Visions of Exchange. Mercedes-Benz Art Scope Award 2009–2017

About

The art and culture program “Mercedes-Benz Art Scope” founded in 1991 by Mercedes-Benz Japan reoriented itself in 2004 through its cooperation with the Daimler Art Collection Stuttgart/Berlin and established itself as a Japanese/German cultural exchange. Stays of three months apiece in Tokyo and Berlin allow artists selected by the jury to deepen their knowledge of the host country’s culture, make contacts, and develop new projects and ideas. Exhibitions at the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo and the Daimler Contemporary in Berlin regularly present the program and thus also give an impression of the contemporary art scene in each host country.

The exhibition “Visions of Exchange” presents the last eleven award winners from the period 2009 to 2017. The show focuses on works that have been developed or created in the context of the program, supplemented by other works that provide insight into the artistic oeuvres. In a variety of media and artistic styles, they reflect the individual perception of the initially foreign and the impulses and insights that arise from impressions gained: In approaching the new through the view through the camera; in the artistic appropriation and transformation of found materials and phenomena; intrinsically, relying on traditions of abstract imagery. The common presentation opens up a dialogue about culture in its meaning and identity-creating dimension, about singularity / foreignness as well as about the meaning of boundary-crossing cultural concepts in a globalized world.

Curators: Renate Wiehager and Wiebke Hahn

Artist: Eva Berendes (D), Rita Hensen (D), Ryosuke Imamura (J), Taro Izumi (J), Meiro Koizumi (J), Satoshi Ono (J), Benedikt Partenheimer (D), Hiroe Saeki (J), Tokihiro Satō (J), Jan Scharrelmann (D), Menja Stevenson (D)