Time of the Escapists

Without much social control, new lifestyles develop beginning to assert themselves much later, some of them only in the 21st century as for example women's emancipation and the play with different gender roles as well as living out of a freer sexuality. Over time, a network of subcultures emerges that stretches from Skagen on the northern tip of Jutland and to Corfu. Often, even artists commute from one drop-out location to another. Swiss author and exhibition organiser Andreas Schwab has arranged them into a colourful round dance: Eleven characters, including Alma Mahler-Werfel, Arthur Schnitzler and Truman Capote, take us to ten different artists' colonies. After a period of residence in which we immerse ourselves in the special atmosphere of Pont-Aven, Altaussee or Taormina, we set off with a person living there to the next colony - until we arrive at the end of the this journey at Monte Verità, where the "wild thinker" Harald Szeemann welcomes us.