If you wanted to depict silence, what would it look like? The late composer and artist John Cage dealt with this very question with his concept of Nothingtoseeness. Fast-forward to now and the Akademie der Künste is making the term that Cage coined the starting point for its latest exhibition. Through paintings, photographs, sculptures and installations, more than 50 artists trace the path from fullness to emptiness. The show covers the concept’s whole development, from the color field paintings of the 1950s to newly-created works. Raimund Girke demonstrates the multifaceted nature of the “non-color” white in his paintings, a theme which Isaac Julien’s film “True North” – shot in the Arctic – also touches. Silence itself can also be experienced with Pierre Huyghe’s score “Silence”, which revisits Cage’s legendary musical work 4’33” in which not a single note is played. With this show the Akademie der Künste invites you to meditate on the idea of seeing itself, showing how nothingness can be many-sided if only you look a bit closer.
Text: Laura Storfner / Credit: AdK; Stephan Huber; Thomas Rentmeister; Rutherford Chang
Akademie der Künste, Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin–Tiergarten; map
Nothingtoseeness – Void/White/Silence, until 12.12.2021, Tue–Sun 11–19h
Tickets cost €9/6. Free entry for under 18s and for all on Tuesday from 15h and the first Sunday of the month. Tours: Thur 17h & Sun 12h, €3 in addition to the ticket price.
@akademiederkuenste
