Nothing to Declare?

The geopolitical change that took place in 1989 ushered in an era of worldwide biennales, whose geography bid farewell to Western Art, with its old contradiction between the center and the periphery. The exhibition project »Nothing to Declare?« now documents these global developments. The heart of this exhibition is a panorama room as a media installation, which illustrates the passage of time and the geographical expansion of the global practice of art using a wide range of data.

In so doing, a development becomes recognizable, which is no longer to be interpreted only as pure art history, but rather requiring multiple forms of re-narration – geopolitical, social, economic and cultural. The creation of a new critical practice in the arts also corresponds to these structural changes. The research project »Global Art and the Museum (GAM)« at the ZKM | Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie (Centre for Art and Media) in Karlsruhe has dedicated itself to this theme since 2006. An initial interim review was presented in the exhibition »The Global Contemporary« at the ZKM. This project is now continued in cooperation with the Academy. It places Berlin, in particular, as an art center within the context of a development that begins in 1989. The theme of the exhibition also will be discussed in a symposium by Goethe-Institut Lissabon on 2nd and 3rd of February 2013 under the title »Rethinking cosmopolitism«.