If the spirited world is invisible and fugitive, the opposite is true for the world of objects and materials: they are visible, tangible, and comprehensible. But under particular circumstances, to particular people, and at particular times, one world can make its presence known in and to the other. Where the spiritual and material realms find each other, the boundaries between the use and veneration of an object, between ordinary and altered states of mind, and between habit and ritual becomes porous. “Calling” brings together artists with different backgrounds in music, theatre, performance, and visual arts to reflect upon our spiritual and emotional attachment to the material world. It is a proposal to contemplate the exhibited works as sites of passage, and as contact zones—spaces for communicating and connecting with immaterial matter, someone else, a community, and ourselves.
“Calling” attends at once to banal and familiar things, and to something far more unfathomable that transcends notions of linear time and space. Many of the works exhibited have circulated beyond the confines of the white cube and achieved meaning outside of it, and they are each imbued with the particular vibrations of these living environments: some hung in domestic spaces or accompanied pedagogical workshops, others were constant presences on international music stages and during performances, while others still were created with a devotional and commemorative intention. As their function and character as objects varies—shifting between relic, commemorative, diary, gift, prop, stage set, devotional, or offering—different voices, narratives, and histories unfold and co-exist across the exhibition, both deeply personal and communal. If “Calling” repeatedly returns to practices rooted in performance and music, it does so in order to reflect upon the profound performative and ritualistic meaning of our material environment, and to think of objects as intermediaries between the physical and immaterial realms. Here, the idea of resonance—or of reverberation—serves as a metaphor that emphasizes an understanding of presence that is to be felt and intuited, without ever arriving.
“Calling” presents historical loans by Moki Cherry and Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry for the first time in Germany, bringing them into dialogue with new and existing works by Lisa Alvarado, Lizzi Bougatsos, Beverly Buchanan, Michael Buthe, Melike Kara, Mark Leckey, Sarah Pucci, Stefan Tcherepnin, Paul Thek, and Gisèle Vienne.
Curated by
Kathrin Bentele
at Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen, Düsseldorf
until September 10, 2023