HOW TO PHILOSOPHIZE WITH A HAMMER
A GROUP SHOW
CURATED BY RAUL ZAMUDIO
AUGUST 11 – SEPTEMBER 10, 2011
OPENING RECEPTION AUGUST 11, 2011 6-9PM
Artists:
Isaac Aden, Oreet Ashery, Marcela Astorga, Luis Alonzo-Burkigia, Marc Bijl, Karlos Carcamo, Daniel Davidson, Gregory De la Haba, Adolfo Doring, Shahram Entekhabi, Fernando Martin Godoy, Kenneth Tin-Kin Hung, Istvan Kantor, Ferran Martin, Dominic McGill, Dennis Oppenheim, Damian Ontiveros, Pasha Radetzki, Martha Rosler, Joaquin Segura, Celia Eslamieh Shomal, Susan Sontag, Javier Tellez, Mookie Tenembaum, Wojtek Ulrich, Abdul Vas, Ruben Verdu, Ai Weiwei, Zhou Wendou.
How to Philosophize with a Hammer is an exhibition of international artists that work in video, painting, sculpture, works-on-paper, photography, installation, and performance. It’s title is culled from Friedrich Nietzsche’s Twilight of the Idols, or, How to Philosophize with a Hammer (1889). How to Philosophize with a Hammer followed the Gay Science (1882) in which Nietzsche pronounced that “god is dead.”
After this deicide came other “deaths” in the late twentieth century including “the death of the author,” “the end of history,” and “the death of painting.” As such, the works in the exhibition underscore the usurpation of authority but within a contemporary context. The artists address the exhibition’s thematic framework in myriad ways where their philosophizing is articulated through diverse artistic genres. Some philosophers have viewed aesthetics and artistic practice as a form of philosophy, and the iconoclasm of these artists’ works hammers against political, financial, social, and religious institutions. This iconoclasm signals the need to reinvent new modes of thinking and being while reflecting on the existential crisis that humanity finds itself marked by wars, ecological disaster, economic collapse, terrorism, and revolution. In short, it is the perfect end of summer exhibition.
