"The experience of perfection experienced by the individually observing subject is a radical experience. The observing subject is radically alone. No power, identity, community can be constructed as result of the subject’s experience: the non-substitutable experience of the individual facing the non-substitutable specific object, the artwork. The value of the aesthetic lies in this impotent power."

Out of This World brings together international artists whose selected works deal with celestial phenomena. These works constantly merge the sublime with the profane; the sublime is seen to be something that can be technically reproduced or an experience that ultimately affects the phenomena of belief. Against this background, Leonhard Emmerling’s essay represents an attempt to examine whether categories of the classical and idealistic aesthetic, such as sublimity and perfection, are still useful today.

Artists
Vija Celmins, Colin McCahon, Jorge Molder, Linda Quinlan, Ben Rivers, Peter Rösel, Thomas Ruff und James Turrell