IN CONVERSATION
with Melanie Bono
9 February 2015

 

Series of conversations with curators and guests in and around of Cologne about currents projects and questions towards contemporary art

Q: In 2013 you curated the exhibition in Taipei called "Risk Society - Individualization in Young Contemporary Art from Germany". The term "risk society" is borrowed from the title of the book by the sociologist Ulrich Beck. What were the reasons behind this reference and what was the connection to young "German art"?
A: With this theme I wanted to establish a connection between Taiwan and Germany, to have a reference to both sides. Because I was to present a young generation of German artists, I considered it important to have similar experiences and life situations as a starting point. The phenomena of individualization, as Ulrich Beck describes it, brings together a large bandwidth of societal developments and transformations, that Western capitalistic society has moved through since Modernity. In Taiwan these developments are delayed due to the traditional, consensus oriented societal structure and the late democratization. But today similar questions are posed both here and there, for example, what role should the atom bomb play or who determines how the cities are developed (...) I'm interested if the concept of the "Local" and accordinly the "Regional" is personally relevant for today's artists and curators. What does it mean to allow local issues to flow into one's own work?

Melanie Bono is an art historian and sociologist and was until the beginning of 2015 Curator of Contemporary Art and Deputy Director of the Landesmuseum Münster. While there she was also responsible for the archive of the "Sculpture Projects". From 2007 to 2009 she headed the NAK, Neuer Aachener Kunstverein.

Funding and Support
Cultural Office of the City of Cologne

Images
Melanie Bono: Risk Society. Individualization in Young Contemporary Art from German, 2013
Photo: Museum of Contemporary Art MOCA Taipeh