Lauschen & Lauern
2019
The location and exhibition couldn't be more perfectly matched: an art project that explores the tension between ‘wilderness and civilisation’ is being shown in Munich at a location that, like no other, lies at the intersection of ‘no place’ and ‘posh district’. The Maximilianstraße–Altstadtring underpass with the MaximiliansForum is a truly wild place in the urban jungle – located, of all places, under the street where civilisation shows its most decadent side. (...) In Judith Egger's installation ‘Lauschen & Lauern’ (Listening & Lurking), the unease of the inhospitable underground passage continues in a strange setting. Through the reflective windows of the two-part urban showrooms, one looks into a stage-like setting: foliage, bark and tree trunks suggest a forest in the gloomy concrete box. A raised hide made of planks suggests lurking for a series of bizarre events that can be seen on improvised video displays: A straw-like creature stumbles through the winter forest and finally wanders through the streets of Munich, where it tries to find its way through the smoky traffic. A savage in civilisation? (...)
Erika Wäcker-Babnik in the Munich Feuilleton on 8 February 2020
Lauschen & Lauern (Listening & Lurking) is part II of a series of projects by artist Judith Egger in which she explores the tension between “wilderness and civilisation”. With the Enlightenment, the Western world banished mythical thinking and adopted a rationalistic and self-centred view of nature. Now, however, ecological and social challenges are forcing us to ask whether our perception of the world truly does justice to its complexity. The more we feel secure thanks to the achievements of civilisation and appreciate the high standards we enjoy, the stronger our sense of alienation becomes. At the same time, this gives rise to a need for a new connection with the uncontrollable, the other, the unstable, the unknown and the indeterminable, and thus a lively, holistic perception of the existential.
Judith Egger uses art as a testing ground to approach these boundless experiences. She defines ‘wilderness’ as the wilderness within us: the immeasurable aspects of being human, such as instincts and intuition, but also abysmal inner worlds. In many of her projects, she engages intensively with scientific perspectives,
linking them with her artistic approaches and collaborating with scientists and theorists as well as artists from other disciplines. In her project ‘Lauschen & Lauern’ (Listening & Lurking), equipped with artistic instruments, she enters into situations between observation, exploration and self-experience.
Text by Diana Ebster, curator
It is probably accurate to describe Judith Egger as an expeditionary who courageously sets out without knowing the outcome of an undertaking.
‘It is this unexplored essence that I am trying to get closer to, and which keeps eluding me,’ says Judith Egger about her current exhibition ‘Lauschen und Lauern’ (Listening and Lurking). For years, the Munich-based artist has been conducting field and deep soul research in order to encounter something that has many names: the uncontrollable, the unpredictable, the unknown, the unrestrained. Judith Egger calls it ‘wilderness,’ fully aware that the term is highly charged. In the Middle Ages, the wilderness was the place of evil, but for the natural philosophers of the Enlightenment, it was the counterworld to the cultural, civilisational corset, the utopia of an original, perfect order. For Judith Egger, this wildness is neither to be condemned nor idealised: ‘These are parts that each of us has, but pushes away because they may seem unpleasant. In doing so, we curtail our own vitality.’ It is probably accurate to call Judith Egger an expeditionary, who bravely sets off without knowing the outcome of an undertaking.
WIR SIND ALLE WILDE (Andreas Weber)
In her work, Judith Egger has dealt intensively with the theses of Andreas Weber (biologist, philosopher and writer), among others. As part of ‘Lauschen & Lauern’ (Listening & Lurking), she invited him to give a keynote speech and participate in an art discussion. In his lecture, Andreas Weber talks about his current publications, the book “Indigenialität” (Indigenality), published in 2018, and "Enlivenment. A Poetics for the Anthropocene,‘ which followed in 2019. In it, he advocates overcoming the mechanistic interpretation of life phenomena and distances himself from both reductionist popular Darwinism and the concept of ’intelligent design."
This will be followed by an art talk with Judith Egger and Andreas Weber, moderated by Rasmus Kleine (Kallmann Museum Ismaning) and Diana Ebster (Department of Culture/MaximiliansForum).
Yolcatl/Tier (Tania Rubio)
Over the past five years, Mexican composer and artist Tania Rubio has focused her artistic research on natural field recording in Latin America, the topic of soundscape composition, and the acoustic systems of pre-Columbian music. At the invitation of Judith Egger, Tania Rubio has developed the sound performance ‘Yolcatl/Animal’, which represents an excerpt from this extensive research project. Together with Gilberto Ramirez, Tania Rubio will perform her sound performance in the exhibition installation of ‘Lauschen & Lauern’ (Listening & Lurking).
The performance will approach these themes in three consecutive pieces:
‘Biotopes’, ‘Chorus of Dawn’ and ‘Yolcatl’. In her sound performance, Tania Rubio invites the audience to experience different acoustic worlds, ranging from the wildness of still unspoilt ecosystems to heavily polluted habitats, and finally presenting visions of worlds in which humans, other species and machines coexist in a new form of coexistence.