Coming Closer
Artistic Fantasy Knows No Boundaries
“Coming Closer” – an Appeal and a Condition
What is more beautiful and positive than artists from different cultures creating paintings, sculptures, photographs? Creating is a human right (Vilém Flusser). From inception to realization, “Coming Closer” took a good six years. Seven artists, a network of 60 people, cooperation with political organizations and support from the business world have made it possible to put together and present the exhibition today. Works of art are sensitive, multi-layered tapestries that are brought to life only by the eye of the beholder. Art can be seen and enjoyed all over the world, for, in the words of the writer Jorge Luis Borges: “Beauty is everywhere.”
Global developments seem to be trending toward international relations as cultural exchange and competition among equal partners. The days of the hackneyed, economically patronizing concept of globalization whose bipolar, reductive view knows only economic winners and losers will pass. Most countries in the world are not satisfied with functioning as a market and an extended workbench – they want to invent and create on their own. This can already be seen in the fact that China, for instance, invested around 18 billion euros in Europe in 2006, while India invested around 17 billion euros. Development is no longer going in one direction only.
My hope is that with this exhibition and the positive example of a successful intercultural dialogue, we may be able to offer a new, alternative take on the concept of globalization.
I would like to thank everyone for their help and support.
Hermann - Valentin Schmitt, Berlin 2007
ART&MEDIA INSTITUT BERLIN
