(Munich, Germany)
Which stories do we keep, and which do we dispose of? Thirty-four artists express their thoughts on the matter in “The way you read a book is different to how I tell a story”, opening at Jahn und Jahn this Thursday, January 25th. Mixing pieces from the gallery’s archive and library with others by gallery-represented and guest artists (such as Brazilian artists Bruno Moreschi, Daniel Steegman Mangrané, Lenora de Barros, and Marlon de Azambuja), the show reviews the value of the modern project that contaminated the 20th century with its belief in progress as the ultimate goal.
Books are the foundation and the centre of the show. Using the gallery’s library as a starting point – it houses six thousand volumes devoted to 20th-century western art –, the exhibition creates a network of references that analyses these books and their words, as well as the memories, images, modes of perception and, accordingly, modes of imagining contained in them.
More than a simple review of the past, however, “The way you read a book” also takes on the challenge of delving into the present, acknowledging how the codes of the past have been appropriated and reprogrammed by artists nowadays. That’s why some of the most pressing themes of contemporaneity feature in the show, such as feminism and the female (in the video “Estudo para facadas” [Study for Stabs] by Lenora de Barros, for example) or nature (discussed in Daniel Steegman Mangrané’s piece on view). In this sense, the show could perhaps represent the start of yet another library: one dedicated to thinking about art in the 21st century.
“The way you read a book is different to how I tell a story”, group show featuring Carlos Amorales, Karel Appel, Marlon de Azambuja, Alessandro Balteo Yazbeck, Lenora de Barros, Willi Baumeister, Pauline Beaudemont, Heinz Butz, Esther Ferrer, Cristina Garrido, Julius Heinemann, Per Kirkeby, Konrad Klapheck, Oliver Laric, Victor Leguy, Sarah Lehnerer, Bruno Moreschi, Eduardo Navarro, Hermann Nitsch, Letícia Parente, Laure Prouvost, Enrique Radigales, Paula Rego, Daniel Steegman Mangrané, Eduardo Terrazas, Alexi Tsioris, Stefan Vogel, Wolfram Erber, Isa Genzken, Imi Knoebel, Barry Le Va, Gerhard Richter, Fred Sandback and Al Taylor
Curated by Marta Ramos-Yzquierdo
On view from January 26th through March 10th, 2018
Opening: Thursday, January 25th, from 7 pm to 9 pm
Jahn und Jahn
Baaderstrasse, 56 B/C
Working hours: tue – fri, 10 am to 6 pm; sat, 11 am to 2 pm; by appointment
T: +49 (0)89 41418280
info@jahnundjahn.com