House of Nisaba

The group exhibition “House of Nisaba: New Stories of Painting” offers a deep dive into contemporary painting.The exhibition borrows its name from the Mesopotamian goddess Nisaba, initially the protector of grain and accounting, but, with the invention of writing, she also became the goddess of the scribe, of storytelling finding material form. Now, she is evoked once again – by the curator Hendrik Folkerts – as the divine patron of this house of painters, who are sharing new stories.

Meanings in Contemporary Painting

Hendrik Folkerts began working on the exhibition by asking the following questions: What does painting look like and mean in the world today, as knowledge transforms, information accelerates and societies splinter? What new modes of storytelling are painters developing today?

He says:

– The artists in “House of Nisaba”, most of whom are born in the 1980s and 1990s, do not belong to any movement, but rather, they share a sensibility, towards figuration, towards symbolism, towards creating new stories in the information and technological age.

New Allegories

In painting, allegory is a way of creating images or figures that signify something beyond their literal meaning – for example, a human skull that in historical still life painting symbolised the transience of life.

In previous centuries, painters often worked within a shared iconography: they created symbols whose meaning was agreed upon and generally known. Today, this has changed, as an artist creates a system of meaning within their own practice. That shared iconography has made way for a more individualised structure of references: citations and appropriations that reflect today’s broad circulation and fragmentation of information distribution. The feed matters, shaping the individualised perception of the world.

The Exhibition’s Provisional Architecture

Devised by the design and architecture studio Formafantasma, the exhibition’s architecture suggests this House as provisional and always in the making, reflecting the new life of painting in the 21st century. To fully shape Nisaba’s house, the exhibition design plays with the architectural history of painting in temples, churches, cathedrals and mosques, by including aspects of sacred architecture.