Ensemble

The exhibition Monoculture – A Recent History brings together art from the last one hundred years, to consider the impetus for the monocultural self-image, and how this has been reflected in artistic work as well as in propaganda and philosophy.

The philosophical undercurrent to our investigations in Monoculture – A Recent History comes via the notion of ‘ambiguity’. In particular, this is through the pioneering, and under-recognised work of the Polish-Austrian psychoanalyst Else Frenkel-Brunswik. Her scientific investigation into individual responses to ambiguous stimuli – or ‘Ambiguity Tolerance’ – makes correlation between our perception, cognitive function and social outlook. Ambiguity here, might for example be another person of ambiguous race, gender or sexuality, but could also be with other encounters such as with objects and sensorial experiences. We are putting art in this category, understanding that art can be fundamentally ambiguous, not only aesthetically, but also ontologically – in terms of the nature of its existence in society. In this sense, art is also a reflection of the ambiguity of the human condition. With the inclusion of ambiguity, artistically and philosophically-speaking, in this exhibition, we also wish to look at what practices, values, and ways of living or perceiving might be excluded by the formation of monocultures of all kinds. And what might it mean for citizenship, for democracy, for the scale of tolerance and intolerance towards diversity, for the search for common ground, for creativity, and for cultural institutions today?

We have sought as much as possible to consider monoculture, not as something exclusively conservative or right-wing and thus antithetical to liberal culture, but rather as something that can be found across social and ideological partialities. Recent debates on identity politics and cultural appropriation, though intended as a means for seeking equality for those minoritised due to one’s race, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion or social class, have raised subsequent questions on whether this also becomes another form of cultural homogeneity, and one that allows little room for deviation or other forms of social liberalism. In this sense multiculturalism can also be monocultural. These debates are also being played out in the artistic sphere, in terms of the environmental conditions and freedoms of practice for artists, and also for how institutions work.

Artists include:
Hannah Höch, Lovis Corinth, Karl Hofer, George Grosz, Carol Rama, Werner Peiner, Belgian Institute for World Affairs, Joseph Beuys, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Åsa Sonjasdotter, Andy Warhol, Nicole, Hüseyin Bahri Alptekin, Haseeb Ahmed, Sven Augustijnen, Candida Höfer, Papa Ibra Tall, Maryam Najd, David Blandy, Oxana Shachko, Matti Braun, Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys, Luc Deleu, Jimmie Durham, Catherine Opie, Charlotte Posenenske, Public Movement, Philip Guston, Mladen Stilinović, N. S. Harsha, Lynette Yiadom-Boakye, Rasheed Araeen, Ibrahim Mahama, Kerry James Marshall, Vincent Meessen, Renzo Martens/CATPC, Danny Matthys, Jonas Staal, Sille Storihle, Makhmut Usmanovich Usmanov, Nicoline van Harskamp, Dimitri Venkov