One focus of last year’s “Country” issue was the growing attraction of rural areas for cultural workers who seek the quiet of country life while also critically engaging with conditions outside urban centers. In Saxony-Anhalt, the federal state exhibition “Gerechtigkeyt 1525” commemorates the Peasants’ War on its quincentenary and serves as a reminder that the countryside has been the site not only of reactionary uprisings but also of emancipatory struggles. As part of this larger project, the exhibition “Planetary Peasants” brings together 30 artistic positions, including many newly commissioned works, and outlines the speculative figure of the planetary peasant primarily through spatial arrangement. In his review, Nikolay Smirnov asks how the anti-hegemonic dimension of a planetary worldview can be articulated while also acknowledging the ambivalent nature of identification with the land.
English
Texte zur Kunst, October 2, 2025
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