Agents & Provocateurs & before & after
presentation of Bea Hock
The exhibition Agents & Provocateurs surveys certain forms of confrontation: agency and provocation, both understood as dissenting artistic attitudes. The project explores to what degree these stances have proved to be viable forms of protest in different and changing political contexts.
The research-based exhibition brings together artistic interventions from state-socialist Eastern Europe and examples from more liberal-democratic political contexts. It juxtaposes provocation and irritation as frequent vehicles of artists‘ defiance with instances when artists think of themselves as social agents and find ways to work politically with the „enemy”.
The exhibition was first shown at the Institute of Contemporary Art—Dunaujvaros, Hungary, in October-November 2009 and is presently on view in the newly opened venue of Hartware MedienKunstVerein—Dortmund. The project presentation in Labor continues the series of events—so far organised in Bratislava and Berlin–that aim to communicate to a broader audience the concept, research findings as well as the continuities and differences between the two „editions” of the exhibition.
Curators of the exhibition:
Beata Hock and Franciska Zólyom; Inke Arns and co-curator of the Dortmund edition
