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Schlosspavillon Ismaning 2024

Munich, Germany

For the exhibition “Sweet Lemons – four Munich based artists have transformed the historical space of Schlosspavillon Ismaning into a utopian-idyllic scene of a summery garden landscape. Inspired by Persian gardens, Marjan Baniasadi, Roman Toulany, Leon Boden, and Yaser Bashir, create a dense atmospheric meeting place. In its stylized form, the installation raises questions about diversity, society, hope, and expectation. The focus is on collaborative work, countering the individualistic and competition-driven art market. Only in the drawings in the fountain are the distinct artistic styles of the individual artists intentionally visible.

Lemons are sour—this is our common experience. Sweet lemons, however, sound like a contradiction, a Dadaist play on incompatibility. Yet, they do exist, and with their sweet taste, they subvert our expectations, symbolizing the element of surprise. Hundreds of lemons—carefully molded, fired in clay, and glazed yellow—are displayed in a market stall and in ordinary fruit crates. Two large trees, a fountain, birds, lanterns, and other props complete the atmospheric scene. The setting is crafted from gray papier-mâché, with its source materials—newspapers and advertising flyers—shining through the leaves. These remnants reflect current events and consumerist promises, disrupting the idyllic scene, just as the wrecked car does. In Germany, such a wreck still represents wealth, status, and freedom, but also migration and mobility across borders. A swing hanging from a tree, made from a tire of the car in the adjacent room, serves as a quiet reminder of childhood dreams.

Across cultures, gardens evoke a utopian sense of idyll, drawing on myths of paradise and harmonious coexistence in untouched nature. Within the garden pavilion of Ismaning’s historic palace complex—a product of a feudal society—the artistic concept of idyll extends beyond the exhibition space, broadening its context. This, in turn, raises questions:

What desires and expectations are tied to migration and visions of prosperity, but also democracy?
What unites people in their pursuit of a better future, and which values appear universal in this context?
How do the media shape our perception of reality, and to what extent do they influence our experiences of the world—and even our longings?