It made me enter an exhibiton with an interrogating eye, accompanied with a feeling of being undercover. It trained my eye to see more. And it didn’t take long before I was looking away from the artwork. Who put the vase with flowers in the same room as the art? Where are the drinks?
Soon I was also listening away from the artwork. From the nibbles and treats at the art opening, my attention was drawn to the snippets of conversations around the art. Followed by the people who had them. I added the artists I met in or outside their studio. The hotel where I stayed. My walk around town. I also took my voyeurism back home, to Berlin, when I was in the library, had a coffee, or took a stroll in the park. The surroundings of art have so far been excluded from art critical writing. Only recently, we have started to include ourselves: the way we feel or how our bodies move in an exhibition. Sometimes we even venture outside the art space, describing how we got to there or what happened after we left. But we could include much more: nature, people, things. In the end, art encompasses everyone and everything. Like a detective, we have to observe the whole picture in order to understand it fully.
Excerpt of An’s art pamphlet Things with Teeth, which will be published in summer 2024.
An Paenhuysen is a curator, writer and educator. In 2020 she founded the art writing project AAAAA PPPPP Publishing. In her research, An is interested in the critical potential of the short and the light-humoured. Her Silly Poems were published by Cose Cosmiche.
An Paenhuysen – www.anpaenhuysen.net
Note: This text is part of our WallArt Journal #2, which we specially produced for the SPARK Art Fair 2024 in Vienna. You can find copies around Vienna, or if you want to have one, feel free to contact us.