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The Art of Deceleration

Motion and Rest in Art from Caspar David Friedrich to Ai Weiwei

(Catalogues)

This publication focuses on the dialectical phenomenon of motion and rest in art from the Romantic period to the present. Modern art has primarily been equated with acceleration, from William Turner, Impressionism and Futurism to abstraction, kinetics and media art. Less attention has however been paid to the pursuit of an aesthetic of slowness that has been linked to the fascination for speed from the beginning. In the images of yearning by the Romantics and Symbolists to the Surrealists and the profound slow paintings of a Mark Rothko or Franz Gertsch, artists have examined the dynamics of stillness and the depths of existence. The Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg investigates this modernist dialectic for the first time in a comprehensive catalogue, distilling a theme that touches a nerve with society. The consequences of acceleration in modern life are becoming increasingly evident: lack of time, burnout, stress and collective loss of control resulting from ecological disasters and financial crises. In a separate section, renowned scholars and authors from diverse disciplines, such as the sociologist Hartmut Rosa and the cultural scientist Hartmut Böhme, discuss the problems resulting from technological and economic acceleration, and also examine the growing desire for deceleration.

  304 pages (thereof 44 pages Feuilleton) with 402 ill. (335 in colour)

Order number: AK139