The essence of the Japanese ‘golden repair’ method, chosen as the title of the exhibition, is highlighting the cracks of broken objects, preserving the imperfections, embracing the damage rather than concealing it. Kintsugi is also a unique approach and attitude towards the world, which goes beyond the material dimension and can be applied to our relationships, society, poorly functioning economic and political systems, and the fragmented state of our world.  

The exhibition Golden Repair is the sequel in a long-term curatorial venture that began in 2023 with the exhibition Handle with Care. It explores the themes of healing and repair in a broad sense, from the personal to the cultural, from the social to the cellular. 

The works on display highlight fault lines on both individual and global scales, while also proposing options for collective healing and for the restoration of inner and outer balance.

The concept of repair is an urgent call to our society condemned to consumption: it draws attention to the finiteness of our resources, the possibility of repair instead of disposal, and the importance of our individual decisions as consumers and citizens.

It can be interpreted as a form of resistance aimed at disrupting systems based on the continuous depletion of natural and human resources. In traditional societies and many non-Western cultures, injuries, scars and defects are of particular significance because they are a record of time, history, and the past suffered by ancestors.

The concepts of healing and repair are thus closely entangled with the struggle against the lasting consequences of oppression, imperial past, and colonization, especially as the damage caused by historical injustice, colonialism, war, and violence is passed down through generations in the form of trauma.

The notions of damage, wound, fracture, and trauma can be applied literally to the human body and psyche, and metaphorically to the wounded social fabric, but also to farmlands, waters, forests, and the entire ecosystem.

What are our chances of recovery in a toxic culture, in the age of the burnout society?  What are our prospects for renewal in the face of economic exploitation, long-standing oppressive regimes and the dramatic destruction of natural resources?

Can we repair what is broken – our health, our relationships, our society? What are the paths and strategies offered by contemporary art?  What can a museum as both physical and spiritual space offer beyond articulating the concept of restoration and well-being in a world in need of healing? 

More: 
Ludwig Museum
 

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