25 March to 9 October 2022

Someone Else. The foreignness of children

Museum für Neue Kunst

We are all children, someone's child, throughout our lives. Some of us are parents ourselves. We grow up in different family groupings, as well as cultural and social contexts that shape us. We are part of it all, whether we choose to be so or not. Nevertheless, we are all fundamentally different, a fact that separates us and makes us foreign to one another – even as children and parents, lovers and friends. 

Someone Else takes a look at this fundamental and lasting foreignness, which is by no means the result of estrangement. What does it actually mean for the way we coexist? Not to mention our notions of familiarity and otherness? What does it mean for our identity and our dealings with others?

The works of international artists explore these issues. Erik Levine discovered film recordings in his father's estate after his death. They show him as an unknown person who kept much of his life concealed from his son. Jamie Diamond assembles groups of strangers for her putative family portraits and thus plays with viewers' expectations. Omer Fast's film Continuity looks at with what happens when parents cannot accept the loss of their child. After the death of their son, a couple stages his return with alternating actors.

With: Steve Carr | Larry Clark | Jamie Diamond | Jimmie Durham | Omer Fast | Ronnie van Hout | Ragnar Kjartansson | Erik Levine | Alex McQuilkin | Karam Natour | Véréna Paravel | Lucien Castaing-Taylor | Chloe Piene | Ben Rivers | Anri Sala | Liina Siib | Dominik Sittig | SNFU | Louk Vreeswijk | Wladimir Zabotin