Paradise, Lost

For the 6th Sculpture Biennale taking place in summer 2019, curator Christoph Doswald asked the artists to explore the terrain beyond the cultivated garden. Previously, the garden formed the center of each of the sculpture biennials in the Weiertal as a "hortus conclusus. Through the change of the context known over the years and these border crossings into the "terrain vague", works have emerged that move outside the known framework.

The exhibition was based on the premise that art needs both a context and a framework, and that it does not emerge in a vacuum, but rather has multiple relationships to its surroundings. The central question was how art reacts to the loss of utopias - and whether it is better able to develop new utopias when it leaves the secure framework of its usual presentation. The dissolution, or displacement of contexts is one of the defining themes of recent art history. In addition to the neutral space, the "white cube", a multitude of differentiated play forms of artistic work and presentation contexts have developed, which are constantly renegotiated.

Furthermore, Paradise, Lost was about an urgently needed comeback of a critical attitude towards society in art. A key curatorial decision was to focus on proximity, friendship and trust, i.e. not to invite artists simply because they figure in the international rankings. Thus, on the one hand, the loss of romantic energy and idealistic forms of possibility in art against the background of increasing professionalization and internationalization was up for discussion, and on the other hand, the end of the carefree globalization euphoria and a new critical attitude in art. A new hope, then, for romanticism, idealism, pathos and forms of possibility in art.

Paradise, Lost was about confrontations with realities and contexts that have shifted and changed and are beyond the garden fence and the idyll.