hell is other people (if you're lucky)

In the organizer's words:

Kunsthalle Münster and Residence NRW⁺ present hell is other people (if you're lucky) in the Stadthausgalerie. The exhibition understands the public sphere as an affective field that is constantly being created anew through encounters, frictions and negotiations.

The title is a quote from the book The Inconvenience of Other People (2022) by the cultural theorist Lauren Berlant and refers to the tensions that determine our everyday interactions: asked or unasked looks and touches, irritations and misunderstandings. We have to relentlessly negotiate the social fabric of public space with its rules and prohibitions and navigate the omnipresent appeals and regulations. Instead of trying to neutralize the frictions and ignore the inequalities, the exhibition invites us to linger with them and asks: What relationships and collective imaginations can emerge under these conditions? And what kind of public space do we need for this?

The Stadthausgalerie is located in the inner courtyard of the town hall, in the center of Münster. It is both an electoral office and an exhibition space - a hybrid place between democratic infrastructure and art presentation. The installative works in the exhibition by artists Dorota Gawęda + Eglė Kulbokaitė, Sinaida Michalskaja, Alexandra Sheherazade Salem and Gaia Vincensini reflect on the increasing privatization and commodification of public space.

With three performative works by Chloe Chignell, Ewa Dziarnowska and Liina Magnea as well as an intervention in public space by Abdoul Karim Martens and Dominik Sartor, the exhibition opens up a space for narratives of moving bodies and temporary gatherings.

Curators: Anneliese Ostertag + Antoine Simeão Schalk