KNOW THYSELF

What do we know and what are the roots of our knowledge?

Plato’s Socrate distinguished between knowing and believing in knowing, while postulating to “know thyself” was a means to foster an understanding of our physical and metaphysical world. There is no certainty about the authorship or purpose of the wisdom contained within the three maxims at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, but many things have changed since the time of Plato’s absolutes. The ways in which we learn about ourselves come from an understanding of the human physique and psyche not as autonomous systems but symbiotic in relation to the worlds of nature and social structures, as a core fragment in the history and imagination of our universe.

When looking for revelation, scientists, seek to discover the true mechanics of a thing. Philosophers ruminate on a things nature and function based on empirical and speculative inferences. Artists seek understanding and insight about the animus by reusing, repurposing and reinventing any such tool, medium and technology available to them whilst not being bound by any particular doctrine when transmuting knowledge to form, a process which is almost alchemical.

In this respect art could be treated as a form of religion, a wonderfully diverse one: if one is looking for answers, they can be found.

Contemporary technology and the unprecedented availability of information, through the world wide web, nurtures artistic practice, migration and collaboration in unpredictable ways. We crave knowledge like never before, this freedom of thought seduces our creativity and curiosity and encourages them to flourish as competitors to science and religion as harbingers of truth.

Clara Jo and Tiago Romagnani Silveira are both young contemporary conceptual artists working, under the umbrella of Institute fuer Raumexperimente in Berlin, offer us a glimpse of what they know the world around them feels like.

The foundation of Clara Jo’s is based on cultural observations and public experimentation. She explores the intersection of visual art and other disparate disciplines and their relationships through re-narrated propositions. The consumption of pop culture, identity politics, and labor practices are crucial themes to Jo’s works presented at the exhibition in Berlin which will include video and sound pieces.

Tiago Romagnani Silveira’s installation entre um ponto e outro and video art work subtlety investigate individual perception and the passage of time, gravity and density of movement in relation to the landscape, nature, and society. His work is aiming to better understand the complex and challenging nature of our being in space-time and sense the fleetingness of the human condition. www.tiagoromagnanisilveira.com

Ryszard Wasko,celebrated contemporary artist and the driving force behind Construction in Process (1981) and The International Artists’ Museum (1989) in Lodz has exhibited at most major art venues. He has worked in a variety of medium including photography, film, video, installation and painting. In the 1970s, Wasko came to prominence as a conceptual artist creating a unique series of experimental films and multimedia work that will be included in this exhibition in Berlin. Implicit and subtle hints inside the works builds a bridge to an understanding of a distinctive cinematic thinking that lies behind the work that is both photographic and performative in nature. The subject of Wasko’s artistic interest can not be easily defined, although the feeling and idea of a past that was “present” shines through the work. The artist employs deconstructive analysis and study of the nature of the medium to address, through his own language, the knowledge of the nature of art, its purpose and visions of the world it leads to. www.ryszardwasko.info