Über die Metapher des Wachstums

The international exhibition project 'On the Metaphor of Growth' (Über die Metapher des Wachstums) is a cooperation between the Kunstverein Hannover, the Frankfurter Kunstverein and the Kunsthaus Baselland. Each of the three exhibitions places a different accent on artistic responses to the concept of growth, while demonstrating the present-day ambivalence that it arouses in terms of its economic, biological, and social implications. 'Growth' generally has positive connotations and is seen as a desirable process: the growth of plants, children, capital assets, pensions, and the economy as a whole. As a concept initially associated with biology, it suggests something natural. In relation to society, a belief in growth and progress can determine the general direction of a society, for example, the development of the individual as passing through the phases of education, a professional career, and starting a family. Although stagnation, transience, and renewal are inherently 'natural,' they are hardly accepted on a metaphorical level. Economic growth or technical development, for example, never attain a point of maturity, encounter final limitations, or reach saturation. Regression is considered taboo. The idea of growth has long been a theme in the field of cultural production as a central principle of social organization. Artists take the concept of growth and the associated belief in progress as a staring point for investigations and visualizations based on exemplary phenomena. The exhibition project offers a platform for this thematic interest. Bringing together various strands of artistic explorations of the phenomenon of growth, the exhibition project 'On the Metaphor of Growth' creates a tension between the positive and negative connotations of growth processes and inspires fundamental reflections on the topic.--Frankfurt Kunstverein website.