The exhibition concept has also been informed by a sense that the reception of art involves automatic affective processes of, among other things, uncontrolled valuation which determines reception in terms of like/dislike. Research indicates that such processes, non-consciously influencing our judgements and choices, play a significant regulatory role. The exhibition presents works that strongly attract or repulse, going beyond conventional and clear-cut depiction, beyond easy meanings generating predictable reactions. This affective relationship between the work and the viewer is the stronger, the more the works deviate from familiar, widely accepted meanings or a conventional manner of their presentation. After Brian Massumi, we call what they do a ‘shock to thought’, albeit one initiated in the body by vague feelings. This shock becomes an important event, opening up new possibilities of feeling and thinking. Consequently, the exhibition features works, employing diverse codes of representation, that convey significant messages able to provide such shock; these are the works of artists such as Teresa Margolles, Douglas Gordon, Kader Attia, Taryn Simon, Petr Pavlenski, or David Wojnarowicz.

The exhibition’s title is a reference to the Freudian ‘pleasure principle’ – the instinct to reduce tension by avoiding pain and experiencing pleasure. The theme of psychoanalysis, where a turn towards affects and emotions, i.e., speaking about them (in both research and therapeutic practice), took place, reveals a crucial, hidden aspect of human psyche. In psychoanalysis, affect is directly linked to instinctual life. It is precisely  affective states that bring about the manifestation of unconscious instincts: the life force (Eros), conveying creativity, harmony, sexuality, reproduction, survival, and the death drive (Thanatos), responsible for aggression and self-destruction. The meanings of the featured works stretch between the representation of these two instincts of the body and psyche: from the sexual and self-preserving, as for example in Marina Abramović’s monumental installation, to the (self)destructive, as in the works of Taryn Simon, Petr Pavlensky, or Teresa Margolles. They go beyond the pleasure principle by investigating the possibility of experiencing pleasure/ecstasy in various forms of sexual life and by tackling unpleasant, often repressed experiences: pain, suffering, trauma, masochism, in which the life instinct meets the death drive. This reveals contents uncensored by the Freudian reality principle, which can be suspended in art. After psychoanalysis, we can assume that if an instinctual energy is sublimated through art works, the ecstasy or pain experienced by the artists and the satisfaction/fulfilment achieved by them in the creative process can be communicated to the viewers – by materialising repressed, unpleasant, yet unconsciously desired contents. This applies to works going beyond the safe function of art as beauty, which usually mounts an obstacle in access to forbidden pleasures, delights, fantasies, or the dark field of Thanatos.

The exhibition focuses on works that challenge the formal, emotional, cognitive, and ethical status quo. It is a kind of game played with the viewer, a field where the affective and psychoanalytical experience meets the artistic and the receptive one.

Please be aware of the exhibition's subject matter before deciding to view it. The exhibition features adult contents.

Monica Bonvicini, Belts Couch, 2014. Photo Roman März