During the opening days we were once again able to welcome artists, curators, festival organizers, collectors, and scholars to Bonn. This meant plenty of Dialogue and encounter, discussions and impulses, new faces and friendships and art. And these are only some of the terms that made up the opening weekend of VIDEONALE.19. In various formats, including Speed Dating, Networking Lunch, Round Tables and Think Tanks, the two days were primarily about reflecting on the current state and imagining new paths for the art business, and to place the contents of the works shown in the V.19 exhibition inside and outside the exhibition space.
ROUND TABLES & SPEED DATING
At our Round Tables we invited you to reflect on different aspects of advocacy and to contribute your experiences and evaluations together with the initiating V.19 artists who opened the table. We asked ourselves how the art world can contribute to rethinking collaboration, authorship, memory, and cultural politics. In the Think Tanks, impulse-givers asked to connect important social issues and questions of the art business, to rethink the role of art as handled by institutions, and for conceiving communities differently. Thank you for joining us in crossing mental boundaries.
SCREENING + TALKS
The 27 works of VIDEONALE.19 deal with topics of contemporary relevance in diverse and complex artistic narratives. Through their content, they become advocates of marginalized perspectives, to which they lend voice and visibility. A central question of the opening days was therefore: What does it mean to be an artistic advocate for personal concerns? How does this influence the choice of topics and artistic decisions? And at the same time, we asked ourselves, who do we reach with art at all and for whom is it accessible in our systems? At screenings of VIDEONALE.19 works and in conversation with artists and guests, we entered into conversation to experience the role of art in all of this on the basis of the works shown.
PERFORMANCE
The first stop outside the museum on Opening Day 1 was the empty Viktoriabad in the heart of Bonn. For the performance DOOM new life entered this special place. At the edge of the pool, we were able to experience how the end of the world could be mourned in a cathartic way.
On opening day 2 we experienced the performance TONTÄNZE, an extension of the V.19 work Die Hörposaune by Antonia Baehr & Jule Flierl & Isabell Spengler in the auditorium of Kunstmuseum Bonn.
