The 14 cartographers-artists of Temporary Atlas do not gaze exclusively on the outside, but rather focus towards themselves, aiming to investigate their perceptions, identities, emotions, and physical and mental sensations. They adopt the traditional approach to mapping (a representation of reality) but expand it along unconventional paths – identity, spirituality, subconscious, and feelings or memories that interact upon each of us.
Walking through the exhibition, the visitor realises that no matter how an artwork engages reality, and reality is understood beyond representation, it is also true that much depends on which criteria we adopt to manifest this relationship. What we read in a representation (cartographic or artistic) depends on what methods and rules we intend to follow in this reading.
Temporary Atlas is an attempt to identify the fleeting border between these two extremes: a reading of the person who, in the midst of a global pandemic yet to be resolved, re-evaluates their own priorities. The exhibition aims thus to describe our emotional, political, and aesthetic horizon. It explores, in other words, the visitors’ expectation that art can allow us to reflexively understand our daily reality.
With Sanford Biggers, Seymour Chwast, Jeremy Deller, Sarah Entwistle, Enam Gbewonyo, Rochelle Goldberg, Oliver Laric, James Lewis, Ibrahim Mahama, Paul Maheke, Matt Mullican, Otobong Nkanga, Kiki Smith, and Walid Raad.
