Critical Melancholia

About

The exhibition has developed from conversations about a particular motif in critical theory. It involves thinking about the relationship between nature and history in a way that is complementary to many contemporary debates. Indeed, most discussions of recent critical theory emphasize the need to read nature in terms of history. From gender and queer studies to political ecology, the focus is on raising awareness that nature is not given to us independent of its respective social and historical constructions. The figure of thought that stands in the background of this exhibition, on the other hand, proceeds the other way around: it reads the constructions of history under the sign of their natural decay, that is, as transient.