Curated by Raul Zamudio
White Box, NYC
August 11- Sept. 10, 2011
Artists:
Isaac Aden, Luis Alonzo-Barkigia, Marcela Astorga, Marc Bijl, Karlos Carcamo, Daniel Davidson, Wim Delvoye, Adolfo Doring, Martin Ferran, Kendell Geers, Fernando Martin Godoy, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Istvan Kantor, Ray Kelly, Dominic McGill, Teresa Margolles, Dennis Oppenheim, Damian Ontiveros, Ashery Oreet, Pasha Radetzki, Joaquin Segura, Celia Elsamieh Shomal, Susan Sontag, Javier Tellez, Mookie Tenebaum, Wojtek Ulrich, Abdul Vas, Ruben Verdu, Ai Weiwei, Zhou Wendou.
How to Philosophize with a Hammer is an exhibition of international artists that work in video, painting, sculpture, works-on-paper, photography, installation, and performance. The title is taken from Friedrich Nietzsche's Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (1889). How to Philosophize with a Hammer followed the Gay Science (1882) in which Nietzsche pronounced that "god is dead."
After this deicide came other "deaths" in the late twentieth century including "the death of the author," "the end of history," and "the death of painting." As such, the works in the exhibition underscore the usurpation of authority but within a contemporary context. The artists address the exhibition's thematic framework in myriad ways where their philosophizing is articulated through diverse artistic genres. Some philosophers have viewed artistic practice as a form of philosophy, and the iconoclasm of these artists' works hammers against political, financial, social, and religious institutions. This iconoclasm signals the need to reinvent new modes of thinking and being while reflecting on the existential crisis that humanity finds itself marked by wars, ecological disaster, economic collapse, terrorism, and revolution. In short, it is the perfect end of summer exhibitions.
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