Nov 1, 2019–Jan 6, 2020
“All that is needed to caricature an oppressor is to portray him
exactly as he is.”
Julius Lips
In 1937, while in exile in the United States, the Cologne
ethnologist Julius Lips published portrayals of colonial-era Europeans in his
book The Savage Hits Back. With these pictures of soldiers, merchants,
missionaries, kings and queens, he addressed the external perceptions of
European culture with explicitly anti-racist intentions. The collection raises
questions about violence and appropriation, cultural symbolization and mimesis,
contact and resistance, and thus exposes the problems of the globally entangled
history of modernity.
In the objects and photographs, Lips saw a
form of realism superior to European art, but also anti-colonial satire and
caricature. Some of the representations were specifically produced for white
buyers. This makes Lips’ assertion of a resistive reversal of the hierarchies
of the colonial gaze and its culturally critical implications appear questionable.
Spectral-White explores the historical
philosophy-based theories of the boomerang-like return of colonial violence as
an essential driving force for twentieth century European fascism. The
exhibition questions racist projections, the desire and the blind spots that
continue to make it difficult to escape the matrix of the white gaze.
Curated by Anna Brus in collaboration with
Anselm Franke.
Part of Kanon-Fragen
https://www.hkw.de/en/programm/projekte/2019/spektral_weiss/spektral_weiss_start.php?etcc_cmp=Spektral-Weiss&etcc_med=Hyperallergic_nltb
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