The Present Order introduces the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art. The title is borrowed from an artwork by Ian Hamilton Finlay, which the artist donated to the museum when the collection was founded. The varying inscriptions on the three stone blocks point towards essential issues involved in the presentation of the collection: Present The Order, the elucidation of an order, underlines the fact that systems of order always arise from the ideas of a certain era. Order The Present, the causation of the present, raises the question of the point in time at which art develops. How does it regard and influence its present? Finally The Present Order, the acceptance of an order, issues an invitation to confront the various interpretations that are condensed into a work of art from a contemporary point of view. During the course of one year, the exhibition presents various possibilities of ordering museum inventories, encouraging an active approach towards the collection.
The second part of the collection presentation expands on the theme of forms of presentation in museums with the addition of Karin Sander’s project ZEIGEN, an audio tour through the GFZK Leipzig. If the idea of a “School of Seeing” was a central inspiration for the first public museums, it is now important to ask the question of how gestures of exhibiting in the museum have become inscribed in the relationship between viewers and works of art. The aspects of accessibility and disciplining are also examined in association with social models and educational theories. Further topics are economic parameters, artistic work, production processes in general, subjectivity and the social public sphere.
With works on loan from Artūras Raila and Julia Schmidt and new production Tilo Schulz
