Privateers of Utopia: The Art of Improving the World at Weserburg Exhibition

JOSEPH BEUYS|HEINER MÜLLER|ALEXANDER KLUGE|PETER LAND|ANDY WARHOL|EINAR SCHLEEF|MARTIN KIPPENBERGER|GAVIN TURK|BRUCE NAUMAN|ARTUR ŻMIJEWSKI|JONATHAN MEESE|OLAF METZEL|ASTRID KLEIN|JAUME PLENSA|ROLF DIETER BRINKMANN| AND GUESTS... 

"In an extensive collage in text and image, the exhibition traces out the longing for utopian designs of another world. The artistic media extend from pictures, sculptures and installations past photographs and film all the way to texts, books and interviews."

 

Joseph Beuys, Dürer, ich führe persönlich Baader + Meinhof durch die Dokumenta V, 1972

 Astrid Klein, ohne Titel, 1993/2011, Spiegel, Einschüsse, Galerie Sprüth Magers

Anthro/Socio (Rinde Spinning), 1992, Bruce Nauman, Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg, Germany

Jeremy Deller

The Battle of Orgreave

(video)

Josephine Meckseper

 

 

"...protest culture as a form of youth fashion."

 

 

 

 

 

 

Esther Shalev-Gerz

 

Menschen Dinge 

 

Thomas Hirschhorn

"I want to work for a non-exclusive audience because art can only, as art, be open to non-art. Art can only, as art, have a real importance and political meaning."

 Hirschhorn Philosophical Battery Interview

Arcosanti - Paolo Soleri's Utopia

 "In the high desert of Arizona, halfway between Phoenix and Flagstaff, the Turin architect imagined his ideal town in the `50s: a utopia that became reality and still continues to grow 30 years after its foundation"

 

Arcosanti was an experiment to test Soleri’s theories about arcology [architecture and ecology]

"Arcology advocates urban interaction and accessibility in environmental structures. It seeks to minimize the use of energy, raw materials and land, reducing waste and environmental pollution; and allow interaction with the surrounding natural environment."

"Think of it. We are blessed with technology that would be indescribable to our forefathers. We have the wherewithal, the know-it-all to feed everybody, clothe everybody, and give every human on Earth a chance. We know now what we could never have known before -- that we now have the option for all humanity to make it successfully on this planet in this lifetime. Whether it is to be Utopia or Oblivion will be a touch-and-go relay race right up to the final moment."

                                  - R. Buckminster Fuller, Critical Path 1980