The ARbotage No.1
Art Can Be More Than Curated
One day I walked into a museum that claimed to present a diverse and significant range of American art from 1650 to 1950. When I saw the exhibition, I was shocked and angry. Of roughly one hundred artists, fewer than a handful were of Black or Native American descent. Just as strikingly, only around five percent were women.
There is a great deal of manipulation and exclusion in mainstream storytelling — but a contemporary curation of art should act differently. Especially when it comes to America: this is a continent made up of people who arrived from every part of the world, whether by free will or by force. It holds countless stories — painful ones, dramatic ones, and stories that remind us of the need for humanity. The stories this museum told me were short-sighted settler narratives that romanticised "exploration" while omitting the exploitation of the past 450 years. Art was (mis)used as the transmitter of a manipulated story sold as reality.
I left the museum distraught. It was not only disrespectful toward all the Black and Indigenous people who paid a high price for the America that exists today; I was angry at how art had been used as a token to prove a fantasy — the sweet side of a coin whose bitter, salty side had been left out entirely.
The idea came immediately: why not use Augmented Reality to curate a different, contemporary view of America — one that responds directly to the works presented as the historical status quo? Rebekka Macht, a friend of mine, shared my stance and wanted to add her own perspective, particularly on the role of women: female painters were almost entirely absent, while the objectification of women was highly prominent in the selected works.
And so ARbotage was born — as a response. We, as artists, can curate our own exhibition in any museum on this planet, at any time. Rebekka and I created almost one hundred works using digital painting and collage to speak in our own voices. Within a few weeks, we designed a free app, downloadable for the duration of this one-off intervention, that replaced the museum's artworks with our own art and interpretation.
It felt liberating, boundless, and light. Guiding visitors through the museum and presenting our work without any official invitation was an exceptional experience — we rearranged and occupied the space, and it felt great. One thing genuinely astonished me: the response of the museum guards. I had expected this part of the staff to resist us with full force, but the opposite happened. One guard was so delighted by the initiative that he opened up to us, declared that he found Mark Rothko's work overrated, installed the ARbotage app on the spot, and moved happily through the exhibition.
At our self-initiated finissage the tide finally turned: the head of security shut the intervention down, since smartphones were not permitted in the show. So we carried on outside the Wallraf-Richartz-Museum instead — sitting, talking, and enjoying the sunshine.
The Arbotage was about perspectives and freedom.
