Lügen.nirgends. Zwischen Fiktion, Dokumentation und Wirklichkeit

, 2008

Can lie be a true? Reality and possibility, illusion and objectivity, imagination and fiction are what art is about. The artists shown in Luegen.nirgends tell stories employing varying strategies. They utilize a documentary from and combine words (spoken or written) with pictures (photographs, films, drawings, objects, installations). At times they claim that not everything that seems reasonable is true, and occasionally they lie to make the systematology of ascertaining truth apparent. But how is a lie defined? Or truth? Since Augustine, it has been argued that a lie is constituted by the liar’s intention, by the more or less deliberate decision to make a false statement. This in turn becomes an inherent problem of verification: what is a lie to one person may be a compliment or just a fib for another. This demonstrates how personal views and intentions vary. In consideration of differing subjective stand points, it is internally as well as externally impossible to discriminate between truth and untruth. Lies and untruths only exist when the benchmark of truth is applied.

This catalogue is published on the occasion of the exhibition Lügen.nirgends: Zwischen Fiktion, Dokumentation und Wirklichkeit at Ausstellungshalle zeitgenössische Kunst Münster.