Face-to-face with images

Abstract

The focus of the exhibition is on the moment in which art is perceived and on the relationship that can arise between a work of art and a person viewing it. How art is assessed depends, on the one hand, on the scholarly study of it and, on the other, on its recognition by public and private museums and collections. A work is classically examined with a view to the intention of the artist and contextualized through comparisons of iconography and style as well as questions regarding the history of its reception. Nonetheless, the observation of art involves not only critique of style, analysis of form and genre, aesthetic judgments, and mediation of meaning, but above all also individual experiences connected with the work of art. The delegating of the gaze and of the ear in the presentation of the beautiful, of suffering, of the reprehensible, or of horror -all experiences that may be perceived very differently by particular individuals- therefore always already refers to a specific form of historicity. Starting from the fact that art cannot arise on its own, the exhibition therefore pursues the idea that what takes place between viewer and work is part of the history of passions. Exhibition: Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen, Germany (22.10.2017-28.01.2018).