Propos d’Europe V – Réminiscences

The new exhibition in this Propos d’Europe series features six artists from the English, French, Romanian and Serbian cultures. The tie that binds the artworks together is related to the idea of reminiscence. Reminiscence can be defined in simple terms as a recollection sparked by something. Based on a sensory experience, we have the impression we are recognising an idea that has always been familiar to us. Knowledge of it is, according to the theory developed by Plato in Meno, recognition of what we already knew. The exhibition’s pieces all evoke this reminiscence, creating a strong connection between the art and a transcendence that is imposed on the beholder.
 

Each artist presents a materiality where the audience recognises an idea they feel they have always known but was not directly accessible.
 

Transposing this artistic approach to European construction may seem ambitious and perhaps even strange. And yet. England, France, Romania, Serbia: these are four countries with unique histories encompassing periods of peace and war – four countries with specific, turbulent European pasts. They are four peoples all with their own hopes, and four pieces of a European future that still remains to be imagined. As you approach the Propos d’Europe V exhibition, the Hippocrene Foundation invites you to remember the European project and try to reflect on the identity and pending unity of Europe, based on the pieces that make it up today.