shrinking cities

(group exhibition, online research project. 2004, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin)

http://www.shrinkingcities.com images © Shrinking Cities / Büro Philipp Oswalt, Berlin.

It is a group show, yet the artists themselves are sublimated into the curator's plan. The chief curator, Philipp Oswalt, similar to the classical music conductor, takes on the larger role as artist-genius through his direction of artists, graphic designers, exhibition designers, even other curators. Although each artist is expected to do their thing, and space is thusly given, the exhibition itself is the artwork.

The textual references for this exhibition on the trends of urban shrinkage are thick. There are online texts and one whole floor devoted to display historical timelines of the rise and fall of Detroit (USA), Halle(DE), Liverpool (UK) and Ivano (RU). This creates a pedagogical situation where the contemporary art space plays the role of contemporary natural history museum. The artworks are illustrations to a post-industrialist narrative. There are even British Museum-like artifacts: many artists such as Tyree Guyton work with urban debris in the first place, so objects such as shopping carts and documentary-style photo and video works act to further annotate and transport the aura of the cities into the education-art space.

What I am left with are two opposing sensations: first, that this is a big, bold, historically well-timed show that blurs the boundaries between the arts and certain disciplines such as urbanism and history. But my second feeling is negative: despite volumes of information, the show found very few results and the actual research does not go beyond the surface information available in most newspaper articles on the subject. For example, Jeff Karolski's, Detroit Devil's Night Poster Series describes a situation well known and worn out to anyone coming from Detroit, or reading sensationalist articles about urban topics such as these.

This leads me to assume the exhibition was aimed to vibrate among a broad arts crowd, with the message that contemporary arts organizations are interested in more than formalism. This is great and necessary, however, the true motivations for the show are unclear at best. Since most of the images are of vacant buildings and scrappy urban survival, the cliches of the declining city are supported rather than questioned and redefined. Instead of taking the opportunity to turn worn ideas on their heads, they leave them fully supported and limping along.

But despite conceptual weaknesses, the show is admirable in its scope and overall feeling. The refreshing and open style of using the museum space (such as a slide from one floor to another, a tape design on the stairs, and the lovely, large-scale wood construction of the timeline) leads to a fully enjoyable viewing experience.

A. Bergman