Galerie Rudolfinum, Prague, Czech Republic
2022–2023
October 20, 2022–January 8, 2023 Fragility has emerged in recent years as a key concept through which to reimagine both human and ecological conditions. The traditional meaning of fragility—weakness, powerlessness, passivity—is challenged and claimed instead as a source of force and agency that encourages sustaining interdependencies. The exhibition fragilités unfolds the concerns, visions, and sensibilities expressed by artists who have engaged deeply with notions of fragility and reflected on its tensions, complexities, and paradoxes. The exhibition’s contemporary artists, most of whom will be presented in the Czech Republic for the first time, include Francis Alÿs, Bianca Bondi, Edith Dekyndt, Susanna Fritscher, Kapwani Kiwanga, Anri Sala, and Vivian Suter. Their work explores the fragile coexistence of humans with the world surrounding them as well as the need to seek connections and commonalities between human and nonhuman agencies. Their approach to fragility speaks to our present moment and its concerns, principally an increased awareness of the interdependence of the body and the shifting equilibrium of nature. Working with objects, processes, and ecosystems, they also imagine complex new relationships with our environments, suggesting novel and unprecedented ways to coexist. For years, many artists and thinkers have stressed the invisible bonds that link us to other beings and the myriad ways we are entangled with broader ecosystems. Current crises have only underscored this dependency of all living things on their environment and each other. In response to this heightened awareness of dependence, the exhibition invokes fragility as a lens and language, claiming that neither vulnerability nor power comes in expected guises and that the fragile connections between bodies and the earth constitute real strength. The full list of artists includes Francis Alÿs, Michael Armitage, Maria Bartuszová, Bianca Bondi, Louise Bourgeois, Geta Brătescu, Edith Dekyndt, Susanna Fritscher, William Kentridge, Kapwani Kiwanga, Dominik Lang, Luboš Plný, Anri Sala, Vivian Suter, Alina Szapocznikow, Barthélémy Toguo, Anna Zemánková. Learn more at Galerie Rudolfinum.