Language/Text/Image

The questions "Can you hear me (now)?" or "Can you see me (now)?" have become very familiar since the rapid development of digital networking. They are often asked when someone wants to make sure that they can be clearly heard or seen in a communication link. But they also refer to the human need to be heard and seen and how these mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion are regulated and restricted.

The exhibition Language/Text/Image shows works of art from the 1950s to the present day in which the relationship between language, text and image is thematised, reflected upon and questioned with regard to its social and political dimensions. Artistic means are used to examine the possibilities of making something sayable, visible and audible.

The exhibition shows recent works, but also reaches far back into the time before digital networking: photographs by Gordon Parks from the 1950s show everyday situations in the south of the USA, where the separation of the white and black population was omnipresent, including through regulatory signs. The signs held up by the people in Gillian Wearing's photographs, on the other hand, show what was going through their minds at the time. How language regulates social processes is a central theme in Nadine Fecht's work. Her approach can also be seen in the tradition of language-analytical conceptual art, which is represented by key video works by John Baldessari and Gary Hill. Formal rules also characterise the works by Natalie Czech, which complement the exhibition in KAI 10. They also have a playful, poetic side, as we also find in Markus Vater's text-image combinations. Ayşe Erkmen fragments a dummy text from Latin letters so that it is reminiscent of hieroglyphs from a written language outside of Western culture. Alice Bidault refers to such a language when she cites the Quipu knotting technique, which was developed by the Incas in South America. Textile memories of the deceased are the large-format, visually stunning quilts of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt, the world's largest community art project, whose handmade memorial cloths are collected by the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco.

Works by John Baldessari, Alice Bidault, Natalie Czech, Ayse Eerkmen, Nadine Fecht, Gary Hill, National Aids Memorial Quilt, Gordon Parks, Markus Vater, Gillian Wearing (Source: Kai 10 | Arthena Foundation)

Exhibition duration: 27 June to 7 December 2025