Can today's paintings or installations be idyllic, suggesting a perfect world? What does it mean if they do? An idyll, which must always be read as a contrast to actual circumstances, is more than just a deceptive image. Does it perhaps have a regulating, or even normative, character?
This publication presents a selection of works, divided into four sections focusing on the landscape, urban, private, and utopian variants of the idyll, which explore the issues surrounding its timeliness and present radicalization. There is always something more hidden in the individual works than a fleeting glance might first suggest to suppose. For instance, the clear, comic-like landscape "paintings" by Rowena Dring are actually cunningly sewn together out of small, monotone pieces of fabric, which dissolve the image into countless flecks of color as soon as the viewer looks more closely.
 
Artists featured (selection): Franz Ackermann, Alexander Braun, David Claerbout, Mark Dion, Rowena Dring, Valéry Favre, Lothar Götz,  Beate Gütschow, Tom Hunter, Danni Jakob, Stefan Kürten, Peter Land, Jonathan Monk, Sarah Morris, Olaf Nicolai, Jorge Pardo, Daniel Roth, Glen Rubsamen, Yehudit Sasportas, Stefan Sehler, Qui Shi-hua, Diana Thater, Gert & Uwe Tobias, Francesco Vezzoli, Pae White
 

Exhibition schedule: Phoenix-Kulturstiftung/Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, October 2006-April 2007 · DA2 Domus Artium 2002, Salamanca, June 5-August 5, 2007 · Galerie der Stadt Remscheid October 22, 2007-January 13, 2008