Regionale 20. Splendid Isolation – Not in our Name

Curated by Kiki Seiler-Michalitsi

The exhibition title refers to the English phrase Splendid Isolation ("wonderful isolation"), which was used towards the end of the 19th century by British Prime Minister Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Marquess of Salisbury, to describe the then privileged geopolitical insularity of the United Kingdom. More than a century later, the term, first coined by Canadian politician George Eulas Foster in 1896, has once again become topical and explosive. In relation to this year's Regionale anniversary, Splendid Isolation - Not in our Name points to the permanence and prosperity of the tri-national project founded 20 years ago, as well as to all the substantive, aesthetic, formal or, in some places, politically tinged relationships that the works in the exhibition in Riehen enter into. In line with the celebrated anniversary, works by 20 artists from different nations and media (photography, painting, "constructed" images and sculptures, material and object art) will be shown. Particular attention has been paid to the dominance of sculpture in the submitted artist dossiers.