ATLAS.
HOW TO CARRY
THE WORLD ON
ONE'S BACK

»Atlas. How to Carry the World on One’s Back?« is an interdisciplinary exhibition that covers a period extending from the early years of the 20th century through to the 21st century, using the Mnémosyne Atlas of images by art theorist Aby Warburg (1866-1929) as a starting point. The Mnemosyne Atlas is an incomplete collection of pictures compiled between 1924 and 1929. It shows that Aby Warburg apparently cultivated the same passion for visual intuition as the artists of his time. This makes him a contemporary of avant-garde artists (Kurt Schwitters, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy), of photographers, who worked in documentary style (August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt), of avant-garde filmmakers (Jean Painlevé), of writers who evolved the technique of literary montage (Benjamin Fondane), as well of Surrealist poets and artists (Georges Bataille, Man Ray).

The exhibition addresses the question as to the ways in which the work of the artist is to be interpreted in terms of representing an authentic method. How is it possible to observe the world without following the standard of our knowledge? In keeping with the formulation of this question, the concept behind »Atlas" is not directed at collecting "master pieces": the task of foremost interest is the discovery of sources on which artists have drawn, and which thus make the diverse artistic procedures comprehensible. Thus, it is not Paul Klee’s water colors that are exhibited but, among others, his modest herbarium and the graphical and theoretical ideas which it inspired; it is not Josef Albers' squares that are presented, but his photograph album of pictures of pre-Columbian buildings.

Featured artists:
Francesc Abad, Ignasi Abballí, Vito Acconci, James Agee, Vyacheslav Akhunov, Josef Albers, Gianfranco Baruchello, Alighiero e Boetti, Louis Aragon, Hans Arp, John Baldessari, Georges Bataille, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Ernst Benkard, Marc Bloch, Barbara Bloom, Karl Blossfeldt, Bernhard Johannes Blume, Erwin Blumenfeld, Christian Boltanski, Jorge Luis Borges, Brassaï, Berthold Brecht, George Brecht, André Breton, Marcel Broodthaers, Stanley Brouwn, Jacob Burckhardt, Victor Burgin, Sophie Calle, James Coleman, Pascal Convert, DADACO, Salvador Dalí, Hanne Darboven, Moyra Davey, Tacita Dean, Guy Debord, Ferdinand Deligny, Theo van Doesburg, El Lissitzky, Max Ernst, Walker Evans, Öyvind Fahlström, Harun Farocki, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Robert Filliou, Fischli/Weiss, Alain Fleischer, Benjamin Fondane, Alberto Giacometti, Jean-Luc Godard, Francisco de Goya, Ernst Haeckel, Raymond Hains, Richard Hamilton, Susan Hiller, Hannah Höch, Roni Horn, Douglas Huebler, Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, Mike Kelley, Arthur Köpcke, John Latham, Le Corbusier, Zoe Leonard, Michel Leiris, Sol LeWitt, El Lissitzky, Ghérasim Luca, Piero Manzoni, Étienne-Jules Marey, Ernesto de Martino, Gordon Matta-Clark, Henri Michaux, László Moholy-Nagy, Matt Mullican, Michael Najjar, Bruce Nauman, Dennis Oppenheim, Ulrike Ottinger, Amédée Ozenfant, C.O. Paeffgen, Jean Painlevé, Guiseppe Penone, Sigmar Polke, Walid Raad (The Atlas Group), Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Chris Reinecke, Gerhard Richter, Arthur Rimbaud, Pedro G. Romero, Charles Ross, Dieter Roth, Thomas Ruff, August Sander, Meyer Schapiro, Tomas Schmit, W.G. Sebald, Kurt Schwitters, Paul Thek, Stefan Themerson, Rosemarie Trockel, Isidoro Valcárcel Medina, Karl Valentin, Marc Vaux, Jacques Villegié, Simon Wachsmuth, Franz Erhard Walther, Aby Warburg, Christopher Williams