Exhibition Details

Exhibition Details Christian Boltanski 15 May – 6 September 2009 Content 1. Facts and Figures 2 2. Publications 3 3. On the Exhibition 4 4. Christian Boltanski: Biography 7 5. Calendar of Events 8 6. Address, Contact, Opening Hours 9 Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Telefon +423 235 03 00 Städtle 32 Telefax +423 235 03 29 Postfach 370 [email protected] FL-9490 Vaduz www.kunstmuseum.li FACTS AND FIGURES Title Christian Boltanski. La vie possible Duration 15 Mai – 6 September 2009 Curator Dr. Friedemann Malsch, Direktor Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Production Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Subsequently shown - Number of works 23 Exhibition rooms Complete upper floor, 4 rooms Seite 2/9 Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Telefon +423 235 03 00 Städtle 32 Telefax +423 235 03 29 Postfach 370 [email protected] FL-9490 Vaduz www.kunstmuseum.li CATALOGUE Title Christian Boltanski. La vie possible Editor Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Publisher Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Language German / English Year 2009 Dimensions 140 x 205 mm Pages 44 pages Illustrations numerous photos in b/w and colour ISBN 978-3-906790-16-9 Price CHF 18.- / EUR 12.- Title Christian Boltanski und Catherine Grenier Das mögliche Leben des Christian Boltanski Editor Barbara Catoir Publisher Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln Language German, from French by Barbara Catoir Year 2009 Dimensions 140 x 205 mm Pages 272 pages Illustrations 25 photos in b/w ISBN 978-3-86560-607-5 Price CHF 29.70 / EUR 19.80 Seite 3/9 Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Telefon +423 235 03 00 Städtle 32 Telefax +423 235 03 29 Postfach 370 [email protected] FL-9490 Vaduz www.kunstmuseum.li ON THE EXHIBITION A multitude of differently sized white dots on a dark ground, like the starry expanses of the night sky, turns out on closer inspection to be the swirls of foam formed in a running stream. The reflection in the calmly flowing water is distorted by tiny ripples, droplets of water or changing currents. The foam may indicate a waterfall that has churned the water into spume. Amid the tranquillity is the sound of rushing water. This atmospherically charged photograph by Matti Braun calls our attention to something far beyond what the senses can perceive of the world around us. The gently moving, reflecting surface of the water draws the gaze towards processuality, mirroring integration within the complex interactions of nature and the cosmos. This image of a stretch of water in Finland, a site Matti Braun has known well for many years, has been selected for the poster and catalogue cover of the Kola exhibition. The title Kola takes us into the Arctic Circle, to the northern shores of the White Sea and the southern coasts of the Barents Sea, into the Arctic tundra. Russia’s Kola peninsula, near the Norwegian and Finnish borders, has 23 hours of daylight day during the summer, while in winter the polar night shrouds it in 23 hours of darkness. Its flora changes towards the Atlantic coast, where the warm currents of the Gulf Stream ensure relatively mild temperatures and keep the ports ice-free. Because of its unique rock formations hat have remained virtually unchanged for more than two and a half thousand million years, the peninsula was chosen as the site for a special research project: in 1970, work began on the so-called Kola Superdeep Borehole near the town of Sapoljarnyj. By 1994, it had been drilled to a depth of more than 12,000 metres, making it the deepest borehole in the world. At the same time, Kola is threatened by the environmental impact of radioactive waste, both from civilian power plants and from the spent fuel rods of Soviet nuclear submarines still awaiting transfer to a long-term storage facility. Both the motif and the title that introduce the exhibition sum up, in a nutshell, Matti Braun’s artistic approach and his profound interest in atmospheric relationships. In his works, historical, cultural, geological, and geographical facts are distilled with meanings, observations, memories, images, and forms, building up a complex structure around them, like a resonance chamber that can be entered. Interior and exterior intertwine, indicating that phenomena do not exist merely in and of themselves, but that they are part of a wider interwoven context. To give yet another example, this approach is also evident in Matti Braun’s installation Lota. Here, too, the title and poster motif provide a trace that opens up a wide field of references and associations. The trace of Lota leads to Ahmedabad in India. It was here, in 1915, that Mahatma Gandhi founded the Harjan Ashram, and it was from here, in 1930, that he began his peaceful Salt March against British colonial rule. Between 1951 and 1956, one of the buildings designed by Le Corbusier in Ahmedabad was a villa for the influential and culturally open-minded Sarabhai family who had amassed considerable wealth in the textile industry. Among their sons was the physicist Vikram Sarabhai, father of the Indian space programme. He established the Physical Research Laboratory in Ahmedabad and, in 1962, was instrumental in the founding of the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), which is still regarded as one of the country’s leading business schools, and is housed in a building designed by the American architect Louis Khan. Seite 4/9 Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein Telefon +423 235 03 00 Städtle 32 Telefax +423 235 03 29 Postfach 370 [email protected] FL-9490 Vaduz www.kunstmuseum.li Lota also leads us to yet another place in Ahmedabad. Lota (in Hindi) is a small, simple, spherical pot made of brass or copper. It is an everyday item that is also used in religious ceremonies, especially rituals of purification, mainly in southern Asia, but has a place in many Islamic traditions as well. For Charles and Ray Eames the Lota was the ideal and most perfect of vessels. “Of all the objects we have seen and admired during our visit to India, the Lota, that simple vessel of everyday use, stands out as perhaps the greatest, the most beautiful. The village women have a process which, with the use of tamarind and ash, each day turns this brass into gold. But how would one go about designing a Lota?” In 1958, at the suggestion of Gautam and Gira Sarabhai—both from the same family of industrialists—the Indian government invited Charles and Ray Eames to develop a programme for the promotion of design in India. Their research was funded by the Ford Foundation, which had already sponsored the Ulm School of Design, whose co-founders in 1953 included Inge Aicher-Scholl, Otl Aicher, and Max Bill. The India Report drawn up by Charles and Ray Eames led to the founding in 1961 of the National Institute of Design (NID) in Ahmedabad, the first establishment of its kind in Asia (apart from Japan). The NID building, in the tradition of Indian Modernism influenced by Le Corbusier and Louis Khan, was designed by Gira Sarabhai, who, like her brother Gautam, had studied under Frank Lloyd Wright. The Lota exhibition poster features a photograph by Matti Braun showing part of the National Institute of Design in Ahmedabad. The building is in shadow, creating a crepuscular atmosphere in which we glimpse the sky through the open architecture and exotic trees. Nature and architecture seem very closely related and equal. This impression is further heightened by the counterlight that plunges the foreground into shadowy darkness in which we can just discern the brick and concrete structure of the building. The occasional hints that the artist offers the viewer, as in the poster motifs, provide the possibility of further exploration, and of going beyond an intensely personal reception of the works to discover some underlying aspect. Follow one lead, and it will bring you to the next, or sometimes even to leads of your own. It is an enriching experience in which the field that has been built up is constantly expanded, yet remains in a state of flux and intensity in which there are no definitive answers. The network of complex interrelationships proves stronger and more invigorating than the path of linear logical thinking. Matti Braun’s precise and minimal works have their own innate aesthetic power. They are like a distillation of remarkable precision and poetry, radiating profound tranquillity and at the same time sending out extremely exciting ideas. In the installation Lota, two monumental fabrics painted in abstract ornamental patterns are mounted directly on the wall. Opposite them is a slightly curved concrete sculpture. These three components form the core of Lota, which also includes glass and other objects. The reduced palette of colours is limited to black, white, and grey, while triangle, line, and rectangle form the basic modules. The stele sets a spatial counterpoint to the flat works on the wall. On entering the installation we are drawn into the way these components relate to one another, charged as they are with movement and tension. The basic module in the wall piece to the right of the entrance is the isosceles triangle, arranged in lines of alternating upward-pointing black and downward- pointing white. In Hinduism, the triangle is associated with the symbol of the yoni (vulva) representing the life-giving primordial force of the goddess Durga. Three areas of the white triangles are painted grey and, apart from the unexpected visual effect this creates, they actually form an additional triangle. Looking at this abstract wall picture constructed from a single simple module, a constant, gentle movement emerges. The alignment of the geometric forms generates a pattern of vertical and horizontal lines in which the dynamic energy of the diagonals surfaces repeatedly: harmony and tension between discrete elementary forces.

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