Old Granary, Fiskars
12.5.-15.9.2013
Critical Contemporary Art and Design
Art is often quiet contemplation. However, sometimes it is necessary to state your message loud and clear. When the sheer volume of injustice in the world seems overwhelming and so few seem to care about the necessity for change, artists need to take a stand and speak up – even by hyperbolic and provocative means.
The Fiskars Summer Exhibition, Spark – Critical Contemporary Art and Design, explores critical art and design in the 2010’s. Where are the boundaries between art and reality? What issues does the new documentarism in art focus on? How can design take a stand – with its ever-expanding reach?
There are many questions. How to make social commentary without being trapped by political clichés? Can you also take a stand for maintaining traditions? Is tendentious art merely tendentious art? What alternatives are there to postmodern irony? How to avoid empty progressive gestures? Is it possible to create art with the experiential power to stir the audience not just aesthetically, but also ethically, politically and socially? Can they all be mixed together?
