Uncertain Maps
The group exhibition *Uncertain Maps* at KAI 10 | Arthena Foundation showcases works of visual art that demonstrate that maps never merely depict reality, but also reflect ideas, imaginations and personal perspectives.
In this way, they guide us along unfamiliar, open paths through real and fictional worlds.
Cartographic maps are rarely unambiguous records of reality. Even though they suggest rationality and objectivity, they operate in a space that is never entirely free of subjectivity – a space between representations and symbols, between image and language – and ultimately between reality and fiction – not least because they follow scales that determine where precision in detail ends.
On printed world maps, the location of Kai 10 | Arthena Foundation will be almost impossible to find. Only on digital maps can one zoom in as much as one likes. Yet there are countries and places that can only be found on fictional maps, such as Lummerland from Michael Ende’s famous *Jim Knopf* novels. Cartographically inspired fiction, however, is not confined to children’s books but is also found in the work of many artists. Here we find original renderings and distortions of travel experiences, alongside detailed designs of imagined places and countries. Structures that appear cartographic, with a profusion of symbolic or ornamental elements, can develop into entirely unique conceptual worlds. This also applies to the works integrated into the exhibition that are traditionally referred to as ‘outsider art’. Much of what is on display in *Uncertain Maps* remains open to interpretation: Is it a depiction or an evocation of an external reality, of landscapes and cities? Are they attempts to record inner, mental states – emotional or cognitive maps that represent spatial information in memory? Or are digital data streams being made visible? Even images created for practical and scientific purposes can be ‘read’ differently from their intended cartographic purpose, such as satellite images from the Icelandic National Land Survey. When artists explore a terrain, be it real or born of the imagination, their mappings generally become ‘Uncertain Maps’ that lead us down paths not to be found in any ordinary atlas. (Source: Kai 10 | Arthena Foundation)
Featuring works by: Franz Ackermann, Jens Bleckmann, DAG, Ólafur Elíasson, Esther Ernst, Julius Hartauer, Michael Golz, Christian Pilz, Isabell Schulte.
Exhibition dates: 27 February to 2 October 2026.