sprich, alte haube, wo fehlt's? @ kunsthalle Mainz, Allemagne : Binta Diaw

How is landscape represented today? What kind of relationship do we have to it? How do visual artists approach the transformational processes that landscapes have been subject to in recent decades, leading to their current appearance? What can we interpret in contemporary landscapes? These are all questions that the exhibition Say, old top-knot, what do you want? seeks to explore, with the “top-knot” in this case representing the earth’s mantle.
Landscape as a phenomenon also generates a reaction in contemporary art, along with the ways it evolves and the appearances it takes. Present-day artists can view it through an ecological, societal, colonial, healing or spiritual lens. There are absolutely no limits on its artistic potential, with approaches that range from a sober, documentary-style review through to metaphorical processes and direct interactions, and even generating visionary states.
In bringing together works from the past decade, Say, old top-knot, what do you want? enables visitors to navigate their way through landscapes which, having already been shaped by interaction in the past, are now experiencing interaction once more in the exhibition. The artistic interventions create new landscapes which, in turn, lead to new kinds of spatial experiences, thereby allowing visitors to comprehend landscape as a result of action and interaction from both natural and human factors.