ART CITIES:N.York-Haunted Haus

Hauntology (a portmanteau of haunting and ontology is a neologism introduced by French philosopher Jacques Derrida in his 1993 book “Spectres of Marx”. The concept refers to the return or persistence of elements from the past, as in the manner of a ghost. It has since been invoked in fields such as visual arts, philosophy, electronic music, politics, fiction and literary criticism.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Swiss Institute Archive

The exhibition “Haunted Haus” is a spectral space where bodies, images, sounds and smells fester and mingle. The group exhibition features works by 20 artists that reflect on the spirits we project into the world, the forces that insist without existing, and the anachronism and experience of haunting. “Haunted Haus” draws on the concept of hauntology, which has inspired various writers and thinkers of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, including Mark Fisher, who described it in his 2012 essay “What is Hauntology?” as a haunting by lost futures that failed to happen. Haunting, Fisher writes, “happens when a place is stained by time, or when a particular place becomes the site for an encounter with broken time.” Such residues are explored in this exhibition, as they cling to and animate spaces and things. Unfolding and expanding over the show’s duration, the exhibition be installed across three floors of Swiss Institute of Contemporary Art. One gallery is recast as an eerie domestic setting beset with flamboyant demons, paintings that laugh, and a melody that emanates from the abyss. Another explores the architecture of houses themselves, the stages on which the spectacles of our memories play, sticky with the remnants of history.

Participating Artists: Melanie Akeret, Alfatih, James Bantone, Miriam Cahn, Maïté Chénière, Victoria Colmegna, Jesse Darling, Olivia Erlanger, Gabriele Garavaglia, Dorota Gawęda and Eglė Kulbokaitė, Haroon Gunn-Salie, Morag Keil, Milena Langer, Claire van Lubeek, Win McCarthy, Ivan Mitrovic, Alan Schmalz, Cassidy Toner, Gaia Vincensini and Andro Wekua.

Info: Swiss Institute, 38 St Marks Pl, New York, Duration: 21/10-20/12/2020, Days & Hours: Wed-Fri 14:00-20:00, Sat 12:00-20:00, Sun 12:00-18:00, www.swissinstitute.net