Language/Text/Image - Can you hear me? Can you see me?

JOHN BALDESSARI, ALICE BIDAULT, NATALIE CZECH, AYŞE ERKMEN, NADINE FECHT, GARY HILL, NATIONAL AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT, GORDON PARKS, MARKUS VATER, GILLIAN WEARING

Exhibition duration: June 27 - December 7, 2025

An exhibition of the Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen (initially shown there from 20.10.2024 - 16.02.2025) now at KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION, Düsseldorf. Conceived and curated by Dr. Barbara Segelken and Birte Hinrichsen. Curatorial realization for KAI 10: Ludwig Seyfarth.

Language, text and image are among the central means of human expression. They are not neutral, but are linked to certain values, norms and cultural techniques and are integrated into social systems. Inevitably, they also draw boundaries that include and exclude people. Who or what decides whether something can be said or seen?

The questions "Can you hear me (now)?" or "Can you see me (now)?" have become very familiar since the rapid development of digital networking. They are often asked when someone wants to make sure that they can be heard or seen clearly in a communication link. But they also refer to the human need to be heard and seen and how these mechanisms of inclusion and exclusion are regulated and restricted.

The exhibition Language/Text/Image shows works of art from the 1950s to the present day in which the relationship between language, text and image is thematized, reflected upon and questioned with regard to its social and political dimensions. Artistic means are used to examine the possibilities of making something sayable, visible and audible.

The selected sound- and text-based, photographic, printmaking, filmic or textile works all take up the challenge of working with something that is initially situational, unstable and difficult to control. Conventions in the use of language and images are not thwarted, but used innovatively to create new spaces of meaning. In doing so, the artists explore practices of reading and seeing, the interweaving of memory and history and the boundaries between fact and fiction. At the same time, they question entrenched patterns of perception and give space to the representation of uncertainties and misunderstandings.

This also makes it clear that history and the telling of stories must be understood as something that has evolved historically, that arises as a result of shared experiences and that can also change. This happens against very different backgrounds in terms of origin and influence as well as subjective experiences - and in times in which the need for security and control has a high priority.

The exhibition shows recent works, but also reaches far back into the time before digital networking: photographs by Gordon Parks from the 1950s show everyday situations in the south of the USA, where the separation of the white and black population was omnipresent, including through regulatory signs. The signs held up by the people in Gillian Wearing's photographs, on the other hand, show what was going through their minds at the time. How language regulates social processes is a central theme in Nadine Fecht's work. Her approach can also be seen in the tradition of language-analytical conceptual art, which is represented by key video works by John Baldessari and Gary Hill. Formal rules also determine the works by Natalie Czech, which complement the exhibition in KAI 10. They also have a playful, poetic side, as we also find in Markus Vater's text-image combinations. Ayşe Erkmen fragments a dummy text from Latin letters so that it is reminiscent of hieroglyphs from a written language outside of Western culture. Alice Bidault refers to such a language when she cites the Quipu knotting technique, which was developed by the Incas in South America. Textile memories of the deceased are the large-format, visually stunning quilts of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt, the world's largest community art project, whose handmade memorial cloths are collected by the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco.