Regionale 19. New Deals

Curated by Kiki Seiler-Michalitsi

The title of this year's Regionale exhibition at Kunst Raum Riehen refers to New Deal, a phrase in the English language that means "redistribution of the cards". Initially used by US President Franklin Roosevelt as a suggestive slogan during his presidential election campaign in 1932, New Deal advanced to become a series of economic and social reforms that were implemented between 1933 and 1938 in response to the Great Depression. In relation to the exhibition in Riehen, New Deal mutates into a metaphor for the annual redistribution of artistic "production" at the Regionale and for the new content-related, aesthetic or, in some places, politically tinged relationships that the works enter into, as well as for new, unexpected collaborative works with which artists have applied. With works by artists from all three countries in the region, such as abstract painterly works, interpretations of contemporary communication signs and means, material and object art, allusions to model-like architecture, colonial and literary history and photographic experiments, the exhibition in Riehen promotes a highly regarded exhibition project in each case.