Ridiculously Yours! at Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn

November 11, 2022–April 10, 2023

The artwork at the cross-epoch exhibition, which spans centuries of artistic production, comes from about 100 artists from throughout the world. A very particular dialectic has been at play in modernism since the 19th century in general and the classical avant-gardes of the early 20th century in particular: on the one hand, daring innovations, radical negation, and aesthetic dogmas—but on the other hand, a particular kind of laughter that served as the inspiration for this exhibition project. It is a laughing that is amusing while also undermining conservatism, intolerance, moral principles, and not least, avant-garde dogmatisms, all without seeking to cause scandal. This laughing illustrates how power loses its hold, how the ostentatious gesture and the image of the hero are devalued by opposing the use of culture to intimidate and secure unearned advantages.

Works by numerous important artists are represented in a scenography containing different chapters—from Pieter Bruegel the Elder to Alfred Jarry and James Ensor, Marcel Duchamp and and Francis Picabia, George Grosz and René Magritte, Giorgio de Chirico and Sturtevant, Sigmar Polke and Martin Kippenberger to numerous contemporary positions, as for example Paul McCarthy, Nicole Eisenman, Fischli & Weiss, Isa Genzken, Pauline Curnier-Jardin, Kiluanji Kia Henda or Ming Wong. Ridiculously Yours! flirts with the humour of catastrophe, bad taste, the camp approach, B-movie culture, science fiction, horror, etc., as well as immaturity, idiocy, intuition and, of course, passion—not to mention enthusiasm.

This exhibition project has been initiated and conceived by Jörg Heiser and Cristina Ricupero.

Bundeskunsthalle
Helmut-Kohl-Allee 4
53113 Bonn
Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–7pm,
Wednesday 10am–9pm

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