The Tide is High

The Tide is High. Travel as Challenge For artists from Northern European countries, the journey to the South, the ‘Grand Tour’, has been an integral element in their biographies since modern times at the latest. Destinations were countries such as Italy, France or Spain, which corresponded to the goal of researching the ‘occidental’, from today's perspective Eurocentric canon. Later, countries south of the Mediterranean followed, such as Egypt, Morocco or Tunisia. In the second half of the nineteenth century, the unfamiliar and the new attracted artists to places in the South Seas, for example Tahiti. The motivations for artists in the twentieth century to travel shifted to their desire to participate in international avant-garde arts and explore art capitals, such as Paris or New York. When considering present times, the question arises: how do contemporary artists with diverse biographies travel today? What themes stimulate them? And in what form does a journey occur against the background of pandemics, natural disasters, nationalisms and political conflicts? The exhibition ‘The Tide is High’ at Kunsthaus Wiesbaden explores these and other present-day questions. It marks the start of the 30th anniversary of the Hessische Kulturstiftung’s scholarship programme, which is being celebrated with a specially conceived exhibition and event programme. In cooperation with a total of five cultural institutions in Hessen, the programme presents artistic positions selected from the more than 200 scholarship holders until now in thematic group exhibitions on the theme of travel. The programme is complemented by a panel discussion at the Hessian State Representation in Berlin, which will address the subject of contemporary artist support. ‘The Tide is High’ presents works by 16 artists of the present round who are currently in various stages of their fellowships. While some are still working on location in their studios in New York, Istanbul, and Paris, others have already completed, or are about to begin, their journeys to Poland, Japan, or Malta. The exhibition is intended to be a form of appraisal of the here and now and shows both the results of the travel and work scholarships as well as a selection of works to date of individual artists. In their works, the scholarship holders reflect on questions concerning geographical and ecological aspects, engage with local events and traditions, or consider the nature of feeling uprooted. The works simultaneously mirror the bonds of friendship and family that extend beyond national borders. The question of how cultural experiences can be recorded in the body or transferred into a work of art also forms part of the exhibition. In the field of tensions between cultural appropriation and cultural appreciation, ecological footprint, travel restrictions, as well as political and cultural conflicts, the 16 artists find new perspectives or work through resistance.