The Museum Has Abandoned Us
Curated by Bob Bicknell-Knight
Arvida Byström, Bob Bicknell-Knight, Brad Phillips, Dennis Rudolph, Fred Le Sueur, Jonathan Monaghan, Lara Joy Evans, Laura Yuile, Molly Soda, Patrick Goddard, Tom Railton, Valentin Dommanget, Willem Weismann, Yorkson (Yimin Chen)
13th – 23rd September 2017
STATE OF THE ART, Mansteinstr 2, 10783 Berlin, DE
Bob Bicknell-Knight took over STATE OF THE ART to present an exhibition of artists reacting to the ‘real’ world’s relationship to the ‘art’ world, and vice versa. Showcased works, sometimes inadvertently, attempt to break out of the art world’s seemingly impenetrable bubble, using the all-seeing nature of the Internet to do so.
What happens when an artwork is shared on Instagram by a celebrity, a conceptual art piece gets reacted to by a famous YouTuber, or a badly taken photograph of a grotesque public art piece gets to the front page of reddit? When art is suddenly thrust in front of the general public, with no real context or explanation, reactions can vary from disgust and rage;
‘Who else vomited after watching or during watching this video, thumbs up if you did, cause I vomited…and it was not a good one.’
To surprising appreciation;
‘But it’s not about shame, dude. It’s not even about all people who enjoy the fetishes. It’s about the people who let that kind of thing govern their entire life (that’s why he included the images of the NEET battlestations). It’s about feeling so lost in life that you fall into a depressive cycle where escapism and erotic stimulation are the only things you live for. Maybe it’s never happened to you, but it has happened to a lot of people. Not all people can manage their life as well as others.’
With real dialogues occurring between an assumingly non-art going audience.
The title of the exhibition is taken from LaBeouf, Rönkkö & Turner’s project, “HEWILLNOTDIVIDE.US”. This was the fourteenth project by the collaborative trio, all of which in the past had garnered large amounts of press from all over the globe due to Shia LaBeouf’s participation in the group. The HWNDU project was originally a 24/7 365 days of the year live stream which was active outside of The Museum of the Moving Image in New York, being broadcast onto the internet. Shortly after the artwork commenced, 4chan, and the group that we now refer to as the alt-right, took notice, forming protests of sorts, shouting abuse and vitriol into the camera, inciting violence and negativity onto an artwork that was originally focused around protesting Donald Trump’s presidency. A mere three weeks after the stream began, the MOMI had to abandon the project due to the volatile nature of the work, with the artists stating on their various social media accounts; THE MUSEUM HAS ABANDONED US.
BOB BICKNELL-KNIGHT 