The theme of this exhibition is not particularly original. As early as the mid-14th century, art was already exploring the impact of government—on people, animals, landscapes, and economies

(Ambrogio Lorenzetti, *Allegory of Good and Bad Government*, Siena Town Hall). In a similar vein, though a few centuries later, the French philosopher Michel Foucault proposed understanding government as actions that influence other actions (the actions of others).

Such a focus on spaces of action has advantages, at least when it helps us avoid the familiar friend-foe dichotomies as well as the hollow oppositions between the individual and state power, between local and global conditions, and see things in a new and different light. (Nevertheless, it remains important not to view certain things—torture, for example, or deportation—in a new and different light, but to repeatedly name them for what they are.)

Paradisiacal Spaces of Action is thus an attempt to carry forward, if not merge, the condensed actions of the artworks in the form of the exhibition. The result is a kind of three-dimensional film that seeks to involve viewers in its compositional process: every Tuesday, the exhibition changes its appearance; the mise-en-scène shifts, with individual shots commenting on, revising, and overlapping one

Sonia Abián / Carlos Piegari, Ibon Aranberri, Maja Bajević, James Coleman, Alice Creischer, Danica Dakić, Ines Doujak, Peter Friedl, Andrea Geyer, Sanja Iveković, Ambrogio Lorenzetti, Rainer Oldendorf, Lisl Ponger, Alejandra Riera / Fulvia Carnevale, Dierk Schmidt, Allan Sekula, Andreas Siekmann, Hito Steyerl, Jürgen Stollhans, Archivo Tucumán Arde (Graciela Carnevale), Francesca Woodman, Olivier Zabat u.a.
kuratiert von Ruth Noack und Roger M. Buergel