Me, Myself, I Dance Too.

Summer-Dream-Prélude to Hannah Arendt

Floating feet in ardent radiance
Me myself,
I dance too,

Freed from the load
Into darkness, the void.
Crowded rooms of the past
Distances crossed
Solitudes lost
Begin to dance, to dance

Me myself,
I dance too.
Ironically proud,
Nothing disavowed.

I know the void
I know the load
I dance, I dance
In ironic radiance

Hannah Arendt, Dream, Winter 1923/24

this mere existence, that is, all that which is mysteriously given us by birth and which includes the shape of our bodies and the talents of our minds, can be adequately dealt with only by the unpredictable hazards of friendship and sympathy, or by ‘the great incalculable grace of love, which says with Augustine, Volo ut sis (I want you to be) without being able to give any particular reason for such supreme and unsurpassable affirmation’.

Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 1951

As the wave morphs into a new horizon, the prelude unfolds as an invitation and anticipation, a foreplay and a dream: Is a poem real? Is an artwork real? Or is it all in the head, precisely the place that we must mistrust to protect our peace? (Claire Fontaine).

With the exhibition Me Myself, I Dance Too. Summer-Dream-Prelude to Hannah Arendt, Kestner Gesellschaft continues its exploration of the paramount importance and relevance of the groundbreaking oeuvre of the outstanding political theorist and philosopher, Hannah Arendt who was born in Hannover on October 14th, 1906. The exhibition title refers to Arendt’s 1923/24 poem Dream.

Introducing Kestner Gesellschaft’s Autumn exhibition Between Past and Future. Eight Exercises in Political Thought, the exhibition Me Myself, I Dance Too. Summer- Dream-Prelude to Hannah Arendt elaborates Arendt's concept of amor mundi - love of the world. 

In her 1958 treatise The Human Condition, Arendt writes: Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but anti- political, perhaps the most powerful of all anti-political forces.

Arendt’s amor mundi - love of the world - is a relational form of love, based upon understanding and critical thinking rather than sentiment or affect; a promise of continued existence, a way of not resigning from the world when the world seems too unbearable to live in. What is most difficult, Arendt continues, is to love the world as it is. Loving the world means neither uncritical acceptance nor contemptuous rejection, but the unwavering facing up to and comprehension of that which is.

Monica Bonvicini, Angela Bulloch, Claire Fontaine, Gabrielle Goliath, Iman Issa, Laima Leyton, Ewa Partum, Ugo Rondinone, El Hadji Sy

Important part of this exhibition consists of a performative discourse with contributions by Irmela von der Lühe, Thomas Meyer, Georg Hartmann, Juliane Rebentisch as well as readings from the letters between Hannah Arendt and Martin Heidegger, letters between Hannah Arendt and her friends and film screenings of Hannah Arendt by Margarethe von Trotta, Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt by Ada Ushpiz and a conversation with Hannah Arendt by Günter Gaus.

Curator: Adam Budak

We would like to thank Galerie Eva Presenhuber and Galerie Esther Schipper for their generous support of our exhibition.