Meaning Can Only Grow out of Intimacy at Musée Arlaud, Les Urbaines

Artists: Brigham Baker, Eulàlia Grau, Lars TCF Holdhus & Martin Kohout, Balz Isler, Stian Eide Kluge, Kris Lemsalu, Guy Meldem, Noha Mokhtar & Lucas Uhlmann, Zoë Paul, Vanessa Safavi, Benedicte Gyldenstierne Sehested, Jan Vorisek, Hannah Weinberger

Exhibition title: Meaning Can Only Grow out of Intimacy

Curated by: Elise Lammer

Organized by: Les Urbaines

Venue: Musée Arlaud, Les Urbaines, Lausanne, Switzerland

Date: December 2 – 31, 2016

Following the spirit of the festival, which is committed to treating any artistic discipline on the same level, Meaning Can Only Grow out of Intimacy is a series of 13 solo projects gathered between the Espace Arlaud and TILT. Rather than driving the works into a theme, each artist was invited to produce a new project and invest one room freely.

As a result, the coherence between the projects can only be visible once all the works are installed simultaneously in the same city and, for most of them, under the same roof. In an attempt to build up a momentum, during the making and unmaking of a temporary community, this exhibition brings a variety of works that highlights the almost invisible threads that connect many people’s hopes and dismay. In light of the bitter cynicism that characterizes the current social and political context, it’s no coincidence that all the projects of Meaning Can Only Grow out of Intimacy seem to deal with affect and resistance.

The title of the show suggests a new strategy of survival; or rather a fresh observation: stripped from any negative connotation, it puts intimacy at the center of a new refl ection, where the human body serves the quest for alternative coping strategies. With a characteristic relationship to the body, history, nature and technology, the artists propose to give up the idea of universal improvement and rather to learn how to live with an ever shifting paradigm. As suggested by Donna Haraway in her recent book, “living-with and dying-with each other (…) can be a fi erce reply to the dictates of both Anthropos and Capital” 1 and although the outcome is uncertain, it seems it’s time to accept and celebrate uncertainty.