For the exhibition “The rise and fall of Emperor Andrew’s Instant Coffee Plantation ” at the Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, Andrew Gilbert transforms the exhibition space into a colonial home with coffee plantations and a cabinet of curiosities in his usual way of working and create numerous connections between past and present. By combining and comparing historical events and people with current socio-political and contemporary issues, Gilbert shows how complex and profound are the effects of past colonial times on our post-colonial present. Andrew Gilbert shows in several ways how the global political events of the past decades are the result of the geo-political and social structures created by colonialism and the economic interests of industrialized nations. In its works and installations, history shows itself as a sequence of events in which the western world repeats its mistakes instead of learning from them and ultimately being overcome by its past.
The exhibition can be visited by appointment until 31 May 2020 at Kunstverein Friedrichshafen, Germany.
