Die Entzauberung der Welt

Berlin, 2016

Installation view. Gemäldegalerie / Berlin 2016
This project is part of the exhibition "El Siglo de Oro. Die Ära Velázquez":

The title refers to the term used by the sociologist Max Weber in Wissenschaft als Beruf to refer to the process that modern society has undergone in the face of the intellectualization and rationalization of the world.

Weber explains that the wild tendency towards piety has been neutralized by the rise of science and precision. Consequently, human beings have been liberated from the idea of life as an unleashing of magical effects that control the spirit. In a world where knowledge has been replacing belief, some objects try to reclaim their mystery and reclaim their extinct cult. Freeing themselves from the definition of life as an unleashing of magical effects that control the spirit, precision, and science has been neutralizing the wild tendency towards piety. In a process in which "knowing" has been replacing "believing".

The proposal for the satellite exhibition “El Siglo de Oro. Die Ära Velázquez” is a scenography of objects and materials that are in an intermediate state between the sacred and the profane. In this way, bringing the spectator closer to the raw state of sacred objects reflects on the sacralization and desacralization of "things”.  The idea is to recreate in reverse what Mircea Helíade defines as Hierophany, "an act of manifestation of the sacred", which consists of mundane objects being bearers of values and meanings from the other world.

I / Madera sacra.
Oro sobre madera.
Berlin, 2016

I

VII Traficantecante de lágrimas.
Papel y cristal.
Berlin, 2016.
© Anna Talens

IX / El libro dela vida (y de la muerte)
Papel, tinta y oro de 24K.
Berlin, 2016.