"SHINE ON ME-The Sun and Us"

Deutsches Hygiene-Museum, Dresden 2019
Curated by Catherine Nichols

In late summer 2018 NASA’s Parker Solar Probe blasted off on a historic mission. Its aim is to get closer to the S than ever before. Shortly afterwards the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum launched a mission of its own: a large-scale special exhibition exploring the Sun from all sides. So welcome aboard as we find out more about the cultural significance, scientific findings and some unsolved mysteries surrounding the star around which everything on Earth revolves — and find out more about us human beings, too. How did ancient civilisations on all five continents view the Sun? What can solar science today tell us about the composition of our star? And what influence does the Sun have on today’s society, our well-being, and our everyday lives?The first thing you encounter as you enter the exhibition is a large-scale art installation inspired by space travel’s century-old dream of one day reaching the sun. From there you gravitate along seven ‘orbits’ examining the Sun from various perspectives: the Sun as a deity and a timekeeper, as a symbol, a luminous force, a remedy, an energy source, and of course as a star at the centre of our universe. The themes of the exhibition range from worship rituals in Ancient Egypt, alchemy and astrology to solar farms and space probes to bikinis, bombs, and pop music classics. Each section comprises hands-on research stations with an opportunity to look deeper into what makes the Sun so fascinating and allow you to reach your own surprising conclusions. Here comes the sun!

Participating artists:

Josef Albers, Martin Andersen, Silvia und Gerry Anderson, Isaac Asimov, Eugène Atget, Ingeborg Bachmann, Frédéric Auguste Bartholdi, Georges Bataille, Hans Sebald Beham, Oliver van den Berg, Joseph Beuys, Alice Boughton, Margaret Bourke-White, George Brecht, Barbara Breitenfellner, Burton Nitta (Michael Burton and Michiko Nitta), Tommaso Campanella, Thue Christiansen, Antonio Corradini, Harry Crosby, Hari Sadhan Dasgupta, Johann Melchior Dinglinger, Tommy Dorsey and His Sentimentalists, Albrecht Dürer, Charles und Ray Eames, Mona Eldaief, Ben Enwonwu, Richard Buckminster Fuller, André Gelpke, Hendrick Goltzius, Robert Gommlich, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Werner Herzog, Ho Rui An, Billie Holiday, Bodin Hon, Stephan Hüsch, Athanasius Kircher, Philipp Khabo Koepsell, Knut Kruppa, Alicja Kwade, Mike Leigh, Zoe Leonard, Ted Lewis, Leo Lionni, El Lissitzky, Herbert List, Jayne Loader, Colin Low, Auguste Lumière, Louis Lumière, Lydia Mall, Vitaly Mansky, Siobhán McDonald, Georges Méliès, Erich Mendelsohn, Elena Mitrofanova und Ivan Mitrofanov, Masaaki Miyazawa, Friedrich Wilhelm Murnau, Ikko Narahara, Trevor Nickolls, Friedrich Nietzsche, Jahane Noujaim, Pete Standing Alone, Otto Piene, Walid Raad, Kevin Rafferty, Pierce Rafferty, Man Ray, Miguel Rothschild, Susan Schuppli, Fazal Sheikh, Katharina Sieverding, Frank Sinatra, Sun Ra, Alphonse Swinehart, Marina Toeters, Panos Tsagaris, Wang Fu, Wladimir Wassiljew, Eyal Weizman, Dhukal Wirrpanda.