Order Connection Order
PILOTENKUECHE 58
16.02.2024 to 25.02.2024
Alte Handelsschule, Leipzig, Germany
Curated by Raffaella Matrone and Natalie McCann
Artists:
Alessandro Telles (BR), Bram Engelaar (NL), Seth Birch (US), Ai Huang (CN), Eunjiin Kim (KR), Saverio Bonelli (IT), Nora Neagoe (RO/UK), Léonie von Saldern (DE), Aya Ando (JP), Dagmar Zehnel (DE), Tianxu Liu (CN)
Assistants:
Margot Lallier (FR), Kintija Avena (LV), Boram Choi (KR), Jonas Lamoliatte (FR)
Photos courtesy of PILOTENKUECHE
"In all chaos there is a cosmos, in all disorder a secret order." – Carl Jung
Forces of order shape our lives. Reason, logic, and predictability regulate every facet of the contemporary urban experience. With each tick of the clock, we are reminded where we ought to be and what we ought to be doing. The division of space and time into tidy, discreet units standardizes natural occurrences and raw circumstance, adding structure to our lives but also estranging us from organic rhythms. Instruments of public order—governmental agencies, the school system, and the police force—mold us into responsible citizens by monitoring our behavior. And yet, just beneath this veneer of rationality, lies a seething labyrinth of chaos, sensuality, and imperfection, contained but never fully eradicated.
Michel Foucault famously popularized the concept of panopticism, the tendency to conform to social dictates when you believe that you are being watched. Over time, punishment and hierarchical intervention often cease to be necessary, since we ourselves become the architects of our own submission to authority. Hence, organized structures of power and surveillance can engender compliance and docility, imposed from without but also from within. While the legal apparatus dispenses discipline, social media thrusts us—with our own consent—onto a virtual, voyeuristic world stage, introducing a new form of panopticism. And yet, this very same technology also creates endless possibilities for global interconnection.
Even as they improve our standard of living, technology and hierarchy can also divide us, resulting in detachment and isolation. When we go to work, we often focus on efficiency and productivity rather than our coworkers or our mental health. When we have spare time, we look at our phones rather than those around us. And when we seek romance, we rely on dating apps rather than happenstance and serendipity. It was the ancient philosopher Aristotle who first argued that humans are by nature social animals. What happens to our humanity when we embrace principles of order? Do we form connections or sabotage them? Do we become less human… or more?
Order Connection Order features new works of art by eleven international artists who probe the interstitial space between opposites such as structure and disarray, civilization and nature, rationality and intuition. In the gallery space, the juxtaposition of objects that alternatively embrace and defy conventions of order creates a frisson of tension: triptychs coexist with jumbles of color, sleek forms encounter rough edges, brute materiality confronts conceptual intervention. This lively aesthetic dialogue strikes a delicate and provocative balance between harmony and dissonance, lightness and darkness, communication and alienation.
Created during the first half of a three-month residency at PILOTENKUECHE, the selected artworks pose vital questions about the human condition during an era of late capitalism and high technology. While interrogating the significance of order in our everyday lives, participating artists also seized the opportunity to subvert self-imposed rules by expanding their artistic practices, whether through experimentation with new media or exploration of novel conceptual pathways. Through the fruitful chaos that comes from exchange, they have forged meaningful and unexpected connections amongst themselves and with the city of Leipzig. Germany serves as an electrifying backdrop, since many of the artists are visiting the country for the first time and still see it with fresh eyes. Found objects collected from the streets and secondhand shops of Leipzig appear in several different works of art.
There is no correct way to move through the exhibition space. Visitors are encouraged to chart their own paths, whether spontaneous and meandering or more carefully planned. As you navigate this swirl of color, shadow, and metal, we invite you to meditate on your own attitude towards order. Does it enhance or diminish your connections with others? Do you welcome its clarifying influence, resist its restrictive limitations, or merely tolerate it as an inevitable aspect of contemporary life?
