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Adventures of Enlightenment, Alexander Kluge, Palazzo Diedo, Venice

Adventures of Enlightenment
Alexander Kluge

Palazzo Diedo | Berggruen Institute
curated by Hans Ulrich Obrist and Adriana Rispoli

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Adventures of Enlightenment is the project by the clebrated German director and producer Alexander Kluge realised for Palazzo Diedo as part of the international panel What is Unversalism? organised by the Berggruen Institute Europe.


The project consists of eight monochannel videos, his famous Minutefilms, short hybrid compositions lasting only a few minutes, a pinboard with visual and textual references which, according to his typical eclectic and fluid methodology - and aesthetics - aims to stimulate reflection and free associations of the audience, and a set of playing cards.
In the eight Minutenfilms along the main hall of Palazzo Diedo, ranging from cosmology to mathematics, from science to art history, Kluge offers an often ironic but frank social commentary on historical and contemporary events. His Minutefilms are a unique way of filmmaking in which complex ideas are condensed into a few minutes. To achieve this, the director uses highly idiosyncratic editing methods, in which images and sounds are sourced from a wide variety of sources and collaborations.


Specially produced for this occasion Adventures of Enlightenment A set of 40 cards on error or value in Universalism is a set of cards that winks at the practice of tarots. The forty cards are a free intellectual and visual journey on the possibility/opportunity of the persistence of universal concepts. They serve as anchors for the fragmented compositions of the videos - including a Tribute to Venice - and include various collaborations from Katerina Grosse to George Baselitz, reworkings, superimpositions and even interpretations made with artificial intelligence, and above all images extracted from Aby Warburg's famous Mnemosyne Atlas, from which he takes up the dynamic between word and image.


In the end, the pinborad is a clearly didactic tool, particularly suited to the former Palazzo Diedo primary schools, offering the public the opportunity to dwell on the myriad of stimuli on offer.
With this methodology, Kluge aims to activated the participation of the viewer, considering the spectator the true medium of his artistic practice.

Adventures of Enlightenment, Alexander Kluge, Palazzo Diedo, Venice, installation view
Adventures of Enlightenment, Alexander Kluge, Palazzo Diedo, Venice, installation view
Adventures of Enlightenment, Alexander Kluge, Palazzo Diedo, Venice, installation view

Palazzo Diedo
Berggruen
Arts & Culture

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Fondamenta Diedo
Cannaregio 2386
30121 Venezia