+ KOW
The linear sequence of stages envisioned by the Marxist model of social development and the capitalist growth paradigms share a positive point of reference: the primordial hunter-gatherer society as a projection of the human foundations of sociality. In the gallery’s ground-floor showroom, Naumann’s new installation Ostalgie (Urgesellschaft) turns the spotlight on the materiality of anthropological narratives and reactionary social models. East German everyday objects mingle with cartoonish furniture for a Flintstonesque “neo-Paleolithic” (Markues). Naumann’s work inquires into the abiding appeal of utopias that promise to reduce the complexity of contemporary life and beckon with the construction of an ostensibly simple past. Sexual, racial, and social structures that are unmistakably steeped in violence and raw power are the intellectual constants of this imaginary “retrotopia” (Zygmunt Bauman). The ground that no longer holds firm becomes the wall.
KOW
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