Entering the exhibition "Sleeping with a Vengeance, Dreaming of a Life" at the Kunstverein in Stuttgart, curated by Ruth Noack, I encountered my favourite piece of the exhibition, but one that also made me doubt the exhibition's premise. Annette Ruenzler's collages titled "Konfliktsituation" and "Übersprungsschlaf" were accompanied by the following curatorial text:
"Zum Beginn gleich die Antitheses zum subversiven Schlafen und produktiven Träumen. Annette Ruenzlers Collagen zeigen Wattvögel, die einschlafen, sobald sie widersprüchlichen Impulsen ausgesetzt sind. Schlaf dient ihnen also Vermeidungsstrategie. Das mag erheitern und wunderbar kontrafaktisch sein, ist aber nicht wirklich subversiv." [Let's start with the antithesis of subversive sleeping and productive dreaming. Annette Ruenzler's collages show "Wattvögel" that fall asleep as soon as they encounter contradictory impulses. Sleep serves them as an avoidance strategy. That might amuse and be counterfactual, but is not really subversive.]
If falling asleep when encountering problems is not seen as a subversive strategy by the curator, I don't understand why she bothers at all. I was reminded of a saying by Anonymous Italian Anarchist (in Cose Cosmiche's George-fanzine): "Sleep is undoubtedly the most sensual form of protest."
I showed a picture of the display to artist Wolfgang Müller who knows everything about birds. He noticed immediately that the name of the bird was spelled incorrectly: it's "Watvogel" and not "Wattvogel." "A common mistake," Wolfgang Müller explained to me, "because people tend to think that the bird's name comes from the Wattenmeer at the north sea coast."
Overall, I found the exhibition to be quite over-designed in the colours of pink and orange. Apparently it's a trademark of the Kunstverein Stuttgart to let exhibition designers cover up as much as possible of its original architecture. Also a mistake.
PS: On the bright side, while I was getting upset at the entrance, suddenly a nice face popped up out of the blue: artist Aykan Safoǧlu, who has spent the last year at Schloss Solitude in Stuttgart. He told me he's now moving on to Vienna where he's on his way to adding a PhD to his name.
