SAY IT ISN' T SO

ART TRAINS ITS SIGHTS ON THE NATURAL SCIENCES

If SAY IT ISN'T SO is judged by its own standards the audience ought to be quite content. The current exhibition at the Weserburg Museum in Bremen, Germany, doesn't aim at forcing a convergence of art and science. Rather, it wants to mirror the current art discourse which is more about a coexistence of the two disciplines.

The extensive show is almost overcrowded but nicely presented, getting to the point very well – maybe except for the so-called 'special guests', e.g. Duchamp, that don't really fit in. In one of the most interesting works Hinrich Sachs presents the biologist Ansgar Phillipsen who works on the visualization of proteins. From very diffuse and abstract data he constructs imaginative, colorful virtual sculptures. Their aesthetics are based on molecule-construction kits used by scientists in the past decades. Phillipsen's works represent their very own art history. Thus, reality is constructed, not objective to some extent... a reality that sometimes is worshipped more by non-scientists than by the scientific community itself.

Most of the other works in the exhibition radiate this kind of distance between art and science in a strong way: irony is the most favoured stylistic means, you could almost say: the gag. Mock scientific projects, alieneted to the absurd may make sense in the context of a specific artist but regarding the idea of the exhibition they seem profane.

Stylistic idiom no. 2 is the aesthetic appropriation. The visual power of scientific instruments, colorful diagrams or historical machines are tempting for artists. But the negative effect might be that the point of their work goes down the drain of romanticism and sleek lab-decoration. If you ever stood next to a real-life particle accelerator you might feel the artworks cannot quite compete this way.

Finally, what remains nonetheless is an attractive show that represents today's artistic spirit related to science very well. And seemingly, the search for a connection between art and science – at least, natural science – is considered as pointless. Most important aspects of science today, like cooperations of the scientific community, ethical aspects like genetic engineering, or economical entanglements concerning research budgets, are not covered at all. The curator's statement comes into mind where it is stated that art sets itself next to science, watching it. If this is sufficient it may be doubtful but is a different story.

Curated by Peter Friese, Guido Boulboullé and Susanne Witzgall

Participating artists and artists:

Brian Collier (USA)

Mark of Dion (the USA)

Gallery for landscape art (D)

Henrik Håkansson (S)

Franc Hessian (D)

Carsten Höller (D)

John Isaacs (GB)

Christoph cellar (D)

Szabolcs KissPál (H)

Gerhard Long (D), M+M (D)

Carsten Nicolai (D)

Olaf Nicolai (D)

Nana Petzet (D)

Theda Radtke (D)

Tyyne Claudia Pollmann (D)

Hannes Rickli (CH)

Hinrich Sachs (D)

Conrad Shawcross (GB)

Herwig Turk/Günter Stöger (A)

Judith Walgenbach (D)

“Special Guests”

Marcel Duchamp (F)

Nikolaus Long (D)

Bruce Nauman (USA)

Weserburg - Museum für moderne Kunst (Museum for modern art)

Teerhof 20, 28199 Bremen

www.weserburg.de

to 09/16/2007

di-fr 10-19, DO 10-21, sa/su 11-18

Tel. 0049 (0)4 21/59 83 9-0,

Pascal Unbehaun

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Read this article in German at the Büro für Kunstvermittlung