COEXISTENCE

About

COEXISTENCE is the exhibition wrapping-up MOMENTUM’s tenure at the Kunstquartier Bethanien. To bid goodbye to our home of 14 years, MOMENTUM is proud to invite eminent Maltese artist Norbert Francis Attard to make a new site-specific installation for our space. Forming the latest work in his ongoing Coexistence Series, RED vs BLUE refers to the political and philosophical divisions fracturing our contemporary world. Attard’s direct frame of reference is the growing polarization between the two political parties in Malta. Yet RED vs BLUE can readily take on far more global connotations. This work came into conceptual being during the death pangs of the highly contentious US elections in November 2024, when every news cycle spotlit a country fractured in a patchwork of Red and Blue extremes. And whereas Red and Blue are the colors of politics the world over, this ideological color palette is far from shackled to the political.

Referring to one of Attard’s first works in his Coexistence Series (“I See Red Everywhere”, Malta 2002), Raphael Vella writes, “Red is probably the most abused colour in the spectrum. It shocks television viewers when it makes a sudden appearance at war scenes but returns to banality whenever it colours fast-food chains. The sheer strength and brilliance of red make it the most ambiguous of colours: it can represent sexual passion or even maternal warmth and patriotic love but it often borders on vulgarity. Its multivocal character is probably a result of its “excessive” nature. Red is always “in excess”: it is always too hot, too eye-catching, too partisan, too greedy, too painful, too noisy. It doesn’t ask politely for our attention; it demands it! This is the essence of its vulgarity. Red refuses to be subtle. It doesn’t know when enough is enough.”

By that same token, blue is the calming color of nature; of bright blue skies and deep blue seas. Blue is associated with peace, tranquility, spirituality and healing. Yet blue is also the word used to denote emotions of depression and despair. Historically, blue has been the precious purview of royalty, wealth, and power. Blue is a highly cultured color; Picasso had a whole period of it, Yves Klein monopolized it, and a vast musical genre is encapsulated in it. Blue is all around us, yet it is the rarest color in nature. Blue is the calm before the storm. Blue runs cold where red runs hot. They are opposing extremes, open – in all their diversity of meanings – to endless interpretation.

In dialogue with Attard’s monumental new work addressing issues on a global scale, the site-specific installation DATA vs DATA, by Malta-based Korean media artist Yeoul Son, measures temperature at the local level of our space in the Kunstquartier Bethanien, Berlin. The literal is here extrapolated to the social and political.

This exhibition takes place at a critical juncture in Berlin’s very identity as the art capitol of Europe; at a time when idiotically short-sited political decisions are threatening to eviscerate the art and culture scene in Berlin; when budgets for visual and performing arts institutions are being radically cut; when artists are being evicted from their studios; when so many of the support structures for the arts – which had made Berlin so unique and built-up this city’s reputation as a cultural mecca – are being de-funded. COEXISTENCE takes place two weeks before MOMENTUM loses our home of 14 years in the Kunstquartier Bethanien. In this context, when we need it more than ever before, the notion of coexistence takes on a far too ironic tone. And yet coexistence is what we all need most, if there is to be any hope for the future.