The Unwritten explores possible histories. It documents personal, and reconfigures collective stories by adding silent episodes, surprising prequels of what we know to have become official history. With works by Adela Babanova, Zachary Formwalt, Annie Kevans, Gert Jan Kocken, Carlos Motta, Óscar Muñoz, Song Ta, Koki Tanaka, and Günter K.‘s ‘Margret’ collection.

Concealed murder, suppressed love, tarnished innocence, and frustrated ideals inform the material for a series of profound, amusing, sad, and compelling histories by Adela Babanova, Zachary Formwalt, Annie Kevans, Gert Jan Kocken, Carlos Motta, Óscar Muñoz, Song Ta, Koki Tanaka and Günter K.‘s ‘Margret’ collection.

Sometimes we wish that we had written history differently. Or had left it unwritten because the perspective was one-sided, unjust or brutal. We wish to undo that history because it provides a perspective that we no longer accept or that we even loathe. At other times, our new sensitivities uncover histories that have never been told because they were considered unimportant, forgotten, unfinished or overtaken by other perspectives.

The Unwritten is dedicated to these forgotten stories. Histories that strongly appeal to our imagination and empathy. We feel nostalgia for a lost world, anger at injustices, euphoria with the correction of those injustices, dismay at a wrong turn and relief at a right one. They are all emotional and sometimes even sensory experiences caused by the unexpected turn that history sometimes takes and the way it has erased other stories.

Annie Kevans, Boys, Adolf Hitler, Germany, 2004. Courtesy Saatchi Gallery, London.

Adela Babanova, Return to Adriaport, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.

Zachary Formwalt, In Place of Capital, 2009. Courtesy of the artist.

Carlos Motta, Nefandus, 2013. Courtesy of the artist.

Margret, 7 December, 1970, Günter K.’s ‘Margret’ collection. Courtesy Delmes & Zander / Galerie Susanne Zander