The group exhibition There Must Be Some Kind Of Way Outta Here examines the desire to escape from social realities and takes place simultaneously in both our Berlin and Vienna galleries.

 

The title of the exhibition comes from a song written by Bob Dylan in 1967, which became a cult hit with Jimi Hendrix’s version. With a mixture of pleading and defiance, it evokes the search for a way out of a seemingly hopeless situation, for a door or window out of despair, darkness, and distress.

 

It has been claimed that art is such a door or window. With this in mind, the exhibition takes up the Dylan/Hendrix song and focuses on escape strategies of artists from recent art history. These approaches can range from escapism, excess, politicization, and flight from the world to denial and inner emigration.

 

In times of global crises, such as a pandemic, climate change, displacement, hunger, poverty, inequality, war, and de-democratization, the expectations for artistic responses are becoming ever greater and at the same time increasingly difficult to fulfill.

 

The exhibition therefore deliberately shows historical positions that are considered precursors and important trailblazers, as well as works by younger artists from today who are confronted with the question of exit strategies from a seemingly completely confused and unmanageable situation.

 

One could argue that art as such is already per se a kind of escape from the world. But it is not! Art is canvas, material, color, learning, self-assertion, self-observation, trial and error. Art is as real as hyper-capitalism, psycho-politics, climate destruction, and the coronavirus crisis. It is part of the big picture, and cannot be separated from the rest, which is why the search for fundamental ways out can and must begin at its core. But if you want to understand and infiltrate the operating system “art,” you first have to escape the circumstances—one takes flight, seeks excess, and rehearses escapism.

 

In the past, the path eventually led back to society, to reality, to normality, to the realities of the everyday—and thus brought about their transformation, at least in part. But does that still work in the face of a world that is itself evaporating into escapism, egoism, diffusion, and fragmentation?

 

There Must Be Some Kind of Way Outta Here is curated by Andreas Huber. On view are works by Cecilia Bengolea, Joseph Beuys, Stine Deja, Carola Dertnig, Alexandre Diop, Marcel Duchamp, Dan Graham, Eckart Hahn, Vladimir Houdek, George Hoyningen-Huene, Clemens Krauss, Hamlet Lavastida, David Link, Marcel Odenbach, Justine Otto, Florentina Pakosta, Rudolf Polanszky, Man Ray, Rudolf Ribarz, Andreas Slominski, Oswald Stimm, Milen Till, and Rosemarie Trockel.

 

Our Viennese and Berlin gallery spaces will be connected by video screens. In the Berlin space, you can see the Viennese exhibition, and in the Vienna gallery you can see the Berlin exhibition. And you can find both presented together on our website as a virtual tour.

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German version →

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Works on View  →