Curvature of Events. Baroque. Romanticism. Video (2014)

Many contemporary art exhibitions in African countries are developed by German or European curators from an ethnographic perspective. The project “Curvature of Events. Baroque. Romanticism. Video” reverses this perspective.

In cooperation with the Goethe-Institut South Africa, the Dresden State Art Collections invited the Ethiopian curator Meskerem Assegued to Dresden. In her time there, she examined the artefacts of the collections and developed an exhibition concept for the New Masters Gallery in the Albertinum. Meskerem Assegued created a video exhibition which focuses on how the artists of the Renaissance, Baroque and Romanticism periods perceived their social circumstances and how contemporary artists interpret these depictions today.

Meskerem Assegued invited three artists from Italy, Ethiopia and Germany to examine selected artworks from the collections and use the medium of film to offer a contemporary response to art from earlier periods.

The project was funded through the TURN Fund by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.