Opening this summer at Hauser & Wirth Menorca, Directionless is a sweeping group exhibition organized by Rashid Johnson, who has invited Charles Gaines, Firelei Báez and Cristina Iglesias to nominate artists from beyond the gallery’s roster. The most extensive exhibition staged in Menorca to date, it takes over all the galleries and outdoor landscape of Illa del Rei, featuring 28 artists from more than 10 countries. The artist-driven project begins from the premise that we are living in a moment of profound disorientation. Rather than offering resolution, the exhibition asks how artists might productively inhabit this uncertainty—how they develop new vocabularies and provisional orientations when established coordinates begin to fail.

‘We are all living inside a shared sense of disorientation right now—one that is evolving with increasing momentum. The artists here aren’t paralyzed by that condition; they’re animated by it. [...] What they offer isn’t a map, but a set of strategies for moving forward when the terrain is unfamiliar.’
—Rashid Johnson

Outdoor sculpture presentation

For the first time, the outdoor sculpture presentation has been shaped by the Spanish artist Cristina Iglesias, whose selections extend across gardens, façades and pathways. Iglesias invited Ali Cherri, Mona Hatoum and Rayyane Tabet to present work outdoors, alongside Yto Barrada and Sigalit Landau, whose works will be featured in the galleries from June. Encountered in motion, these works engage directly with architecture, water and landscape, resisting the fixed, monumental register that outdoor sculpture so often assumes.

‘Today the Mediterranean, with the heritage of ancient civilizations and migrations, is also a space of suspension and uncertainty. Menorca, with its geographical location on the western side of the Mediterranean, offers a privileged stage to rethink how the sea has united peoples and cultures, and should serve as a liquid forum, not a frontier.’
—Cristina Iglesias

The exhibition brings into dialogue artists whose practices are materially and conceptually distinct. Through these juxtapositions the exhibition features a breadth of new works and site-specific installations that consider directionlessness as a conceptual zone—a space of suspension, drift and openness where new forms of relation, meaning and subjectivity might be imagined. What connects these artists across divergent sensibilities is a shared commitment to moving through unfamiliarity with rigor, complexity, and a refusal to settle.

This year’s Education Lab at Hauser & Wirth Menorca is developed in collaboration with the University of the Balearic Islands and the University of Barcelona, responding to the themes of the exhibition and initiating a connection between the two institutions. Drawing on current thinking in creative pedagogy and experimental learning, it offers an interactive space for new ideas and working methods and invites a wide range of voices and communities to participate. A comprehensive school and public program continues throughout the season, including live performances and festivals, workshops, talks and drawing sessions for all ages.