16. November 2024 – 11. January 2025

„Du suchst das wort, von dem du mehr nicht weißt, als dass es fehlt.“ ("You are looking for the word that you know nothing about other than that it is missing.")

Again and again, the nagging question arises: what do we do with our feelings? In a world of numbers and twitches, of fakes and mistakes, of agitation and hopelessness – why dig deeper inside and perhaps find a world that makes us even more vulnerable?

The feeling has slipped into the realm of coaching. A rapidly growing esoteric industry is teaching a late-capitalist affluent society what it means to be a good person. And as soon as the meditation is over, it is once again only oneself that captivates. Not the other. There is only one letter between esoteric and ego.

Sometimes you think: not even God could save us today. Because he would no longer understand what from. He would not recognise our distress. Nor would he recognise our happiness, our fears, our dreams. Outwardly, we have remained similar to our ancestors, but inwardly?
But then again: don't we kiss just as we did in the past? Just as millions before us have kissed? Don't we brush our hair from our foreheads with the same hope as we did a thousand years ago? And aren't we still infinitely sad when a lustful smile leads to nothing more?

Perhaps future generations will look back on us as the last of our kind. Latecomers, on the verge of an evolutionary leap. As those who still possessed the ability to feel, but no longer had any real use for it. Like a kind of useless atavism that is still there, but can no longer do anything. An exhibition on the theme of ‘Neo-Romanticism’. In the winter of 2024. What does feeling mean today? In what aesthetic, social and political contexts does it exist? What can it do? What can it disrupt? Perhaps our digitally managed lives need exactly that again: the immediate moment? The impression of closeness?
And how does this fit into the crisis-ridden nature of our present – into a time of wars, of searching for a future that combines the protection of nature and social cohesion? Can late modern romanticism offer solutions? A pop-up exhibition featuring six artists. Famous figures stand alongside unknown ones, those just starting out alongside those who have just passed away. It's about bodies. About curtains. About caves. About flashlights. About shadows. About measurement.
It's about a new relationship with the old concept of longing known as ‘romanticism’. From textiles to photography, from sculpture to tech art. About sit-ins, salon discussions, dark rooms of friendship.