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Seeing with your feet

The Carpet in Contemporary Art

They come in all imaginable colors, shapes and variations: high pile, Persian, fur, oriental, hand-knotted, woven or machine-produced. The oldest preserved example of a knotted carpet is the Pasyryk carpet. It was made around 500 BC, probably in Western Asia, and was recovered in the Pasyryk Valley (Southern Siberia). The long history of the carpet is always closely linked to the history of mankind: for example, it says something about our sedentariness, our relationship to space, or even our hospitality.

27.02.22
22.05.22

In addition to highlighting the historical and social junctures, the exhibition enables one thing above all: a sensory experience for all! The artists in the exhibition engage with a medium with which we probably all associate a memory. In the exhibition, these memories can be released or even expanded through new perspectives. In this way, the exhibits remain identifiable not only as inanimate „things,“ but offer a starting point for sensory reflection on the past, present, and future.

It is significant that especially in recent years a large number of artists have (re)resorted to the medium of the carpet. Especially in times that are perceived as particularly changeable, we invoke an inventory of the old familiar. At the same time, however, the artists in the exhibition develop a new visual language and combine the familiar with the unfamiliar, resulting in a very unique mixture. We can push into this gap, out of a wealth of experience and a new orientation, and unfold our very own and sensual perception on site.

Participant artists: Faig Ahmed, Ramazan Can, Zuzanna Czebatul, Pia Ferm, Lucy Ann Guth, Debbie Lawson, Littlewhitehead, Veronika Mangold, Noémi Kiss, Sophia Ringgenburger, Salah Saouli, Farkhondeh Shahroudi, Slavs and Tatars