Animism Exhibition at Kunsthalle Bern Explores the Life of Things

Curated by Anselm Franke, the group exhibition 'Animism' opened at Extra City Kunsthal and M-HKA in Antwerp before traveling to Kunsthalle Bern from May 15 to July 18, 2010. The show challenges the conventional Western view of animism as a primitive belief, arguing that modern society also imbues objects with life, desire, and agency. Drawing on W.J.T. Mitchell's theory that images possess a vital force, the exhibition features works like David G. Tretiakoff's video 'One God Passing,' which documents the 2006 relocation of a Ramses II statue in Cairo, revealing idolatrous behavior among onlookers. The project incorporates Marxist critique of commodity fetishism and engages with Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, who posits animism as an ontology of stateless societies. At the entrance, Wesley Meuris's 'The Cage for Saimiri Boliviensis' (2006) prompts viewers to imagine animal life and their own confinement. After Bern, the exhibition will travel to the Generali Foundation in Vienna in 2011 and the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin in 2012, accompanied by lecture series. The first volume of the catalogue was published in English by Lukas & Sternberg; a second volume will appear during the Vienna iteration.