David Haines in group show Museum fur Neue Kunst in Freiburg

David Haines' work is included in the group exhibition Modern Love (or Love in the Age of Cold Intimacies) curated by Katerina Gregos at the Museum für Neue Kunst in Freiburg, Germany. The exhibition runs from 3 October 2020 - 7 March 2021 and will then travel to Tallinn Art Hall.

Modern Love explores the state of love and intimate relationships in the age of the Internet, social media, neo-liberal capitalism, and globalisation. It probes the societal patterns and challenges as well as possibilities that the Internet and social media present to our intimate relationships.

Digital technology and consumerism have significantly transformed love and social relationships. The experience of the virtual has increasingly dissolved the boundary between private and public. This influences how we communicate and interact with one another, especially with those closest to us.

On the one hand, the Internet and social media have facilitated the expression of non-heteronormative identities, forms of desire, and alternative ways of being. On the other, they have played a problematic role in cultivating pathologies such as narcissism, obsessive self-performativity, digital dependency within relationships, and the commodification of emotion.

The conflation of reality and fantasy has created complex psychological and relational entanglements, which are explored – among other things – in this exhibition.

In cooperation with Tallinna Kunstihoone (Estonia) and IMPAKT, Utrecht (Netherlands).

Participating artists: Gabriel Abrantes, Hannah Toticki Anbert, Melanie Bonajo, Laura Cemin, Benjamin Crotty, Kyriaki Goni, David Haines, Juliet Jacques, Mahmoud Khaled, Lauren Lee McCarthy, Maria Mavropoulou, Kyle McDonald, Marge Monko, Peter Puklus, Marijke De Roover, Margaret Salmon

Image: David Haines, Man Reading Messages (Jamil), 2019, Oil on canvas, 70 x 70 cm

Publication date: 29 Sep '20