Past exhibition at Lumiar Cité:

Lukas Einsele
Mute
01 - 18.09.2011

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In this exhibition, Lukas Einsele (Essen, 1963) links his practice based on research on mass weapon production and arsenals of mines and cluster bombs and their geopolitical ramifications with the operational system of art itself, evoking the common origins of Modernity and Capitalism.

Every detail in the exhibition at Lumiar Cité is calibrated to appear as multi- layered, charged with ambiguities as understood as inherent to Modernity (Herman Melville). The components of the exhibition (invitation, projection, photographs, lecture and text) are carefully articulated for the installation to open up an intellectual space for triggering viewersʼ own thoughts. Referring to silver bullets in an allusion to the opera ʻDer Freischützʼ (ʻThe Marksmanʼ) by Carl Maria von Weber, the core work of the exhibition comprises a one-to-one scale, pure silver cast of a component of a M85 cluster bomb, ʻlockingʼ part of the exhibition budget in this semi- abstract sculpture with its sprues still attached, presented in a vitrine. In ʻDer Freischützʼ, the protagonists make a deal with the devil to achieve magic powers, using specially cast silver bullets to cheat in a shooting contest. Lukas Einsele extends his critical approach to research into non-art-related issues explored in todayʼs operational systems for creating meaning in contemporary art, as well to the practices of funding bodies. The disciplinary methodologies imposed by these bodies on exhibition organizers, which shift this pressure onto the artist, reveal that the romantic freedom projected onto artistic practices is a myth.

ʻDer Freischützʼ, conceived in a Romantic Era, two centuries ago, has a happy ending. The question of to what extent artists today will be able to control their own production scenario in the light of being a producer who seeks to change the given production circumstances (Walter Benjamin) has yet to be answered.


Project financed with the support of the European Commission.