Language/Text/Image
Can you hear me? Can you see me?
JOHN BALDESSARI, ALICE BIDAULT, NATALIE CZECH, AYŞE ERKMEN, NADINE FECHT, GARY HILL, NATIONAL AIDS MEMORIAL QUILT, GORDON PARKS, MARKUS VATER, GILLIAN WEARING
Exhibition: June 27 – December 7, 2025
An exhibition of the Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen (initially shown there from 20.10.2024 until 16.02.2025) is now on view in KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION, Düsseldorf. Conceived and curated by Dr Barbara Segelken and Birte Hinrichsen. Curatorial adaptation for KAI 10: Ludwig Seyfarth.
Language, text and image are among the most important means of human expression. Far from being neutral in character, they are allied to certain values, norms and cultural procedures, as well as being anchored in social systems. Inevitably, they also serve to draw boundaries which can include or exclude people. Who or what arbitrates whether something may be said or seen?
The questions “Can you hear me (now)?” or “Can you see me (now)?” have become very familiar since the rapid expansion of digital interconnectivity. They are frequently voiced by those seeking to ascertain whether they are being clearly heard or seen within a communicative setting. But they also highlight the human need to be heard or seen, and to learn how these mechanisms of in- and exclusion are regulated and circumscribed.
The exhibition Language/Text/Image presents works from the 1950s to the present day, in which the relationship between language, text and image is addressed, reflected and interrogated in regard to its social and political dimensions. Using artistic means, the works explore the possibilities of getting something said, heard or seen.
The selected sound- and text-based works, photographs, prints, films or textiles all take up the challenge of working with something which – initially, depending on the respective circumstances – is unstable and hard to control. Conventions in language and image usage are not subverted but used innovatively to foster new semantic spaces. In this, the artists research the practices of reading and seeing, the interweavings of memory and history, and the boundaries between fact and fiction. At the same time, they challenge ingrained patterns of perception and give space to the representation of insecurities and misunderstandings.
In addition, it becomes evident that history and story-telling can be grasped as something that itself has become a historical entity, determined by and resulting from shared experiences – and that this too can change. This happens against very differing backdrops in terms of origins and character, as well as subjective experience – and at times when the need for security and control acquires particular urgency.
The exhibition presents recently created works, but also stretches far back to a time before the advent of digital connectivity: the photographs of Gordon Parks from the 1950s show everyday situations in the south of the US, where segregation of the white and Black populations was ubiquitous also in the form of regulatory signs. On the signs that the people in Gillian Wearing’s photographs are holding aloft, on the other hand, you can read what happens to be on their minds at that very moment. The manner in which language regulates social processes is a central theme in Nadine Fecht’s work. Her approach is also tied to the tradition of linguistic-analytical concept art, as manifested in key video works by John Baldessari and Gary Hill. Formal rules also determine the works of Natalie Czech which are additionally featured in this exhibition in KAI 10. Furthermore, they highlight a playfully poetic aspect that is found in the text-image combinations of Markus Vater. Ayşe Erkmen dissects a dummy text in Latin characters to resemble the hieroglyphs of a language from a non-Western culture. Another such language provides Alice Bidault’s point of reference when she cites the knotting techniques of the Quipus, first developed by the South American Incas. Textile recollections of the deceased are represented in the large-format, visually stunning quilts of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt, the world’s largest communal art project whose hand-made commemorative quilt panels have been collected by the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco.
An exhibition of the
in
Exhibition leaflet
Background information on the exhibition and all the artists can be found here.
Images
Accompanying program
, 7 pm
Language/Text/Image: Opening
Welcome:
Monika Schnetkamp, chairwoman Arthena Foundation
Dr Corinna Otto, director Draiflessen Collection
Introduction:
Dr Barbara Segelken & Birte Hinrichsen, curators Draiflessen Collection
, 6 pm
Image and text, and what can happen in between
Exhibition tour with the curators, Dr Barbara Segelken and Birte Hinrichsen (Draiflessen Collection, Mettingen), followed by an artist talk with Markus Vater
After an introductory tour of the exhibition, the curators will be in conversation with Markus Vater. The artist, who lives in London and Düsseldorf and teaches at the HBK Essen, approaches his surroundings with a keen and curious eye. He is interested in what is hidden or overlooked in everyday life. In seemingly incidental moments, he discovers the bizarre, the abysmal, and the comical. In the 63-part series Objects of Significance, Vater juxtaposes a photograph with a text written by himself. While the photographs are soberly presented in black and white and mostly depict people or objects, the texts often recount personal experiences and are imbued with subtle, laconic humour. Consequently, the relationship between image and text is always tense — a deliberate shift that demonstrates: What we see is not necessarily what is actually meant. The texts provide insight into the artist's thought process, but offer less insight into the images they accompany. Vater's black-and-white drawings, which resemble cartoons in terms of their formal language, also adhere to this principle. The text and image do not relate to each other in an illustrative way; rather, the text creates new and often surprising meanings that only become apparent on closer inspection.
, 6.30 pm
‘Confess All on Video. Don't Worry. You Will Be in Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian …’
Video screening and introduction to the work of Gillian Wearing with Dr Doris Krystof
The complex relationship between privacy and public life remains at the heart of Gillian Wearing's work to this day. The British photo and video artist became widely known in the 1990s as one of the ‘Young British Artists’ and received the prestigious Turner Prize in 1997.
How do people perceive their environment, what are they thinking about – and how much of it do they reveal to the outside world? For the photo series Signs that say what you want them to say and not Signs that say what someone else wants you to say (1992/93), Wearing approached randomly selected passers-by on the streets of London. They were asked to spontaneously write a sentence on a white sheet of paper – a thought that was on their mind at that moment. Wearing then photographed the people on the spot with the text they had written themselves. Ten of these photographs are currently on display in the exhibition Language/Text/Image. Can you hear me? Can you see me? at KAI 10.
The event will feature the video work Confess All on Video. Don't Worry. You Will Be in Disguise. Intrigued? Call Gillian … (1994), which is related to the photo series in terms of content. The title is the text of a newspaper advertisement in which Wearing invited people to tell her their personal secrets, transgressions, sexual fantasies, incestuous relationships or desires for revenge on unfaithful partners while wearing masks, wigs or fake beards. Dr Doris Krystof from the Kunstsammlung NRW in Düsseldorf curated a major Gillian Wearing exhibition back in 2012. She has been following the artist's work for a long time and will discuss it in more detail with Ludwig Seyfarth.
, 13:30 – 17:30 Uhr
Europäischer Tag der Restaurierung
13:30 – 14:30 Uhr & 16:30 – 17:30 Uhr: Restauratorinnenführung
Am 8. Europäischen Tag der Restaurierung lädt KAI 10 | ARTHENA FOUNDATION zu öffentlichen Führungen in die Ausstellungsräume ein. Unter dem Motto „Wir erhalten, was uns bewegt“ stellen wir die oft verborgene Arbeit unserer Restauratorin Vanessa Kloubert vor.
Entdecken Sie vor Ort, wie die sehr unterschiedlichen Kunstwerke der aktuellen Ausstellung Language/Text/Image. Can you hear me? Can you see me? von unserem Team nach den Vorstellungen der Künstler und Künstlerinnen installiert wurden und über die Ausstellungslaufzeit gepflegt und gesichert werden. Zudem werden anhand ausgewählter Kunstwerke Fragen zu Lagerung, Transport sowie Konservierung und Restaurierung von zeitgenössischen Kunstwerken beantwortet.
Die Teilnahme an den Führungen ist kostenfrei und ohne Anmeldung möglich.
, 7 pm
Amplifier
Nadine Fecht in conversation with Thorsten Jantschek, Editor, Deutschlandfunk
Moderator: Ludwig Seyfarth
Nadine Fecht's work often explores how different voices can be heard in society. The artist is particularly interested in the relationship between individual voices and mass articulation. She also examines the visual representability of sounds and utterances in this process. One example is the megaphone motif that runs through the work complex of Unfinished Business, which is on display at the exhibition Language/Text/Image. Can you hear me? Can you see me? This spatial installation, developed especially for KAI 10, attempts to visualise the sound produced when speaking into megaphones.
In conversation with Thorsten Jantschek, who is working on an extensive radio feature about Nadine Fecht, the artist provides further insight into her work, which seems particularly relevant in light of the growing threat to democracies.
, 7 pm
"How Language Breaches Image": Gary Hill in conversation with Margit Rosen
Gary Hill in conversation with Margit Rosen, Head of the Department Collection, Archives & Research at the ZKM | Centre for Art and Media Karlsruhe
Gary Hill, born in Santa Monica, California, in 1951, is one of the foundational figures of media art renowned for his singular approach to exploring the creative potential of liminality in deconstructing media. His process evolves in the spaces between language, image, sound, and writing—their continuous interplay as an open field. The three works displayed in the exhibition Language/Text/Image. Can you hear me? Can you see me? created between the 1970s and 1990s, address several aspects of the subject area in question. These aspects include the electronic generation and representation of sounds, the question of how poetry arises when words and sounds are formed, and how linguistic expression can be achieved through physical gestures. In this conversation, Margit Rosen and Gary Hill engage in a discourse that provides a more detailed insight into the artist's work and the underlying intentions that inform it.
The conversation will be held in English.
Public guided tours
Public guided tours | 3 pm: 29.06. | 13.07. | 27.07. | 10.08. | 24.08. | 07.09. | 21.09. | 05.10. | 19.10. | 02.11 | 16.11. | 30.11.2025