Kunstraum Kreuzberg-Bethanien, Berlin
2007 June 23 – August 19
This exhibition was disappointing. It is the second Backjumps Exhibition I have seen (after #1) and I feel regression.
The Backjumps – founded by Adrian Nabi – used to be an urban art magazine for about ten years. It started as a pure graffiti fanzine, later it became the leading magazine for urban visual arts. Since 2003 Adrian converted the conception of the magazine into a series of exhibitions mainly in Berlin.
The first “Live Issue” in 2003 was fantastic, but now, four years later the fire is missing. I think I understand the situation – very probably it is boring to create an urban art exhibition at the same place for the fourth time.
Of course the exhibition is interesting. A lot of interesting artists came to Berlin to exhibit their photos and pieces, but you have to be on a certain level to enjoy the works. If you present a big exhibition on urban art to the public you should try to show works which convince foreign people of the importance of this art form. The actual exhibits are just not very well chosen and ugly presented.
I respect Mr. Adrian Nabi for the work he did in Berlin. I respect him for the Backjumps magazine and the great exhibitions he organized in the past. I respect him, because he is doing his thing for quite a long time and I think that young organizers of urban art events could learn a lot of him. Still I think that he should reconsider his conception about the Backjumps exhibitions. 70 % of the pictures and installations exhibited in
the “Live Issue” have the same look and the same purpose as the works of other modern artists you can see in “normal” museums – only that those “expansive” exhibits are much better. Some of the works were just provocative in a stupid way... I think our whole visual surrounding is so sexed up that it is just uninteresting and unamusing to see copulating couples on wallpapers. Sex doesn't sell automatically nowadays.
Nevertheless there was one thing I was happy to recognize.
In my opinion as an organizer, an artist and a consumer I dislike the tendency within urban art towards computer-based graphic design.
Adrian Nabi seems to share this opinion: I think there was nothing on the exhibition which is not hand-made.
I am curious about the next projects of Adrian Nabi and his fellows. On the occasion of the cultural program “Germany in Japan” they organized an exhibition in Tokyo in 2005. I hope there are new projects budding outside Germany.
PS: In 2004 the Goethe Institute made a film about Adrian Nabi and the Backjumps. It also features one of my favourite urban artists, Akim One Nguyen.
No comments:
Post a Comment