visceral and the Cognitive in Contemporary Art will be published in May 2018.

Edited by Anna Schneider. With contributions by Okwui Enwezor, Damian Lentini, Julienne Lorz, Daniel Milnes, Anna Schneider and Charles T. Wolfe. Artist contributions by Ed Atkins, Mariechen Danz, Cécile B. Evans, Andrea Éva Győri, Marguerite Humeau, Angie Keefer, Hanne Lippard, Otobong Nkanga, Naufus Ramírez-Figueroa, Mary Reid Kelley, Lili Reynaud-Dewar and David Zink Yi.

Published by Prestel, 224 pages, in English.

The exhibition is curated by Julienne Lorz, Daniel Milnes and Anna Schneider.

Generously supported by Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne

Opening
Thursday, March 1, 2018, 7pm
Roundtable with the artists and the curators Julienne Lorz, Daniel Milnes and Anna Schneider

From 8pm
A Song by Mariechen Danz: “No one ever says here I am and I brought my body with me”
Performance by David Zink Yi in cooperation with Angie Keefer: “Being the measure”
Performance by Raphael Sbrzesny: Principal Boy. Outtakes from the Interpretenkammer

Symposium
The (After)life of the Cyborg
On the past, present, and future of human-machine interactions
Saturday, June 23, 2018
With Cécile B. Evans (artist talk), Francesca Ferrando (keynote lecture) , Lili Reynaud-Dewar (performance) and more