OPEN SPACE 11 | Platon, give me your smile

Sophie Aigner, Claudia Fischer, Ulrike Hannemann, Andy Heller, Ruth Hommelsheim, Susanne Huth, Werner Huthmacher, Ulrike Kolb, Bettina Lockemann, Ulrike Ludwig, Jens Lüstraeten, Julia Müller, Sabine Schründer 

curated by: Elke Tesch 

Plato, give me your smile.
A photographic parable

Opening: Friday, 8 June 2012, 7 p.m.
Exhibition: 9 June - 28 July 2012

Artist talk: Thursday, 5 July 2012, 7 p.m. 
Lecture Performance: Saturday, 14 July 2012, 7 p.m. (Christopher Dell, Vibraphon) 

 

The world (of appearances) is neither infinite nor finite in time and space, since it is not a thing in itself, […]. We can only assume: the world has no beginning in time and is not enclosed by borders. (Immanuel Kant) 

To celebrate its fifth year in existence the Loris Gallery presents thirteen artistic viewpoints in a jubilee exhibition. The exhibition Plato, give me your smile is a collection of pictures that convey the diversity of worlds and, as a photographic fan between philosophy and reality, explore the meaning of human existence. 

Each camera image opens up a microcosm in the macrocosm. The world in the world is the real radius of human movement – fantasy worlds, niches, dream worlds, mental constructs, worlds of colour. The picturesque becomes a refugium, childhood returns to remembered places, the past and utopias blend in with the present, and texts assume a life of their own. 

We are physically present in some places but mentally somewhere else. It is almost impossible to decipher the worlds that are more real, the world of fantasy, memory and thought or the surrounding world of reality. We constantly reinterpret our environment, which we perceive through experience and knowledge, and observe from our own perspective; some realities cannot be seen with the naked eye, others are so dominant that they almost leave no room for anything else. 

Realitites unseen by the naked eye can be perceived in a different light only under a microscope, in a detail, in reorganization and juxtaposition. The works shown in the exhibition raise the issue of how much reality fiction can endure and vice versa, and lead to the conclusion that a walk through our own world is more meaningful than our location via temporal and spatial coordinates. In this context, the philosopher in his permanent search for meaning, gives us a smile that connects diverse worlds and a cosmopolitan sideways glance from the austere epicentre to an infinite universe with thousands of centres. 

Elke Tesch