ICONOCLASH

The exhibition Iconoclash. Beyond the Image Wars in Science, Religion and Art emerged from the collaboration of an international group of experts and was curated by Bruno Latour and Peter Weibel in 2002 at ZKM | Karlsruhe.

The curatorial team included the physicist and historian of science Peter Galison, the art historians Joseph Leo Koerner and Dario Gamboni, the artist Adam Lowe, and the curator Hans Ulrich Obrist. A scientific advisory board consisting of experts from the fields of art history, oriental studies, philosophy, media theory, musicology, and anthropology was consulted (Hans Belting, Marie-José Mondzain, Heather Stoddard, Boris Groys, and Denis Laborde).

The large-scale exhibition Iconoclash focused on a crucial issue; that of representation in its various forms across disciplines and cultures, along with the turbulence it sparks. The exhibition itself was not intended to be iconoclastic, but rather to present a synopsis of scientific exhibits, documents, and artworks about iconoclasms. It was a thought experiment that had assumed the form of an exhibition, a so-called Gedankenausstellung.

The term ‘iconoclash’ is a neologism of ‘iconoclasm’ and ‘clash’. It quite literally depicts the tension in which representations repeatedly find themselves at the center of regarding their indispensability, their inviolability, and their power.

According to Latour, the Trinity of monotheistic religions, similarly to scientific theory and contemporary art, all struggle with the contradictory impulse to produce representations, images, and emblems, but also to destroy them. This dialectic, which has become intrinsic to the self-understanding of the Western world, was explored in the exhibition consisting of a large number of exhibits from different areas of life and research.