++ PRESS RELEASE ++ PRESSEMITTEILUNG ++


STEPHAN DILLEMUTH

SUCCESS

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opening: 31 august, 2007, 19.00-22.00

exhibition runs 1 september – 13 october, 2007

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consistent with his approach in exhibitions to date in the christian nagel gallery in cologne and berlin – 'elbsandsteingebirge' [elbsandstein mountain range] (1994); 'die wagnerianer in köln' [the wagnerians in cologne] (1998); 'der deutsche jüngling' [the german youngling] (2002) – stephan dillemuth once more investigates contemporary images of the artist against their respective and particular historical backgrounds. in this way, prevailing circumstances are drawn upon to intensify awareness of present day relationships.

‘success’ positions itself first of all against the art market, still booming at the time of writing, and against dillemuth’s own biography.

‘success’ is also however the title of a novel by lion feuchtwanger, who settled in munich in the early years of the twentieth century.

in this book, feuchtwanger describes the political reaction to a social rupture caused by the short-lived soviet republic of 1918/19.

after the failure of the communist utopia, decisions at that time pertaining to the appointment of personnel, legal interpretations and changes in the law ratcheted into each other like sprockets in a machine and shifted, scarcely perceptibly for many, social reality and its foundations in the rule of law.

historically, we know about the totalitarian character of the state of exception, promoted by this very mechanism and countermanding all democratic control.

in retrospect, it is easy to recognise that morality, once established as above the law, permits the arbitrariness at the core of the state of order to appear legitimate - especially when it´s a question of deflecting threats made against traditional values.

today – with the availability of more extreme means of power and more subtle control technologies – terror and other threatening scenarios are again being alleged in order to extend the reach of the authority of power.

simultaneously, all regulation mechanisms against the global march of capital are being abandoned and the way left open for unfettered greed to access all areas.

so it is then valid to question who is actually sovereign here, as well as according to which instructions the government is in fact acting, if losses in power and legitimation are being compensated for through the surveillance and control of state citizens.

executive, legislative and judicial procedures are becoming increasingly non- transparent. it´s only at this point that what has been cited as a threat actually becomes perceptible to the citizenry, in the form of state control. we feel ourselves once more subjugated to opaque mechanisms, operated via the subjective interpretations of state functionaries, outside of the control of democracy.

for a few specialised interests, this can definitely be called a success..

for the artist, though, the question arising against this backdrop is: in a climate of general social regression, of inexorable social regulation and normalisation, of intensifying reduction of personal freedom and increase in control, is it still possible to even talk of artistic success at all?

or do the potential for social criticism, the chance for reflection and the ambition for change (utopia, vision) that art at one time possessed simply subside in the face of the market of pure speculation? Put another way: what remains when the bubble bursts?

sd’s exhibition is to be read against this horizon. It is an exhibition that, in the face of the general, perfect, continuous practice of deceit, and the ever-present terror created around profile and success, does not however pretend to deny its own inadequacy.