Tobias Madison

A somewhat crude assemblage of counter-pedagogical trajectories – e.g., “How to live life?” as well as how to ask this very question – course through Madison’s exhibition as a proposal for post-revolutionary re-education. And in this, Madison’s involvement of child actors – their vulnerability, their inherent power as actors, their subtle maneuvering in and out of real and fictive roles – effects a proper parody of political dogmatism. Rich paradoxes can be found in the unmitigated tenderness of staged violence and humiliation performed in Das blut, im fruchtfleisch gerinnend beim birnenbiss.  Mediation and manipulation unmask as intimate siblings. Through these dynamics, the children corrupt the illusion of their own innocence, while at the same time “othering” the adult onlookers – the repetition of the degradation of dominant educational malpractice being a question of dignity here. And henceforth a question of emancipation of means (Mittel) from mediation (Vermittlung), of institution critical practice from canonical critique, of the infrastructures of introspection from the imprisonment of infiltration.

Julia Moritz,  “School Kills – on Tobias Madison at Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover”, in Texte Zur Kunst,  Nr. 102, Juni 2016.

Tobias Madison is the co-founder of the exhibition space New Jersey (2008 – 2014), the cinema AP News (2011-2013) and has curated numerous exhibitions. He has published his writing in Texte Zur Kunst, Artforum, May, Frieze, Flash Art and Spike. Madison teaches in the Masters program of the University of Arts in Geneva (HEAD).