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Rocking Meadows

06/2023 - 12/2023
Group Exhibition

Curator: Sung Tieu
Assistant Curator: Emily Pretzsch

Kunstverein Wiesen e.V.
Wiesen, Germany

Camille Clair
Jackson Beyda
Jiyoon Chung
Gašper Kunšič
Limma Galling
Lisa Gutscher
Louis Hay
Aerin Hong
Jing Lin
Line Lyhne
Rachel Ashton
Maximiliano Siñani
Lisa Strozyk
Theresa Büchner
Mahmoud Tarek
Moritz Tontsch
Vera Varlamova
Alex Thake
Ian Waelder

Rocking Meadows brought together 21 emerging artists from the Frankfurt art scene, many connected to the Städelschule, for a multi-site exhibition in the village of Wiesen. The central show took place in the former Sparkasse building, featuring a diverse mix of sculpture, photography, installation, and mixed media works.

Beyond the main venue, the exhibition extended into the public space through a series of outdoor sculptures, performances, and site-specific interventions. These works activated the surrounding landscape and invited visitors to experience the village itself as part of the artistic terrain.

Exhibition Text (by Alex Thake)

Center to a man-made valley flanked by wood, the town of Wiesen lays between rolling green smattered with calico flecks of grazing cattle, with private homes arranged in half-hearted circles, lazily spilling smoke out their chimneys to gossip with the clouds.
The air is good, the silence of the town feels protected.

Kunstverein Wiesen operates tangentially to the daily life and inhabitants of Wiesen, as witness to the everyday comings and goings of the town. The building’s first life was as a bank, integral to the economic lifeblood of the town and thus close to its heart, then turned cultural space, and presently, host to one venue of Rocking Meadows.

The artists came together with the intention of creating a series of works in exchange with the local community, scattered around the village like satellites circling around the Wiesen Art Association. The respective perceptions of what constitutes community differ from artist to artist. But what they all had in common was the desire to find out how this valuable uncertainty can be incorporated into artistic production.

Far from the usual epicentres of art production and off the beaten institutional track, the artists found themselves on the rooftops, on the facades, in the barn, at the bus stop, in the local smoking club, in the Lotto shop, the local brewery and pub of Wiesen. Having been guests in Wiesen themselves, the artists felt they had to take on this role again, but there

seem to be as many ways of being a guest as there are different ways of being welcomed. Each of us decided for ourselves whether we wanted to celebrate strangeness and otherness in order to open up the possibility that tensions could give way to other ways of opening up the world. Or whether we should rather try to meet the local people at eye level and engage directly with the environment?

It was inevitable that we would come to a collective agreement that upheld and celebrated our individual forms of expression. What initially began as a series of individual projects evolved into a collaborative concatenation of negotiations, compromises and linkages that inform the exhibition. In addition to the works on view at Kunstverein Wiesen for the duration of the exhibition, there will be a day-long series of events at the opening that will focus on conversation and the forging of new relationships. In addition to the works remaining at Kunstverein Wiesen for the duration of the exhibition, the opening is a day-long event of conversation and new relationships. This includes a film screening on the shuttle bus, readings in the local barn, a book fair, escorted tours of the village and shared meals between the participating artists*, guests and locals of Wiesen.

When artist Rachel Ashton visited the community in search of a subcultural landmark called Rocking Meadows, a rock and roll hangout in the quiet middle of Arcadia (which, according to one local resident, "started out as little more than a shed"). Ashton realised she had come too late, she had failed. All traces of "Rocking Meadows" had long since been erased and replaced by a bustling playground, laughing children and all. The name "Rocking Meadows" thus took on a much gentler and more familiar meaning. That indefinable feeling of being in search of a place that no longer exists, that you can no longer know, continued unabated all the way to the exhibition opening.

And so we called it, Rocking Meadows.

Images by Tomas Maglione and Paul Levack

The exhibition was supported by NEUSTART Kultur and Kulturfonds Bayern / Johanna and Friedrich Gräfling

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