Beschreibung
With contributions by: Ruth Buchanan, Gerhard Dirmoser, Philipp Hamann, Nikolaus Gansterer, Luis Jacob, Eva Kotátková, Michael Najjar, Alexandre Singh, Marcus Steinweg und Jorinde Voigt Diagrams are used in the Internet, on television, in newspapers and presentations – simply, in all visual media. Elements of text, image and charts are frequently combined, depending on where they are being used. They are meant to display complex contents, data and information through visual representation. In this process, info-graphics like diagrams, graphs of stock markets or schematic drawings do not just serve display purposes but establish relations, communicate insights and convey arguments pictorially. One crucial task is presenting, organising and imparting knowledge. In a networked society, where images have become core media and where new information is produced every day, the need for visual translations and an illustrative order is patently obvious. In the realm of art, diagrams are not a completely new phenomenon, yet, over the last ten years, it has been possible to discern a growing interest in this sort of image. A new research field has developed under the heading of diagramatics. The reasons for this lie in the increasing closeness of art and science, the increasing development of an extended notion of images, in engaging with abstract forms of representation in art history and in recognising diagrams as analytical instruments for establishing theories. Diagrams are not understood just as illustrations any more, but as independent visual forms. The conjunction of image, text and spatial-graphic organisation makes a form of visual thinking possible and provides a very particular potential for insight. The exhibition »Diagrams« enquires into the way these sketched developments affect the worlds of images and the strategies of visualisation in art. Ten artists were chosen for the exhibition as examples and are represented by various display models and forms of presentation. Numerous comissioned works, such as drawings, collages, photographs and videos are being presented, but there are also spatially extensive objects and installations. The works exhibited at Bielefelder Kunstverein make relations to diagrams, examples of cartography, notations and other graphic models visible. Alongside diagram´s aesthetic impact and creative aspect, how they convey artistic processes of working and thinking plays a vital role in the exhibition. The formal structure of diagrams here serves the artists as the point of departure for arrays and narratives based on images. Their actual function – directly conveying information – is, however, undermined, mostly in favour of a particular, open form of knowledge. Curator: Thomas Thiel