DUSSELDORF.- Through jux­t­a­po­si­ti­on and com­bi­na­ti­on, the ex­hi­bi­ti­on “Ava­tar und Ata­vis­mus: Outside der Avant­gar­de” re­veals a phe­no­men­on ar­che­ty­pi­cal­ly an­cho­red in the art of the 1980s wi­th the sur­pri­sing ap­pearan­ce of heads, hands, and other bo­dy parts. This re­bel­li­on against the achie­ve­ments of mo­der­nism—ab­strac­tion and con­cep­tua­lism—in­clu­des well-known re­pre­sen­ta­ti­ves of Wes­tern art from va­rious ge­ne­ra­ti­ons. Sin­ce the tran­s­a­vant­gar­de mo­ve­ment around 1980, ani­mis­tic ele­ments ha­ve emer­ged in the form of the “dis­mem­be­red bo­dy” (Jac­ques La­can), the ani­mal as an al­ter ego, and other codes of “sa­va­ge thought” (Clau­de Lévi-Strauss). The clo­se ties to outs­i­der art can­not be over­look­ed. This phe­no­men­on con­ti­nues to­day, even if it has of­ten be­en in­ter­pre­ted in dif­fe­rent ways.

The ex­hi­bi­ti­on fea­tures re­now­ned ar­tists wi­th works bet­ween ob­ses­si­on, nar­ra­ti­ve, and the gro­tes­que, which be­ca­me pos­si­ble in the wa­ke of the post­mo­dern turn af­ter 1978. The first room wi­th works from the “sa­va­ge” deca­de fea­tures ar­tists such Fran­ces­co Cle­men­te, Wal­ter Dahn, Mar­tin Dis­ler, and Jiří Ge­org Dok­ou­pil. The­se are fol­lo­wed by works from Sieg­fried Anzin­ger along­side ar­tists such as An­to­ni­us Hö­ckel­mann and Al­fred Klinkan. In a kind of ani­mis­tic chain, the fol­lowing deca­de saw the in­ven­ti­on of new ava­tars in the work of Franz West, Ro­se­ma­rie Tro­ckel, Gün­ther Förg, Tho­mas Schüt­te, and Mi­ke Kel­ley, such as West’s le­murs, Förg’s masks, and Tro­ckel’s “Ba­la­cla­va” knit face masks. What com­ple­te­ly le­gi­ti­mi­zes the­se ar­che­ty­pes and on­ly makes them tru­ly vi­si­ble to­day is the fact that the­se ava­tars are from va­rious in­di­vi­du­als from pre­vious ge­ne­ra­ti­ons, led by Loui­se Bour­geois and Ma­ria Lass­nig wi­th Ge­org Ba­se­litz and Bru­ce Nau­man, who de­mons­tra­ted a si­mi­lar at­ti­tu­de du­ring the sa­me pe­ri­od.

Well-known ar­tists such as Sa­rah Lu­cas, Da­na Schutz, Kai Alt­hoff, Tho­mas Zipp, An­dré But­zer, An­dy Ho­pe 1930, and John Bock con­ti­nu­ed this ten­den­cy af­ter 2000, each in­ter­pre­ting it in their own way. Tal R and Jo­na­than Mee­se ha­ve re­con­struc­ted their cast­le in­stal­la­ti­on MOR from 2005. The ava­tars of the young ge­ne­ra­ti­on to­day com­bi­ne wi­th re­a­dy­ma­des and re­flec­tion on ar­tis­tic me­dia, as ex­em­pli­fied by the work of Neїl Be­lou­fa and Eva Kot’átková.

The works by “outs­i­der ar­tists” we­re com­pi­led by Pia Witz­mann and Veit Lo­ers di­rect­ly from in­sti­tu­ti­ons in North Rhi­ne-West­pha­lia and Ita­ly. The­se in­clu­de pie­ces by Ge­org Brink­schul­te, Karl Burk­hard, Giu­sep­pe Cur­to, Gior­gio Do­ri­go, Wil­ma Sa­vio, Al­fred Stief, and others from the Kunst­haus Kan­nen in Müns­ter, Kunst-Pra­xis Soest e.V., MAL­zeit­ler in Du­is­burg, and ULSS 2 Felt­re in Ita­ly. They of­fer ex­am­ples of the con­stant om­ni­pre­sence of a re­ser­voir of ima­ges in­herent in all peop­le, which on­ly sel­dom reach the outside world against our pre­vai­ling ra­tio­na­li­ty.

The ex­hi­bi­ti­on was cu­ra­ted by Veit Lo­ers wi­th Gre­gor Jan­sen and Pia Witz­mann. In Oc­to­ber and ear­ly No­vem­ber 2015 it will over­lap wi­th Kas­per Kö­nig and Falk Wolf’s ex­hi­bi­ti­on “The Shadow of the Avant-Gar­de” at the Mu­se­um Folk­wang in Es­sen.