“NEUSPRÉCH (NEWSPÉAK) is language infested with art, infected. Speaking with art - as art,” say Oliver Ross and Simon Starke, the curators of the exhibition. NEUSPRÉCH takes up a central concept from George Orwell’s novel 1984 in a newly accentuated way and with a view to the resistance in the context of visual art. The artists position themselves against the atrophy of language of a technological compulsion to unify, against marketing speak, pegida speak, art business speak, anti-terror speak, political speak, against the whole range of we/they speak.

Elina Brotherus (*1972 in Helsinki) is internationally known for her self-portraits. And the fact is that she herself may be seen in almost all of her photographic and video works. These include series resembling diaries, photographed landscapes and situational mood-pictures. The exhibition at the Weserburg directs attention to more recent works and groups of works created since 2016. Here the Finnish artist appropriates various contemporary concepts of art and integrates them into her own unmistakeable aesthetic. She thereby follows Arthur Køpcke’s motto: ‘People ask: Why? I ask: Why not?’

From 1988 to 2018, the entrepreneur Peter Norton (California) gave annual gifts to friends, colleagues and selected institutions as part of his Peter Norton Family Christmas Gifts - small works of art in limited editions, each specially designed for this project. Among the artists are Christian Marclay, Kara Walker and Lawrence Weiner. The Weserburg Museum of Modern Art was also among the recipients.