Schaumbad – Freies Atelierhaus Graz
After Laughter

The group exhibition takes its title from the chorus of the Wu-Tang Clan’s “Tearz,” which samples a 1964 soul ballad by Wendy Rene. Helmuth Plessner’s study Laughing and Crying (1941) is also part of its thematic horizon.

Laughing and crying—including those intermediate states typical of Central European culture, such as “weeping laughter” or “cry-laughing”—manifest themselves when language fails and the body “speaks.”

Laughter is a moment in which one loses control, triggered by absurdity or tension—at once liberating and revealing. Crying, on the other hand, reveals intimacy and vulnerability. Both cases reveal what Plessner called the “eccentric positionality” of humans—their ability to look at themselves from the outside.

The exhibition marks a step in the Schaumbad’s collaboration with another art center, art quarter budapest. On 3 October, the latter opens a sister exhibition—as part of a humorous “extended rendezvous” between Graz and Budapest.