Wilderness

In times in which the blank spaces on the world map have largely disap­peared and an “untouched natural state” virtu­ally only exists in the form of areas desig­nated as nature reserves, the “wilder­ness” is returning in art. The search for the last open places, the expe­di­tion as an artistic medium, visions of a posthuman world char­ac­terize the works of many contem­po­rary artists along­side the rene­go­ti­a­tion of the rela­tion­ship between indi­vidual and beast. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frank­furt dedi­cates an exten­sive thematic exhi­bi­tion to this recur­ring fasci­na­tion and presents around 100 impor­tant works from artists such as Julian Charrière, Marcus Coates, Tacita Dean, Mark Dion, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Asger Jorn, Joachim Koester, Ana Mendieta, Georgia O’Keeffe, Gerhard Richter, Henri Rousseau und Carleton E. Watkins.

The exhi­bi­tion unites paint­ings, photographs, videos, sculp­tures and instal­la­tions, which explore the multi­tude of different links between wilder­ness and art from 1900 to the present.  With “wilder­ness” a cultural concept is put up for discus­sion, which has always also served as a projec­tion surface for anything that was different and foreign, for the longing fantasies beyond the bound­aries of the supposed civi­liza­tion. In today’s “Anthro­pocene,” the utopia of a natural state remote from culture and human influ­ence seems anachro­nistic. And yet the exam­i­na­tion of tradi­tional images and fictions of wilder­ness seem more alive than ever before.