Face to face with increased complexity, we try to defend privileges. The rednecks against refugees, the celebrity chef who uses only local products, the artist who defends his studio against gentrification, the «Woken» against exclusion have something in common: they fight for the preservation of privileges. Privileges that stick to our necks like concrete blocks – and ultimately drag us into the abyss. In this sense, the much praised resilience and agility in the global North is ultimately nothing more than the cheap defense of the privileges and possessions of those who have against those who do not. In short: pure conservatism, defending the status quo. Those who weep for comprehensibility and predictability have already lost.

Fondation WhiteSpaceBlackBox is an independent Art Place restoring the innocence to art in the spirit of Humble Craziness. This is our strong belief @ Fondation WhiteSpaceBlackBox. Combined with «Humble Craziness» there are three other drivers guiding us through troubled waters and spur us on to tackle a better future: «Modest Grandezza», «Captivating Passion» and «Serious Fun». Each of these drivers is an oxymoron, meaning that it stands for itself and at the same time for the complete opposite.

Isn’t the oxymoron a wonderful metaphor for the complexity of these worlds? For the beauty and aesthetics and at the same time the opposite? For love and hate? For reconciliation and indifference? Anyone who talks to artists today knows: there is no either-or. Only an either-and-or. This «either-and-or» is the most poetic description of complexity (thank you Robert Menasse). And this «either-and-or» is simply an oxymoron. This said, it also explains that today’s relevant artists do not give simple answers, but in the best case create a dash between completely different perceptions of the world.

Gluing our hands to a Van Gogh or throwing tomato soup at a Rembrandt hardly gets us anywhere. Because in the poor world of weaponized incompetence in which sociopaths like Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Bankman-Fried represent the global elite, the either-or-thinking might not be helpful anymore. The Either-and-or of the Oxymoron gently teaches us to embrace complexity …and to become somewhat more vulnerable.

The general perplexity about climate, war and the Weltuntergang is an expression of the disruption of Darwinism, which has become silently recognizable in recent years: the ones who survives are the ones who can best deal with this complexity – and not the one who defends his concrete block. Or to put it this way: those who let go have their hands free.

Stay curious.