Museum der Bildenden Künsten

With the exhibition Displacements/Entortungen, the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts initiates a dialogue between the work of two internationally renowned artists, Ayşe Erkmen and Mona Hatoum, in an unprecedented joint exhibition. Erkmen and Hatoum have developed artistic positions in which the reflection on the specificity of the space and the social and political issues associated with it play an important role. Both understand place and historical context as part of their work, exploring in different ways their individual or global concerns. The exhibition’s leitmotif follows the English term displacement, which, in addition to its political meaning of expulsion, can also mean the redirection of affects or impulses and a transformation process.

Using the title Displacements in its plural form, suggests a more open concept and has many connections with the work of Ayşe Erkmen and Mona Hatoum on the levels of form, content and personal experience. The specific characteristics of a place serve Ayşe Erkmen as her starting point to create works and installations reflecting the respective social, cultural and topographical context or the institutional framework from which they develop. This individual, specific approach to a site neglects any style but acknowledges a very unique artistic attitude. Mona Hatoum's work is often inspired by the space and context. She uses techniques of displacement in the sense of alienation, thus causing uncertainty. Familiar objects feature prominently in these works, which when modified or scaled up, represent a suspicious and hostile reality. The work appears vulnerable or disorientating, and presents us with a world characterised by conflict and contradictions.

Common to both artists is the use of apparently familiar forms to which they assign new connotations through aesthetic and formal interventions.

A German-English catalogue will be published on the occasion of the exhibition. A comprehensive education programme will combine transcultural approaches inside and outside the museum space (displacements.de) and is supported by bpb Federal Agency for Civic Education. The exhibition is supported by the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation, The Cultural Foundation of the Federal State of Saxony and the Patrons of the Leipzig Museum of Fine Arts e.V.