BADEN-BADEN.- “Morning. Vast. Imprecision. Fog has covered everything in gray absolute. This has lasted. Doubts loom over the mind. Absence is harder to accept than death.” —Etel Adnan, Sea and Fog (2012)

On November 11, 1918, at five o’clock in the morning, the ceasefire was signed in a forest clearing near Compiègne, France, marking the end of four long years of the First World War. This war left its mark on all the subsequent ones, influencing warfare and militarism in terms of scale, technology, strategy, damage, and violence. Since then, the wars of one region have spread their political, social, economic, and psychological effects across the globe.

One hundred six years after the end of this deadly war, the Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden presents the group exhibition Sea and Fog, inspired by the book of the same name by the artist and poet Etel Adnan (1925–2021). The exhibition reveals the multi-layered geographical and cultural interrelations that extend far beyond artificially drawn borders, nation-states, and geopolitics by examining the history of the World Wars and their impact on the ongoing wars.

What can we learn from the complexities of nature and the harmonies and disharmonies characterizing the cycles of time? Can the forces derived from the duality and complex relationship between sea and fog become an emotional catalyst, to handle our vulnerability in the face of wars in the Middle East, Europe, Asia and Africa?

Sea and fog, in their continuous interplay, may be the most valuable natural phenomenon in our exploration of time. In a world where wars and combats are no longer bound to a single place or geographical area, but occur everywhere and simultaneously, this natural phenomenon that transcends time, may serve as a guide to perceive an opaque past and an unknown future. The exhibition Sea and Fog sets out to follow these synergies and antagonisms, overcoming the state of lived and felt powerlessness to open up spaces for empathy, consolation, and solidarity.

The First World War, one of the deadliest in contemporary history, took the lives of more than nine million soldiers and six million civilians worldwide. Countless people were injured, and on the Western Front alone, more than 1.5 billion shells destroyed numerous cities and entire regions in the countryside. These manifold stories not only illustrate the diverse experiences of people during the war but also depict the sheer scale of these catastrophes.

The ideological and political disillusionment of the late 19th and early 20th centuries that laid the groundwork for fascism, and countless other tragedies, that continue to reverberate in our world today. The exhibition Sea and Fog traces these reverberations searching for answers, protection, and consolation in both the words of Adnan and the works of the artists on display. Adnan’s book serves as an emotional compass that reminds us of the moments in which humans shed their humanity and lose their belonging to nature. The book thus unfolds an exhibition vocabulary that speaks about vulnerability, loss, suffering, grief and hope to reveal the very things that often remain unspoken. At a time in which Adnans homeland Beirut is once again burning and suffering from war, her life is like a spotlight on many. Taking the First World War as its starting point, the group exhibition Sea and Fog thus focuses on the man-made violence of war, its ceaseless repetition, and the many individual fates associated with it.

Artists: Etel Adnan, Ouassila Arras, Yael Bartana, Nikola Bojić, Damir Gamulin, Mijo Gladović, Damir Prizmić, Cihad Caner, Ali M. Demirel, Simon Denny, Otto Dix, Cevdet Erek, Marco Fusinato, Mariam Ghani, Shilpa Gupta, Jina Khayyer, Käthe Kollwitz, Kateryna Lysovenko, Sabelo Mlangeni, Mohammad Salemy, Erinç Seymen, a.o.

Curators: Çağla Ilk, Sandeep Sodhi and Misal Adnan Yıldız