Individual Project

The collective Civic Virtue presents Civic Virtue II at Villa Dessauer. PhDArts student Ruchama Noorda is a member of the collective.

Curatorial Stamement: Exploring historic notions of time, CIVIC VIRTUE II attempts an arbitrary yet concise synthesis of the entirety of human knowledge. Various time periods are represented by an array of objects whose material substance form their defining traits. From the Grand-Unification-Epoch (which occurred several fractions of a nanosecond after the Big-Bang), to the Age-of-Reason, Rococo, the Romantic-Era, the Neolithic Age, Neoclassicism, Babylon and the Baroque, a subjective selection of artifacts and interpretations are distilled into a simultaneous chronology of the Universe.

Meanwhile, the fetishism of history becomes an object’s supposed ability to represent itself as meaningful material that had been transported from another time — as differentiated from matter untouched by human intervention and observation, i.e. rocks that had not become spears and mud that had not become clay. These objects are subject to their own evolutionary laws of survival within the constraints of conservation and selection: objects thus have the ability of being subject to use-value and decorative enjoyment, or otherwise falling forgotten by the wayside. Civic Virtue, however, maintains that these object not only speak to us, but are observing and manipulating us in our progression.

Artists: Geirthrudur Finnbogadottir Hjorvar, Gijsbert Wouter Wahl, Ruchama Noorda, Brian Mckenna, and James Beckett