Many artists are well aware of such aggravations in the inner-city climate but respond in
extremely different ways. Relentless overheating in a capitalist system driven by the
financial markets is reflected in the anachronism of those artistic urban guerrillas who first
pretend outrage, then appear quite sedate and ready for compromise; who either rebel
against politics with hidden aggression or make the world that is awry into an aesthetic
theme in itself.
In all this, simple truths in both politics and art are hard to come by.
BERLIN.STATUS [2] focuses on artists born from 1978–1984. The publication and
exhibition of works by more than 50 artists permit a look ahead to the potentials of the
youngest generation of artists, although they made quite clear even during preparations for
the exhibition that there would be no big bang after which everything would be different.
Nonetheless, there is a broad spectrum of interventionist thinking and image-manipulating
approaches, with a lot of video art, some painting, non-figurative objects and the tendency
towards low-budget materials that is so typical of Berlin.
Sven Drühl / Christoph Tannert
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