Venus, 2018

Felt · Horsehair · Wire · Iron Rod · Hemp Cord  |  340 x 210 x 230 cm 

Kunsthalle Duesseldorf, Germany
29 Jun - 08 Sep 2024

The extensive group exhibition Healing the Earth is a collaboration between Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Chinggis Khaan National Museum in Ulaanbaatar and Arts & Media Project Management & Consulting NGO to mark 50 years of diplomatic relations between Germany and Mongolia. The ties between the two nations go back much further than 50 years, however. For example, young Mongolians were sent to study in Germany as far back as 1926. In Mongolia, Germany is still referred to as the country’s “third neighbour”, and more than one per cent of the population speaks German.

Drawing on Joseph Beuys’ early pioneering work, the project Healing the Earth builds a new bridge in the anniversary year of German-Mongolian friendship: between the culture of nomadic peoples (a culture they have practised for millennia and which is vital to their survival) and contemporary art. It is dedicated to the perspectives of different cultures and explores memories from the past. However, it also looks into the future, weaves new threads into an open network of relationships and opens up dialogues between different artistic approaches in order to explore the current state of the planet and possible ways of healing.

Theory and practice and art and politics should not be conceived of as separate systems that have chronically failed to understand each other since the start of the modern era. Instead, they should be understood as a continuum. Art represents the existence of and is witness to the invocation of forces that Western society has gradually forgotten since the advent of the modern era. However, the potential for summoning up of myths and archaic vitality persists; images of human figures and living creatures, homes, tents, mountains, landscapes and the heavens are at once primeval and contemporary.

The works by 18 contemporary artists that will be presented in Düsseldorf and Ulaanbaatar examine ways and means of questioning and challenging the current relationships and circumstances in the world. The web woven by the different works in diverse media may provide an opportunity to distance ourselves from the West’s frequently arrogant attitude and to ask for other, liveable futures in new, unforeseen alliances: What kind of healing for which Earth?

JAVKHLAN Ariunbold, OCHIRBOLD Ayurzana, BAATARZORIG Batjargal, MUNKHTSETSEG Batmunkh, Joseph Beuys, NOMIN Bold, Mariechen Danz, OTGONBAYAR Dashdorj, UNEN Enkh, GERELKHUU Ganbold, Melike Kara, Claudia Mann, Carmen Schaich, Slavs & Tatars, Thomas Stricker, GAN-ERDENE Tsend, Julian Westermann, TUGULDUR Yondonjamts

The earliest artworks made by human hand were sculptures, the oldest amongst them is a tiny Paleolithic Venus, carved of mammoth ivory. Sculptor Unen Enkh selects archaic materials like the original artists, combining Mongolian felt, wire and horsehair to create forms that expand to infinity and come to be magical through their symbolic power. His »Venus« is born from the union of heaven and earth, the energy of light gathered and transferred, blending matter and spirit, masculine and feminine. The ancient ivory figurine of Venus demonstrates how already 40,000 years ago, through the process of turning energy into a reality, creative humanity had emerged. The sheer magnitude of the process that it started is embodied in a contemporary sculpture by Unen Enkh.

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