Verdunklung/Darkening, Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, 2005
Exhibition curated by Starship (Ariane Müller, Martin Ebner, Hans-Christian Dany)
with Alex Amann, Dirk Bell, Tobias Buche, Ergül Cengiz, John Chilver, Hans-Christian Dany, Martin Ebner, Michaela Eichwald, Judith Hopf, Tania Mouraud, Ariane Müller, Henrik Olesen, Daniel Pflumm, Juliane Solmsdorf, Florian Zeyfang
Darkening means a tendency in contemporary art using the ambivalence of images in an arbitrary way. Text or image like any form of indirect communication have already in Platon’s texts been described as a not secure form of transmitting meaning. One can never be sure to be understood in the way it was intended and therefore it may be not advisable to use these forms to communicate the essential or personal but rather leave a visible void.
In the artistic form of Darkening artists use signs in an outspoken ambivalent way. Darkening means the general doubt in what is anyway communicable. In the Darkening the world consists of phenomena and the link between them is beyond language. It seems. One should learn to read signs or listen to stories being told. More than you see, won’t be said but there is a hint to the void darkening the real meaning.