Max-Philip Aschenbrenner DirectionMax-Philip Aschenbrenner Direction

Zeitgeist, this vague German concept describing a mood, a set of values and belief systems embracing each and every single human being globally alive, was coined in a spirit when Europe found its first bonanza with the American continent, starting its 300-year long global genocide. During these times of bloodshed art enters the stage of Zeitgeist and is declared contemporary — European works are exhibited side by side with African tapestries or Asian clothes and woodprints, the power of ignorance is expanded to the sovereignty of interpretation, and differences are set aside or extinct. More and more artists have been dealing with this contradiction of local universalism, of confirming, yet disturbing center-periphery relationships in recent years. Rereading and reinterpreting their histories and cultural ecospheres, twisting and turning identities and biographies, they create works that are deeply embedded yet strongly opposing the times they are manifesting themselves in, i.e., not contemporary but unzeitgemäss — another German term that was proposed by a philosopher who fought with the Zeitgeist of his times.