HAARLEM.- Lunar distance is an international group exhibition presenting the work of Anna Barriball (UK), Jeroen Eisinga (NL), Ceal Floyer (UK), Aurélien Froment (F), Douglas Gordon (UK), Christoph Keller (D), Zilvinas Landzbergas (LT), David Maljkovic (HR) and Charlotte Posenenske (D).

Except for Charlotte Posenenske (1930-1985), the artists in this exhibition were all born around 1969, the year in which Neil Armstrong and Edwin 'Buzz' Aldrin were the first to set foot on the surface of the moon (around that time Posenenske stated she would stop producing art). That was forty years ago. The images of the moon landing showed a new world: a world in which technology is omnipresent, and at the same time a world in which a great deal of scepticism exists about the ‘truth’ of images. Unto this very day, there are people who do not believe that Man has been on the moon.

Which impact do increasing technologisation, globalisation and mobility have on our experience of the world? Lunar distance shows videos, collages, drawings, objects and installations, made by an international group of artists – works that on the one hand explore the relationship between image and meaning and on the other our perception of reality in the digital age.

A number of the artists taking part in Lunar distance provide a seemingly objective registration of natural phenomena and analyse the underlying structures of the cosmos, nature and consciousness. Their approaches are reminiscent of scientific research methods. But ultimately, the works in the exhibition are sooner concerned with a longing for meaning, a feeling that is characterised in this exhibition by an alternative experience of time, in which events generally take place at a slower pace as is also the case in dreams and memories.

The title of the exhibition, Lunar distance, refers to an old method of navigation that takes the position of the moon and the stars as points of reference. Using a sextant, an eighteenth-century invention, the navigator is able to determine Greenwich Mean Time. This is subsequently compared to the local time, which in turn results in a siting.

Lunar distance is curated by Suzanne Wallinga.