"Crossing the Atlantic: 40 Years of DAAD New York" Exhibition
The Chelsea Art Museum
This event has ended.
As New York City has been historically recognized as an urban hub of cultural exchange, DAAD, the German Academic Exchange Service, facilitates intercultural connections. “Crossing the Atlantic: 40 Years of DAAD New York” celebrates the accomplishments of DAAD New York as a transatlantic mediator for German and North American artists, students, researchers, and scholars over the past 40 years. This exhibition, which features photography, sculpture, video, and mixed media installations, investigates the multi-faceted themes of crossing the Atlantic, relocation and dislocation, reinventing oneself on the other side of the Atlantic, migration, and foreignness.
During the past 15 years, the worldwide migrant population has been steadily increasing; in the year 2000, one in every 35 people had migrated internationally. While the patterns of global migration are constantly shifting, cities represent fixed points of origin, transit, or destination. In New York City, a metropolis of immigrant inhabitants, over one-third of the city’s population is foreign-born. A temporary destination for many of its residents, New York City is a microcosm of this global migration phenomenon. Crossing the Atlantic Ocean, the physically expansive border between North America and Europe, signifies a heightened sense of opportunity, discovery, and re-creation of one’s identity. The Atlantic Ocean acts as a permeable membrane for the transmission of artistic, cultural, political, and scientific ideas for both continents.
The transatlantic interchange between European and American artists is a time-honored tradition. American artists of the 19th and early 20th centuries often looked to European models of painting, sculpture, and architecture as the pinnacle of artistic creation. In the mid 19th century, a number of well-known American painters, such as William Merritt Chase and John Twachtman, studied in Germany at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and later established themselves as pioneers of American Impressionism. Conversely, some German artists, including Max Ernst and Sigmar Polke, relocated to America at certain points in their careers. Ernst lived in New York from 1941 to 1945, where he worked with both European and American colleagues. Sigmar Polke travelled extensively in the 1970s, photographing New York City, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Paris, and Brazil. Polke’s desire for unfamiliar experiences through travel suggests the incomparable nature of first-hand observation.
Travel has the capacity to transform an artist’s traditional practices and to introduce them to an entirely new visual vocabulary. The exposure to foreign surroundings and lifestyles often triggers a shift in state of mind, creative philosophy, or mode of production. Today, we live in a world of perpetual cultural exchange, generated by the internet and the ease of international travel. The internet provides instantaneous global connections via photographs, web cameras and other media. By crossing borders, we can easily immerse ourselves in another culture – yet the challenge remains in developing an improved, intercultural understanding. DAAD promotes communication through cooperative academic, artistic, and scientific exchange; artists serve as mediators by engaging in cross-cultural dialogue. As the artists in “Crossing the Atlantic” relocate to various global destinations, they transmit their experiences and use art as a means to facilitate this critical intercultural exchange.
This exhibition is made possible by the generous support of DAAD and DAAD Alumni USA.
[Image: Katherine Newbegin "Hotel Turist I, Chisinau Moldova" (2007) C-Print 30 x 40 in.]
Media
Schedule
from April 08, 2011 to April 22, 2011
Opening Reception on 2011-04-08 from 18:00 to 20:00
Artist(s)
Katherine Newbegin et al.