“SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat” (November 15, 2018-April 21, 2019), the first large-scale survey of the critically acclaimed Danish collective SUPERFLEX in the United States, focuses on the group’s humorous and playfully subversive installations and films that deal with the economy, financial crisis, corruption, migration, and the possible consequences of global warming. The exhibition’s title, "We Are All in the Same Boat," envisions passengers together in a ship at sea, and a set of shared risks that may put them in danger. It suggests that if our boat sinks, we all sink with it. The title is both poetic and dark. It obviously refers to the simple importance of working together, but also to problems that we now face as part of the current global situation. Talk about change is not enough. We need to act. At times like these it is imperative to work together to find solutions to the most threatening problems we may ever have confronted.
Art has always responded to issues in the real world. While everybody talks about the weather, during the last two decades, global warming and climate change have been increasingly discussed and debated. A long tradition exists within the arts of discussing the relation and subject human versus nature, but recently the consequences of human impact, interference, and possible trigger of the twenty-first century’s climate changes have echoed within the art world in a more activist way. SUPERFLEX has been at the forefront of artists who grapple with many of these pressing subjects ever since its founding by Bjørnstjerne Christiansen, Jakob Fenger, and Rasmus Nielsen in 1993. SUPERFLEX looks at subjects that generate discussion around migration, alternative energy, political awareness, distribution of wealth and the power of global capital.
The exhibition includes video, sculpture, installations, and participatory works selected for their relevance to the history, present, and future of the City of Miami. The works reflect upon the situation of Miami from the perspectives of art, finance, climate, and a fictional, if plausible, future. The topics of water, migration, refugees, and the economy inevitably drive the exhibition. "We Are All in the Same Boat" includes the American debut of a number of the group’s works in the show, several of which have been newly reimagined for our city. It also includes major new works commissioned by MOAD-"We Are All in the Same Boat" and "Euphoria Now."
SUPERFLEX is known for its interest in unifying urban spaces and commenting on society through art. The artists describe their practice as the provision of “tools” that affect or influence a social or economic context. Previous projects include paying visitors to enter their exhibition; the development and marketing of a new beverage, Free Beer; and the production of a self-sufficient, portable biogas unit to provide energy for a family. The group’s projects are often rooted in their particular local contexts and outside traditional art contexts, collaborating with designers, engineers, businesses, and marketers on projects that have the potential for social or economic change. SUPERFLEX has worked with community groups, NGOs, and large architectural companies such as Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG) to realize their projects. They remain difficult to pigeonhole yet continue to innovate in their approach to current issues.
The members of SUPERFLEX have used their position as artists to pose questions of political, economic, and environmental behavior and responsibility. Through their work with contracts and instructions, SUPERFLEX has examined how we interact in public space. The group has looked at how small changes within language can break daily patterns and routines, how small linguistic “obstructions” enable us to act and think differently in social situations in daily life. The topics of workers’ rights, copyrights, human rights, and environmental rights are real, they are global, and they are important; by twisting them slightly from their original context SUPERFLEX playfully manages to create conversations around these pressing issues. In the words of the exhibition’s curator, “these works are meant to create political awareness, generate discussions, and help us think and act.”
Organized by MOAD, "SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat" is curated by Jacob Fabricius, Artistic Director of Kunsthal Aarhus. Support for "SUPERFLEX: We Are All in the Same Boat" is provided by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs, this.nordic, Funding Arts Network, the Danish Arts Foundation, and the Florida Department of State Division of Cultural Affairs.
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