THE TEN COMMANDMENTS
19 June - 05 December 2004
Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Lingnerplatz 1, 01069 Dresden (Germany)
Phone (+49-351) 4846 670
Fax: (+49-351) 4846 588
www.dhmd.de
An Art Exhibition of the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Curator: Klaus Biesenbach June 19 Through December 5, 2004
The exhibition was supported by Kulturstiftung Dresden der Dresdner Bank.
This art exhibition, developed by Klaus Biesenbach (Kunst-Werke Berlin, PS1/MoMA New York), shows contemporary art’s ways of seeing the world of today, and in so doing importantly questions the Ten Commandments from a current perspective: Is the millennia-old system of rules of the Ten Commandments still binding in a world marked by globalization? Gathered on an area of 1,500 m2 are around 100 works by 69 international artists.
Curator Klaus Biesenbach: “The Ten Commandments and their possible meanings in the world of today stood at the start of the planning of the exhibition. We have also kept the number ten as an ordering principle for the exhibition. The works shown were not created in direct engagement with the individual Commandments, nor do they illustrate them, but were rather chosen so as to show ways of seeing social and ethical fields of tension in the world of today.”
Many of the works of art on display develop an individual picture of, as well as surprising ways of observing, the highly current political and ethical background that lies in the medial, political, and economic networking creating new questions for the individual and for society. The globalized world is marked by extreme economic inequality, and it is growing only the more clear that the lifestyle of the privileged cannot be implemented as a standard for everyone. Just as the biblical Ten Commandments speak explicitly to the individual, the works of art direct their questions at the individual and his or her own ethical convictions.
What conditions of life determine the individual today, and what systems of values offer a morally binding orientation? Is there a new significance in store for religiosity? Religious motifs are not only reappearing within societies characterized as Western; opposing the pressure of modern, rationalized forms of business and living worldwide is an – at least religiously motivated – fundamentalism that calls into question the thesis of a thoroughgoing secularization. Religiousness today seems caught between spirituality and fundamentalism on the one hand and consumer hedonism and instrumentalization on the other.
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Adel Abdessemed, Laylah Ali, Francis Alys, Yael Bartana, Marc Bijl, Maurizio Catellan, Janet Cardiff, Minerva Cuevas, Henry Darger, Jirí David , Thomas Demand, Elmgreen & Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Harun Farocki, Sylvie Fleury, Parastou Forouhar, Kendell Geers, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Shilpa Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Mathilde ter Heijne, Carsten Holler, Martin Honert, Jonathan Horowitz, Mustafa Hulusi, Emily Jacir, Christian Jankowski, Yeondoo Jung, Kimsooja, Sigalit Landau, Armin Linke, Mark Lombardi, Jan Maneuska, Teresa Margolles, Tony Matelli, Adam McEwen, Aernout Mik, Boris Mikhailov, James Morrison, Gianni Motti, Olaf Nicolai, Tim Noble & Sue Webster, Orlan, Tony Oursler, OVNI-Observatori de Video No Identificat, Pier Paolo Pasolini, Paul Pfeiffer, Daniel Pflumm, Daniela Rossell, Thomas Ruff, Anri Sala, Nebojsa Seric – Shoba, Efrat Shvily, Santiago Sierra, Shazia Sikander, Taryn Simon, Dayanita Singh, Aleksandr Sokurov, Erik Steinbrecher, Stih & Schnock, Ricky Swallow, Fatimah Tuggar, Usine de Boutons, Anne Wallace, Marijke van Warmerdam, Jasmila Zbanich, Andrea Zittel.
THE EXHIBITION CATALOG: DIE ZEHN GEBOTE
Edited by Klaus Biesenbach for the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum
Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern-Ruit, 2004, 288 pages.
ISBN 3-7757-1453-7
With contributions from Dennis Altman, Kevin Bales, Klaus Biesenbach, Gabriele Cleve, Frank Crusemann, Isabelle Graw, Christiane Grefe, Geneviève Hesse, Christian Holler, Dietmar Mieth, Ulf Poschardt, Navid Kermani, Hartmut Krauss, Roger N. Lancaster, Christiane Leidinger, Niklas Maak, Alexander Meschnig, Desmond Morris, Ilona Ostner, Linda Singer, Susan Sontag, and Jan Verwoert.
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday trough Sunday and holidays: 10 AM to 6 PM
