Exhibition Brochure
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01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:56 Seite 1 Conceptual & Applied III. Surfaces and Pattern Contemporary Art from the Daimler Art Collection with Design and Architecture April, 4 – November, 2, 2014 Daimler Contemporary, Potsdamer Platz Berlin Curator: Renate Wiehager. Co-Curator: Luca Trevisani ARTISTS: John M Armleder (CH), Lina Bo Bardi (I), Natalie Czech (D), Benni Efrat (IL), Egon Eiermann (D), Haris Epaminonda (CY), Susan Hefuna (EG), Iman Issa (EG), Alicja Kwade (PL), Sol LeWitt (USA), Angelo Mangiarotti (I), Mathieu Matégot (H), Bruno Munari (I), George Nelson (USA), Henrik Olesen (DK), Helga Philipp (A), Tula Plumi (GR), Gio Ponti (I), Bojan Sarcevic (SRB), Oskar Schmidt (D), Carmelo Tedeschi (I), Luca Trevisani (I), Georg Winter (D), Tapio Wirkkala (FIN) Daimler Contemporary Potsdamer Platz Berlin 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:56 Seite 2 Installation view ‘Minimalism and Applied II’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2010 2 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 3 Over the past ten years, the Daimler Art Collection has fo- cused on the field of constructive, conceptual and mini- malistic tendencies from the 1920s to the present day. Of particular interest were artists whose work straddles free and applied art disciplines. ‘Minimalism and Applied I’ (2007) introduced fine artists whose art work crosses over into architecture, into product design and graphic design. In contrast with this, the second part of the series (2010) fo- cused on a dialogue between outstanding early exponents of architecture and furniture design with international con- temporary art. The third part of the exhibition series is all about presenting artists and designers whose aesthetic concepts exist in the gray area between art and design, with a specific focus on surfaces, materials, and pattern. The theme for the exhibition was significantly inspired by, Installation views on the one hand, collaboration and discussions with young ‘Minimalism and Applied I’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2007 Italian artist Luca Trevisani, the co-curator of the show, and, on the other hand, the art theory texts of Nicolas Bourriaud—in this case, we are referring primarily to his book ‘The Radicant’, published in 2009.1 In the introduction that follows, this is illustrated by the inclusion of quotes from Trevisani and from Bourriaud’s texts, which reflect and provide a commentary on the text itself. 3 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 4 Translation, the removal of hierarchy, transcoding Translation, the removal of hierarchy, transcoding, trans- gression / fluidity, variables, diversity / the migration of forms into differing contexts / circulation of ideas and concepts—as key terms, these apply not only in the contem- porary art context, but also in the context of new develop- ments in architecture, design, literature and theater. These expressions go hand-in-hand with a new understanding of materials and processes, but also with the decisive decon- struction of any hierarchy, in relation to one another, of art, product design and craft work. Additionally, this levelling of hierarchies as a central factor of contemporary art brings with it possibilities for declining all forms of a theme by making use of a variety of artistic media, for the mirroring of individual inventions in the themes of architects working in parallel and in the works of forerunners in various disci- plines. Luca Trevisani, the co-curator of our exhibition, who is represented by a new spatially expensive installation in the center space of the Daimler Contemporary, summed all this up in the following prosaic words: “I believe in prolifera- tion, in the absence of hierarchy. What’s the relationship between an object of yours and the photo you take? Is it an Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, echo, a replica, a double, a mirror, or just all the hypotheses Berlin 2014: f.a. Bojan Sarcevic, Jasper Morrison, Egon Eiermann 4 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 5 I’ve written? […] It’s like my dirty habit of melting elements and stories; I can’t stop the continuous dialogue between works of others and one of mine, between documentation and creation, between two and three dimensions. It is a process of growth that has something organic about it.”2 Further current phenomena in international contemporary art include “transcoding” and “translation”. In other words, many artists of today detach meaningful context and con- stellations of meaning from their standard coding—cultural, national, politically-determined. These artists reproduce themes and adapt them to new parameters, thereby allow- ing the various contentual factors and intentions of the art- work to circulate, as it were, between different languages and contexts. On the one hand, this is a critical and self- critical act. On the other hand, it is a strategy that articu- lates an understanding that the method of ‘translation’ accepts the artistic work as a process with the end result left open, possibly with an indefinable ‘remainder’, rather than as a constant. Asked whether the scanning, reproduc- tion and circulation of images and ideas are central to his artistic aesthetic, Trevisani responds: “It doesn’t really matter what you want to say, but how you say it. While I’ve Luca Trevisani, one work from the series Die Befindlichkeit des Landes, 2013 5 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 6 Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.l. George Nelson, Benni Efrat, Helga Philipp, Natalie Czech, Sol LeWitt 6 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 7 Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.l. Helga Philipp, George Nelson 7 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 8 always been interested in reasoning, talking and drawing attention to this idea of things that go together, combine, grow and celebrate an idea of unity, the main thing is think- ing about how to do it. Consequently, the idea of taking my most cherished concepts and seeing them multiplied is central, since I am convinced that their combined value is much greater than their individual worth. As I gained confi- dence with this method, in the end things exploded: they exploded in my hands and I gradually became braver about doing it.”3 Nicolas Bourriaud has coined the term ‘altermodernity’ to describe the concepts of ‘duplications’ and ‘in toto value’. John M Armleder, Avec les deux lustres (FS), 1987-1993 This relates directly to ‘translation’ and ‘synchronisation’ in Acrylic on canvas, 2 lamps aesthetic praxis: “This twenty-first-century modernity, born of global and decentralized negotiations, of multiple discus- at coordination, this constant elaboration of arrangements sions among participants from different cultures, of the to enable disparate elements to function together, consti- confrontation of heterogeneous discourses, can only be tutes both its engine and its import. The operation that polyglot. Altermodernity promises to be a translation-ori- transforms every artist, every author, into a translator of ented modernity, unlike the modern story of the twentieth him- or herself implies accepting the idea that no speech century, whose progressivism spoke the abstract language bears the seal of any sort of ‘authenticity’: we are entering of the colonial West. And this search for a productive com- the era of universal subtitling, of generalized dubbing. An promise among singular discourses, this continuous effort era that valorizes the links that texts and images establish, 8 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 9 Tapio Wirkkala, Pyörre [Whirl], 1954, plywood Jasper Morrison, Glo-Balls, 1998-2009, aluminum, blown glass, plastic the paths that artists forge in a multicultural landscape, the fication and translation as part of their working process, so passageways they lay out to connect modes of expression that the method itself becomes a transitional phase. The art- and communication.”4 work may initially find expression in a sculptural form, but, in the next stage, may experience a process of reinterpretation, So, how does the term ‘translation’ make itself felt as a key through photography, copying, transformation into language, category for our exhibition? Many of the figures from the material destruction etc. This approach is demonstrated by worlds of art, architecture and design featured in the exhi- organically shaped furniture objects (Philipp, Bo Bardi), me- bition subject their themes and methods to a gradual modi- andering text images (Czech), abstract/ornamental spatial 9 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:57 Seite 10 structures (Trevisani), fashionable accessories that can be worn (Tedeschi) or temporary and performative “objects of aggression” (Winter). In addition, the transfer of ideas, ma- terials and histories between diverging ‘systems of order’ and ‘codes’ invariably produce factors of deconstruction or ‘chaos’ in terms of identifiable and comprehensible per- spectives of meaning. In his productions, Luca Trevisani constantly addresses the collision of two factors—“order and chaos”. Specifically, he uses translation as a way of subverting and enriching the meaningful content of quoted texts—a process that also plays a key role in the artworks of Natalie Czech: “I wanted to use extracts