After Babel is a major group show about the many languages that form part of contemporary art. The common denominator for the participating artists is that they build bridges between different languages and continents.
There really is a tower at the heart of the show. It is based on a concept by Simon Denny (New Zealand/Germany) in collaboration with Alessandro Bava (Italy/ United Kingdom), that provides a tangible form for the ideas of the legendary exhibition Poetry Must Be Made By All! Transform the World! (MM1969). In the twenty-first century version poetry is written and produced “on demand” and the tower becomes a place for readings, discussions and conversation.
Daniel Birnbaum and Ann-Sofi Noring, the curators of After Babel, gives an introduction to the exhibition.
Grouped around the Babylonian tower are works by George Adéagbo (Benin/Germany), Etel Adnan (Lebanon/France), Kader Attia (Algeria/France), Yael Bartana (Israel/Netherlands), Paul Chan (Hong Kong/USA), Rivane Neuenschwander (Brazil/Great Britain), Michelangelo Pistoletto (Italy) and Haegue Yang (Korea/Germany).
Several of the artists are represented in the museum’s collection and some of the works have also been installed elsewhere as corresponding parts of a larger context that allows the museum to widen the view beyond the standard western perspective of art history.
After Babel serves as a hub for this building of bridges between languages and traditions in which the multifaceted works of the artists can create new meanings and openings to a wider world.
Artist Simon Denny gives us a tour of his and architect Alessandro Bava’s Contemporary Tower of Babel/PMBMBA, an exhibition Design commissioned by the LUMA Foundation in 2015 for the exhibition After Babel.
Curators: Daniel Birnbaum and Ann-Sofi Noring
89 PLUS – OPEN CALL!
89plus is calling for poets, artists, writers, architects, filmmakers, musicians, designers, choreographers, scientists and technologists born in or after 1989 to participate in “Poetry Will be Made by All!” as part of the exhibition “After Babel”.