50 Jahre neue Gesellschaft - Arbeitsgruppe Kunst

The nGbK turns fifty this year.
But how to celebrate the jubilee of an association whose history cannot be told as a sequence of curatorial signature statements but rather as a continual collective analysis and debate of the roles art plays in society? How can institutional and activist knowledge produced over several decades—an at times ambivalent resource—be read in light of current discourses and put into practice in the present day?
These questions were first discussed internally, by nGbK members, and then further elaborated as an exhibition and discursive format by a newly founded project group.

The invited artists Özlem Altın, Alice Creischer/Andreas Siekmann and Aykan Safoğlu in cooperation with Nihad Nino Pušija took different approaches to the accumulated histories in the nGbK archive: at times associative, at others analytical, and sometimes by seeking the face behind the documents. In the artistic works they created in this process they expose structures of desire, inquire into the roles art plays in generating value on the capitalist property market, and speak of creative friendships forged beyond institutional narratives. The diversity of these perspectives is living proof that telling ›history‹ in the singular cannot do justice to fifty years of basic democracy.

Four symposia spread over the summer accompany the exhibition. In as open and non-hierarchical a setting as possible, invited guests and participants share insights to fathom a specific set theme. Cultural workers, artists, academics and activists convene in these ›learning spaces‹ to review the nGbK’s declared socio-political agenda and its potential contemporary applications. Together they analyse action strategies for collective SOLIDARITY(23 June), RESEARCH (6 July), WORK (20 July) and DESIRE (3 Aug). For more information see nGbK-Archiv: 2019 - 50 Jahre neue Gesellschaft- Lernorte