Artist talk Peter Buggenhout on Saturday, 2 September 2023

Philipp Blom in conversation with Peter Buggenhout on Saturday, 2 September 2023 at 3 p.m.

RSVP at info@axelvervoordtgallery.com

Philipp Blom is a German philosopher, historian and writer. In his book Das große Welttheater, he addresses the crisis of the West at a time of peace and prosperity. He argues for a new imagination, with a vital role for art, to meet the challenges of climate change and digitalisation. In his latest book Die Unterwerfung, he explores how humans have subjugated nature and what the consequences are. Only when humanity rids itself of the delusion of this metaphysical principle, does it have a chance of survival. Also, Blom says, we can only survive because of the millions of bacteria and viruses in our lives, which not only take care of digesting our food, but “also make up the chemistry of our consciousness”.

Peter Buggenhout's world exposes networks, unsuspected links, not borders but connections between different, hard-to-trace materials and events. His materials have their own history, which is often unknowable and which methaphorises a complex, interactive reality where there is no 'right' perspective to look at things.