“What do a dandy and a sea anemone have in common? For painter Michael Krebber, both are ‘alien hybrid creatures’ that defy definition and sustain contradiction. The group exhibition ‘No Dandy, No Fun’ takes up the conceptual character of the dandy – here often queer, occasionally androgynous, sometimes female, rarely Black – and locates it in various histories of visual art, fashion, and literature. The Kunsthalle’s traditional painting galleries organise seven thematic chapters, each unfolding tales and traits of dandyism in relation to aesthetics, work, play, attitude, and excess. In most chapters, artefacts and research materials are shown alongside contemporary art, while key literary works vitrined throughout the show log the transposition of an idea first reflected in the gaze of a literary audience, later taken up in conceptual art and which resurfaces today, not only as an identity, but as something of an allegory for the operations of contemporary art.”

“NO DANDY, NO FUN”
KUNSTHALLE BERN
17 OCT 2020 – 17 JAN 2021