This Is Not Funny

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THIS IS NOT FUNNY is the title of an artwork by Oliver Kossack. Created in the process of painting, here the picture speaks to the artist, as well as the painter to the picture’s surface. In this linguistic projection onto the canvas, a contradictory moment of concurrent humor and seriousness becomes apparent.

The image is simultaneously what it is and what it is not. The chain of associations triggered by the title leads from Richard Prince’s Joke Paintings, to René Magritte’s linguistic humor, to the puns of Marcel Duchamp.

In the exhibition, the focus does not lie on the artistic staging of a frontal provocation, but on the subtle humorous meaning of the respective contributions of the artists. What is humor in art? What is irony? How are evaluation criteria in society, politics and art determined between strategic play and rigid seriousness? This is not funny … Call, warning, comment? What are the limits of humor in art? How do young artists express and position themselves on controversial social issues such as power and abuse, exploitation, artistic image production or feminism?

The fourteen artists involved in the interdisciplinary project class ARTIST’S PROOF by Prof. Oliver Kossack at the HGB Leipzig present works from painting, sculpture, graphics, photography and drawing. In addition to the possibilities and facets of humor, they also question their own artistic position and attitude as well as the role of artists in society.

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