Peace

Doves, rainbow colors, and rifles adorned with flowers: depictions of peace are usually limited to familiar symbols. From 1 July to 24 September 2017, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt takes a different approach with the discursive group exhibition PEACE addressing the question: How does peace actually work? The exhibition presents positions by 12 international artists. Jan De Cock, Minerva Cuevas, Ed Fornieles, Michel Houellebecq, Surasi Kusolwong, Isabel Lewis, Lee Mingwei, Katja Novitskova, Heather Phillipson, Agnieszka Polska, Timur Si-Qin, and Ulay consider the subject PEACE from a contemporary perspective.

The show opens with the participatory installation The Letter Writing Project (since 1998) by the Taiwanese artist Lee Mingwei (born 1964). It deals with wishes, yearnings, and needs, but also with the fear of articulating them. Visitors can formulate them in letters to either present them in the installation to be read by others or send them from the Schirn to specific addresses.

A gift of song

Another of the artist’s works, titled Sonic Blossom (2013–ongoing), is being realized jointly with four Frankfurt museums and the Hochschule für Musik und Darstellende Kunst Frankfurt am Main. At each venue, singers will ask visitors throughout a week: May I give you a gift of song? They will then perform one of five songs by the composer Franz Schubert. Sonic Blossom will be staged in the Städel Museum (July, 4–9), in the Deutsches Architekturmuseum (July, 11–16), in the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main (August, 15–20), in the Museum Angewandte Kunst (August, 22–27), and in the Schirn (September, 19–24).

Fascinated by contemporary culture and the world of consumption, the Berlin artist Timur Si-Qin (born 1984) has deliberately adopted trademark strategies for his digital picture production. His brand New Peace blurs the boundaries between spirituality and consumption. Si-Qin is represented in the exhibition with several works: a traffic sign from his New Peace Pro Sign (2016), the two-part work On the Path to Mirrorscape (2016), and Mirrorscape Effigy (2016). These are images of landscapes between reality and fiction, between nature and technology.

A gift to Frankfurt

Under the title Everything For You, Frankfurt (2017), the Belgian artist Jan De Cock (born 1976) has developed sculptures that he conceives of as a gift to the city, its inhabitants, and its architecture – just as in the “sculptural communism” he has already proclaimed in Hong Kong and Havana. In advance of the exhibition, he has briefly erected sculptures in Frankfurt’s urban spaces, recombinations of individual elements, and documented them in photographs. He presents his project in the Schirn in the form of a self-published magazine illustrated with photographs that visitors can take away with them.

Three works deal with the subject of water in the last gallery. The Mexican conceptual artist Minerva Cuevas (born 1975) has filled one entire wall of the exhibition with a huge picture. Against a pinkish background with a bright blue mountain range one reads in luscious red letters: égalité (2004). We immediately recognize the underlying logo of the Evian brand, which the artist has replaced by the French word for equality. The motif of the wall painting is available as a poster that visitors can take home with them. Carried outside, it stands for free access instead of exclusivity and marketing. The photo and performance artist Ulay (born 1943) has placed the question Whose water is it? (2012) in large, glowing letters on the wall. Currency symbols like €, $, and £ appear behind the letters. In recent years, numerous works by Ulay have dealt with the subject of water as a natural resource, also as a major component of the human body. A second work presented in the exhibition highlights the complexity of water in a simple and almost poetic manner: a drop of water falls onto a hot surface, sizzles, and disappears in a fraction of a second – a symbol of dripping onto a hot stone.

Seduces the senses

The PEACE exhibition ends with an installation by Isabel Lewis (born 1981) that, with its seating and plants, offers both a performance space and a stage. As the “host” of her Occasions, the trained dancer Lewis organizes multimedia performances. She narrates, composes music one can hear, sings, dances, “seduces” the senses with aromas developed together with the fragrance researcher Sissel Tolaas, and serves special drinks and menus. In the framework of her Occasions, the central question of the exhibition is discussed in additional live events: How peace actually works?