Although all the artists of this exhibition are concerned with the specific pasts of their own political and art history, the exhibition “The Touch of History” addresses the need to deconstruct the past and critically investigates today’s ideological certainties regarding the past.
The choice of exhibits is oriented on the continuing question of what the past signifies for the present in the course of social and international “systemic” changes, and seeks those images in which the past attempts to gain influence over the present. As the material of memory, documentary photos play a prominent role in this context.
The exhibition itself shows works from the fields of painting, drawing and sculpture/object, presented by artists who come from South Korea, Bangladesh, China and Germany. They have selected different historiographical territories for this exploration of “their” history. In five case studies they recapitulate stories within history and investigate intertextual contexts, thereby questioning chronological order as well as the artistic conventions of their own cultural spheres.
“The Touch of History” presents ceramic sculptures by Yee Sookyung (Korea), oil painting by Huang Min and Huang He (China), drawings/paintings by Murshida Arzu Alpana (Bangladesh) as well as painting/collage by Jan Muche (Germany).