Page 190 - Katalog Beyond the Box 820 final.indd

As a collector I support this research group, essentially represented of works by mostly young artists from non-Western cultural circ-
by the two artists and philosophers Christoph Balzar and Hanune les into my collection. At last year‘s Gallery Weekend in Berlin, for
Shalati, by, for example, buying back these SEWA from the trade or example, I decided to acquire a large wall installation by the West
the antiques market, so that they can then be returned to the Kogi African artist George Adéagbo. Adéagbo, now seventy two, is a late
people for re-contextualisation. It is sad that we ignorantly, disre- discovery as a conceptual artist from West Africa, who originally
spectfully or even arrogantly declassify other peoples‘ sacred relics studied law. Adéagbo creates collages from found objects from his
as arts and crafts, exhibit them here in ethnological museums or homeland and combines them with others from Europe, notably
treat them as ‚gold = money‘. It is time for us to change our attitude from locations where he is currently exhibiting. The work I chose
and view on this. uses a Nelson Mandela quote to discuss the political question of in-
dependence and apartheid in Africa. He examines this issue, which
What was a special experience during your last forays into art? affects us all, from the perspectives of two different worlds, a kind
of ‚globalisation‘ in art. Adéagbo very thoughtfully, and with a lot of
In the middle of last year, as part of the Berlin Biennale, I visited empathy, creates thematic associational fields and references from
the ethnological museum in Dahlem with friends, also in order to two different continents. Since the 1990s, independent of Euro-
see the Mariana Castillo Deball exhibit. In the collection of this pean art knowledge, Adéagbo has been creating works with great
ethnological museum were items from the earlier exhibition ‚Indian depth and seriousness and has developed a completely unique sty-
Modernism – Art from North America‘. There, I noticed works by le in that way.
Lawrence P. Yuxweluptun, especially ‚Downtown Vancouver‘ from
1988. This painting by a contemporary artist with indigenous roots Are there other artistic viewpoints from non-Western cultures that fa-
is inventoried in the Ethnological Museum Berlin. I find our ‚Wes- scinate you?
tern‘ curators‘ (post-)colonialist view and interpretation shameful. In
order to question and break up what I consider such condescension I‘ve had the artist Haegue Yang, born in Seoul in 1971, in my collec-
on the part of us ‚Westerners‘, I have deliberately integrated sets tion for a good five years now. She examines and questions stan-

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