»Listening to the Stones« was the title of the anniversary exhibition at the Kunsthaus to mark its 30th anniversary.
Over the coming months, a digital, constantly growing archive will be created on this platform – dedicated to sustainable anniversary and exhibition documentation, but also to artistic research and in-depth research as part of the Kunsthaus's ongoing (Re)Search & Share program, which will deal more specifically with the reflection on both human and geological temporalities, which are traditionally celebrated with an anniversary, and the past-present and future-oriented orientation of man in his environment.
About the exhibition:How old is humanity and how old is the planet that supports it? In relation to the age of stones, the human measurement of time is radically relativized. The exhibition is dedicated to the material that in many ways forms the basis of our existence. On the occasion of its 30th anniversary, the Kunsthaus Dresden presented an exhibition of contemporary art on the subject of stones.
The exhibition responds to the anniversaries to be celebrated – 2021 is also the year of 160 years of German-Japanese friendship – in a provocative but also thought-provoking way and poses artistic, but also ethical and spiritual questions in response to these occasions: What do we actually know about time? How do we need to change our lives, but also our cultural perspective, in order to save our planet and our existence?
The artistic works enable a view of stones from very different positions on this globe, which are seen here not only as a resource, brittle, uneventful and powerless, but also as carriers of geological and planetary knowledge. Den Steinen zuhören / Listening to the Stones also contains the hope for a symbolic new beginning through "listening" to stones as advisors and companions, which should make it possible to relearn and rethink perspectives on the past and future.
With Yoav Admoni, Maria Thereza Alves and Jimmie Durham, Marie Athenstaedt, Alice Creischer & Andreas Siekmann, Lucile Desamory, Hatakeyama Naoya, Horikawa Michio, Hsu Chia-Wei, Koike Teruo, Alicja Kwade, Miyakita Hiromi, Munem Wasif, Sybille Neumeyer, Kadija de Paula & Chico Togni & FELL, Mathis Pfäffli, Erika Richter, Shitamichi Motoyuki, Suzuki Akio, Tang Han, Zhou Xiaopeng, Stephanie Zurstegge
Curated by Miya Yoshida in collaboration with Kerstin Flasche and Christiane Mennicke-Schwarz / Kunsthaus DresdenThe exhibition was supported by the Stiftung Kunstfonds Bonn, the Japan Foundation, the Homann Foundation and the ifa Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen