Acts of Friendship – Act 3
Sammlung Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst

10.06. to 17.09. 2023

A collaborative exhibition conceived with the museum team including works from the collection of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst.

Opening Act 3: Friday, June 9, 2023

Act 3 – June 10 to September 17, 2023

Passed:

Act 1 – Januar 28 to April 2, 2023

Act 2 – April 5 to May 28, 2023

These days, we often associate friendship with the notion of a bond based on mutual trust, which supports us, not least in times of crisis. Yet friendships are also complex, contradictory structures that may indeed be subversive in character. Thus, friendships are not only able to support us as individuals in how we behave towards the world around us; they can also be pathway towards making ourselves heard as a collective and thereby rebelling against social (power) structures.

Inspired by Ragnar Kjartanssons’ video installation The Visitors, which can be understood as a homage to friendship, the team of the Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst has selected for the exhibition, Acts of Friendship works from the collection, that in their view represent a particular aspect of friendship. The selected works, around 30 in all, are shown in three theme-based groups of works.

While the works represent the personal conceptions, approaches and perspectives of the individual team members toward friendship, they also serve as a starting point to reflect on questions around this subject, which is as multifaceted as the various approaches themselves. In Acts of Friendship the concern is not primarily with caring friendships linked to our inner circle, rather it’s about complicity, alliances and solidarity. Thus, the path from togetherness and interaction in familiar company is not far from the sense of community that makes us publicly stand up for convictions and values, and which turns us into a politically active, hands-on collective.