Exhibitions2015Dark Ages

Reflections on society’s possible return to the ‘Dark Ages’ were the starting-point for the group exhibition at Aeroplastics. In collaboration with Sebastian C. Strenger (European Art Association), Jerome Jacobs explored this sombre theme through the prism of a kind of sampling from contemporary art’s recent history, as well as in works chosen by artists by way of free association. The exhibition proposed a step back, initiating a manner of (self)-critique. 

The mess of economic crises was evoked by the works Europa macht Frei from Filip Markiewicz, the Disque d’Odin of Thomas Hirschorn and in photographic mosaics by Daniele Buetti. The era of capitalism versus communism resurfaced in Joseph Beuys’s famous Kunst=Kapital, Werner Büttner’s canvas and Sergey Maximishin’s photographs.

In an age of omnipresent media, even dreams are polluted. Acts of violence are diverse and aesthetically mined (Carlos Aires, Robert Gligorov, John Isaacs, Nadav Kander). New realities emerged in the artistic “take” of works by Gavin Turk, HeHe and Del Lagrace Volcano. Sometimes the road taken was detoured (Pierre Bismuth), sometimes sublimated (Dionisis Kavallieratos).

Dark Ages was a multifaceted exhibition that sought to show audiences that, just as Medieval times were only “dark” as seen in comparison to the idea of Renaissance “light”, the recent past is only sombre when set in dissonance by its rapport to our evermore Manichean vision of a tomorrow, at once simple and redeeming.