04/04/2019 Katharina Windorfer
We look at art, we think about art, we analyze art. We can do this alone or together with someone. However, we always talk about art. But what if we can enter into a dialogue with art? What if we can make the figures of a piece of art talk to us? This might be similar to the movie ‘Night in the Museum’ from 2006. There the objects become alive during the night.
In the museum Louvre Abu Dhabi we find a statue that dates from 6500 before Christ. It was found in Jordania.
Statue: I have been existing for such a long time. Still, you know not much about me. But what you can tell is that I have two heads which share one body.
We: It is as if you are looking at us. That might be because of your eyes. They are highlighted with the black color.
Statue: There is a contrast between our detailed eyes and our rather rough body. And furthermore, we have no arms and legs. So you cannot tell if we are female or male.
We: It is because of this contrast between your eyes and body that your faces are even more highlighted. You appear so vivid, less than a statue dating back to a time which is hard to imagine.
Statue: We cannot say who we have been at this time. Maybe we present a human couple or some gods.
But despite of our identity, we represent something important. We share one body, we are close to each other. And this closeness distinguishes us.
The exhibition which displays us is entitled ‘human kind’. Maybe this title helps to describe our importance for you.
We: This term does seem to us rather vague, difficult to grasp. We have not really spent much thought of it until now.
Statue: But the term ‚human kind‘ becomes more clear when you connect it with a particular situation. Take our encounter: a very old statue meets you who sees us from his presence.
We: Looking at it from this point, the term ‚human kind‘ is more comprehensible. We have looked it up, human kind means the community of all humans. This encloses also a certain continuity which we might picture together. The people at your time, around 8500 years ago, created you. You might resemble them. And then we are here, so many years later, but we do resemble you. So you and we recall this feature of human kind, the continuity of what humans look like.
Statue: We are not only connected with each other, we also invite to reflect about the closeness between humans in general.
We: But there might also something else that you display. You have been restored for a long time, who knows what you have been used for? Maybe you played a crucial role during some rituals or even in some religious ceremonies? For thousands of years people have cared for you. This is also a feature of human kind, caring for each other and for the things that mean something to us. To this, there also belongs art.
When we now look at you, at your vivid faces, your similar appearance to us, your closeness to each other, then the term ‚human kind‘ becomes more clear to us. It is about the closeness of human being, it is about caring for each other.
The statue falls silent and looks at us. We look back. A thought crosses our mind: art is timeless similar to the thoughts about human kind. From time to time, we will ask ourselves, inspired by art, what constitutes human being and their kind, and what has art to do with us.
