Truth is concrete A 24/7 marathon camp on artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art

100% art 100% politics 100% non-stop

Details and programme: //truthisconcrete.org


“Art is a left-wing hobby.”
(Geert Wilders)

The world is changing too quickly for us to keep up: the rise of the populist right, massive financial cutbacks that threaten the entire European project, structural destruction of education and culture, democratic uprisings, Islamic and Christian fundamentalism, environmental disasters – where to start, where to end?
But what role does art play in this whirlwind of events, that we can hardly even follow, let alone understand?
We have learned that there are no longer any easy answers. We do not trust ideologies, but we follow the ideology of capitalism. We know that everything is contingent and relative. We replace criticism with criticality, politics with the post-political, modernism with post-modernism and capitalism with added value. But when the answers get too complicated, the need for easy solutions begins to grow. And we – perhaps left-wing hobbyists after all – seem to have lost touch with a broader base.
So what’s to be done? Must art help solve those problems that politics and society have ignored for so long? Should art be a social or political tool, can it be useful?
“Truth is concrete” was written in big letters above Bertolt Brecht’s desk when in Danish exile – quoting Lenin quoting Hegel quoting Augustine. We use the possibility of concrete truth as a working hypothesis, to search for direct action, concrete change and knowledge. For an art that interferes in specific political and social contexts and for an activism that seeks to find intelligent, creative means of self-empowerment.
“Truth is concrete” is a 24/7 marathon camp: around 250 artists, activists and scientists will lecture, perform, play, produce, debate and collect artistic strategies in politics and political strategies in art. Day and night. As part of a grant programme, we will also be inviting some 100 young students, artists, activists and theorists from all over the globe. “Truth is concrete” is a platform and a toolbox as much as a performative statement; an extreme effort at a time that seems to call for extreme efforts.
The camp is a temporary habitat: here the sleep areas, there the herbst exhibition, over there the kitchen and next to it the bookshop. The video library alongside the hairdresser’s. Camp radio, speech karaoke, plenum. Open all the time and for everyone, day and night. Some stay throughout, but everyone is invited to drop by any time: for a particular lecture, for an hour or so, perhaps another hour, for a discussion, a performance, a concert, a film – the doors are always open, as long as there is room.