Upon the museum’s request, curator Philippe Pirotte, the newly appointed director of Kunsthalle Bern, gathered the work of nine artists under the title 'IDYL – as to answer that picture'.
He searched for artists who offered a reply to the question of whether sculpture as a genre is still relevant and what is its status within the contemporary arts scene. The genre as a whole increasingly seems to be falling apart and re-emerging in new guises, e.g. in installations or in spatial presentations of video works.
Does sculpture still have a place in the arts?
Philippe Pirotte asked himself this question and purposefully limited the number of works in the exhibition. He did however make sure to choose “international” artists, who are part of a discourse that transcends the borders of the various continents.
But he made the exhibition for the Middelheim Museum for reasons other than its art historical past. The park itself provided the theme for the exhibition: the idyll, referring to a temporary dissolution of reality, to a set of ideal circumstances.
This can include the relationship of a figure with the landscape. City people consider a park like the Middelheim Museum, which was originally built as a victory over nature, as an idyllic place, a place to retreat from the hustle and bustle of the reality of the city, where you can enjoy peace and quiet and fresh air. But how does this help art? Why should the artist engage in a confrontation with the creative force of nature? The city is actually more a natural habitat for an artwork. The park, where nature in a sense has become similar to a human artefact, is the perfect place to seek out this tension. Pirotte selected artists who like their works to engage head-in this confrontation.