Florian Pumhösl

MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY

ﬂorian pumhösl selected texts & press

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FLORIAN PUMHÖSL

Florian Pumhösl’s work is constituted by a constellation of historical references encoded within a visual language that appears purely formal. The apparent abstraction of his paintings, films, and installations is anchored by specific archival sources: 17th-century kimono designs, avant-garde typography, WWI military uniform patterns, cartography, Latin American textiles, and early dance notations. Through the selection, reduction, rearrangement, and reproduction of his source materials—unsystematic and subjective modes of transcription—the artist arrives at a vocabulary that is at once abstract and semiotically motivated.

Pumhösl’s compositions establish points of contact with realms traditionally consigned to the margins of modern art. Through attention to the social, political, and geographic genealogy of given forms, his works reveal that the modernist fantasy of complete self-referentiality was always already haunted by irreducible specificity and cultural instability. “I am calling into question to what extent it is possible to act within a space defined by the artist himself – a space that emerges from the hierarchy between my own authorship and its research sources, between historical references or concrete borrowings and what I can depict,” Pumhösl states. “My medium is the physical and historical space that I create using painting, architecture, film or photography.”

For his 2014 exhibition at Miguel Abreu Gallery, Pumhösl created formally reduced compositions based on the Georgian Mkhedruli alphabet and a 19th-century rabbinical map (“Eretz Israel,” from Boundaries of the Land by Rabbi Joshua Feiwel ben Israel, Grodno, 1813). The austere motifs, carefully stamped on ceramic plaster panels in oil paint using cliché, a 19th-century technique, are delicately situated between the proto-mechanical and the handmade. Through the reproduction and displacement of his dual sources, Pumhösl reflects on the hierarchy of the graphic, semantic, and phonetic denotations of text and underscores the arbitrary nature of the sign. In emptying these systems of their use value, he opens them up to other associations. This is emblematic of his process at large, which examines the imbrication and reciprocal permeation of formalism and historicity—of abstraction and specificity.

Florian Pumhösl was born in Vienna in 1971, where he lives and works. He studied at the Höhere Grafische Bundeslehr und Versuchsanstalt Wien and the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst Wien. Solo exhibitions of his work were staged at Kunsthaus Bregenz (2o12); Mumok (Vienna, 2011); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf, 2010); Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg, 2009), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2008); Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2005); Centre d’édition contemporaine (Geneva, 2004); Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne, 2003); Secession (Vienna, 2000); and Salzburger Kunstverein (1998), among others. His work was featured in Documenta 12 (Kassel, 2007), São Paulo Biennial (2006) and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). In 2015, his work was included in Parasophia: Kyoto International Festival of Contemporary Culture in Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art (2015). In 2012, he exhibited his work in Parcours, a two- person show at The Art Institute of Chicago with Liz Deschenes. Recently, Pumhösl’s work appeared in group exhibitions at Punta della Dogana (Venice), The Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Haus Der Kunst (Munich), City Gallery Prague, Museum Abteiberg (Mönchengladbach), Generali Foundation (Vienna), MACBA (Barcelona), Raven Row (London), Künstlerhaus Vienna, Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw). He had solo exhibitions at Miguel Abreu Gallery, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, and Lisson Gallery, London.

Several monographs are dedicated to Pumhösl’s work: Florian Pumhösl: Works in Exhibitions 1993-2012, Bregenz: Kunsthaus Bregenz, 2012; Florian Pumhösl: 6 7 8, Cologne: Buchhandlung Walther König, 2012; Florian Pumhösl, London and Cologne: Lisson Gallery and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, 2008.

88 Eldridge Street / 36 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002 • 212.995.1774 • fax 646.688.2302 [email protected] • www.miguelabreugallery.com! ! Andrew Durbin, “Paul Bonet. Drawings and Bookbindings compiled by Florian Pumhösl”, Frieze.com, May 2018

Paul Bonet. Drawings and Bookbindings compiled by Florian Pumhösl

4 May 2018 16 Jun 2018 Galerie Buchholz 17 East 82nd Street NY 10028 New York

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TYheo Fruenrch Gbooukmiadkeer P atulo Bo nteth (1e88 9B–19e71)s ist la rSgehly uonkwnowsn int tohe USS.e He h aisn no NEngelishw-lan gYuoagerk Wikipedia page, though his drawings for book covers, endpapers and binding patterns, are in the collection of the Morgan Library and other prominent US institutions. This week, Galerie Buchholz opens ‘Drawings for Bookbindings’, an exhibition compiled by the Austrian artist Florian Pumhösl, providing a rare chance for US aTuhdieenc eFs tro eenncocunhter ab seolecotioknm of thais keneigrm aPtica arutislt ’sB workn. Wehitle t(he1 s8ho8w h9as– y1et9 to7 op1e)n aiss o f ltahisrgely unknown in the US. He has no English-language writing, we can expect that it will showcase the intricacies of Bonet’s abstract drawings, which were regularly Wikipedia page, though his drawings for book covers, endpapers and binding patterns, are in the collection of the Morgan Library and other prominent US institutions. This week, Galerie Buchholz opens ‘Drawings for Bookbindings’, an exhibition compiled by the Austrian artist Florian Pumhösl, providing a rare chance for US audiences to encounter a selection of this enigmatic artist’s work. While the show has yet to open as of this writing, we can expect that it will showcase the intricacies of Bonet’s abstract drawings, which were regularly used by the legendary French publisher Gallimard in the mid-century, from his curvy mandalas and ribbony lions’s faces to dazzling, almost cosmic plant life. Or, perhaps, we’ll nd a new Bonet ferreted out of the archive – as German visitors did in the gallery’s Cologne venue in 2013, with another Bonet exhibition organized by Pumhösl. In either case, taking ample inspiration from this French cosmologist, I hope Buchholz inaugurates a new generation of Bonetistas among New York’s poets, artists and bookmakers.

- Andrew Durbin

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NEW YORK Paul Bonet GALERIE BUCHHOLZ | NEW YORK 17 East 82nd Street May 4 - June 16

Cartonnage is a term that denotes a material the ancient Egyptians used for their funerary masks and sarcophagi—layers of linen or papyrus mixed with plaster to protect the bodies of the hallowed deceased. In the (much) later invention of French bookbinding, cartonnage became a method of trussing precious pages. Across both traditions, embellishments and other graphic elements were added. These serial sets of symbols often pulse with aesthetic pleasures, which we know from studying the repetitious ciphers of early civilizations. The same kind of “reading” happens in this astounding exhibition of cartonnages Paul Bonet made for bookbinding between 1925 and his death in 1971. Paul Bonet, untitled, no date, China ink, Paulprinter’s Bonet, ink, pencil, untitled, and die-stamp no date, China ink, printer’s ink, pencil, and die-stamp impressed on paper, five parts, dimensionsimpressed on paper, variable. fve parts, Compiled by the Viennese artist Florian Pumhösl, who has been collecting Bonet’s work for dimensions variable. several years from French antiquarian bookstores, each of the delicate, sometimes punctured drawings was used to produce a bespoke cover for the owner of the tome, and this unique practice was how Bonet developed a signature style. Offering barely any text, his designs for covers of books by André Malraux, André Gide, and Paul Valéry, among others, often resemble modernist geometric abstractions, with gilded semicircular embossed motifs, gridded patterns of dots, and perspectival lines of erratic girths. They remind me equally of Art Deco and Tibetan thangka paintings, though to construct some comparative art-historical lineage is unnecessary.

The show unsettles. Despite its relative straightforwardness, at its depths the work is unknowable, indescribable, and, certainly, it’s not easy to reproduce in photographs. Pumhösl notes in an accompanying text that Bonet’s book covers emit much less information than those made today, and that they are “kind of blank.” That’s true in more ways than one. Let’s not forget: for many ancients the word cipher was tied to the idea of nothingness, i.e. zero.

— Lauren O’Neill-Butler

All rights reserved. artforum.com is a registered trademark of Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY. Sam Korman, “Pick of the week: Paul Bonet at Galerie Buchholz, New York,” ArtReview.com, May 5, 2018

Pick of the week: Paul Bonet at Galerie Buchholz, New York

5 May 2018 By Sam Korman

Paul Bonet, Untitled, n.d., China ink, ink, pencil, perforated, impressed on paper, 34 x 30 cm. Courtesy Galerie Buchholz, Berlin/Colog…

ith friends in town, parties every night, and the first nice weather in New York since last August, the opening of Frieze New York is generally W defined by overindulgence. But seldom does the frenetic sprint from art fair to opening to dinner to party to opening grant the type of joy available at an exhibition of Paul Bonet. The show, featuring a selection of the late French bookbinder’s designs, curated by artist Florian Pumhösl, affords the absolute pleasure of looking, permitting special attention to all the little pernickety details of the binder’s craft.

There’s a few things about the history of books you need to know to make this exhibition a bit richer (I certainly didn’t know these things until my visit). First, by the 1920s, book collecting consisted of a special procedure: a patron purchased a paper manuscript, perhaps directly from the poet, and then enlisted the aid of a specialised bookbinder to create a unique, usually leatherbound cover. Bonet worked on volumes by Surrealist poet Guillaume Apollinaire and Paul Valéry, among others. They in turn appreciated his formal inventiveness, which veers between biomorphic patterns and industrial geometries: one sketch for example diagrams a cover for a Apollinaire’s concrete poetry collection Calligrammes (1918), and spells out each letter of the writer’s name using the full name itself. Pumhösl organised the exhibition having seen Bonet’s designs in French antiquarian bookshops, and pays homage to this environment through his creation of special display cases in which to show the work, my favourite of which collects the jacket designs for sheet music by Wagner, Liszt, Chopin and others. Another presents only book spines. There is a sense of self- conscious wackiness to Bonet’s design work, revelling in the perversity behind the fussiness.

Paul Bonet. Drawings for Bookbindings compiled by Florian Pumhösl is at Galerie Buchholz, New York, through 16 June miguelabreugallery1 cart (1) log out ADVERTISE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE search

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SEPTEMBER 2017 New York Robert Pincus-Witten on Bernard Buffet Alex Kitnick on Mathias Poledna Alex Kitnick on Shannon Ebner Kate Sutton on IvYukián Higashino, “Florian Pumhösl,” Artforum, Vol. 56, No. 1, September 2017, pp. 344-345 Argote David Frankel on Willie miguelabreugallery1Doherty cart (1) log out ADVERTISE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE search Michael Wilson on Ceal miguelabreugallery1 cart (1) log out ADVERTISE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE search ARFTGUIDEloyer IN PRINT 500 WORDS PREVIEWS BOOKFORUM A & E Chloe Wyma on Sonja ARTGUIDE IN PRINT 500 WORDS PREVIEWS BOOKFORUM A & E Sekula DIARY PICKS NEWS VIDEO FILM PASSAGES SLANT DIARY PICKS NEWS Colby ChamVIDEOberlain on FILM PASSAGES SLANT Anne Neukamp INRPacRhIeNl CThurner on miguelabreugallery1 cart (1) log out ADVERTISEINPBACKRIN ISSUEST CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE Barbara Bloom search Vienna Reviews Vienna ReJevffreiey Kwastnser on Allan ARTGUIDE IN PRINT 500 WORDS PREVIEWS BOOKFORUM D’ArcanAg &e lEo Florian Pumhösl, Kanal Abschmilt VII (Canal Section VII), 2017, anticorrosive paint on galvanized sheet steel, 86 5/8 × DIARY PICKS NEWS VIDEO FILMFlorian PASSAGESumBhaörrys SlchwabSLANTsky on Sam Florian Pumhösl Contis 30 3/8 × 2". GALERIE MEYER KAINER GALERIE MEYER KAINER Donald Kuspit on Larry INPRINT Zox Karl Marx argued in the Grundrisse (1857–58) that it is impossible to grasp the complexity of the world with Vienna Reviews Robert Snowden on Jef an abstract concept. An idea is merely a starting point, which must be fleshed out through “the method of Geys rising from the abstract to the concrete.” When applied to the aesthetic realm, this fundamentally anti- Florian Pumhösl Laura McLean-Ferris on Platonic conception of abstraction runs counter to the idea that artists reach abstract forms via distillation, GALERIE MEYER KAINER Quintessa Matranga the process Theo van Doesburg famously illustrated with his 1917 abstraction of a cow. But if abstraction is Johanna Fateman on a starting point and not a goal, the separation of the abstract and the figurative in art is a false dichotomy, REVIEWS REMVaIEuWreSen Gallace because every artwork is a developed form of abstraction regardless of its style. This idea moreover SEPTEMBER 2017 Water Mill, New York enables us to reexamine art history not as a progress toward abstraction, but as a large pool of solutions for SBEaPrryT SEcMhwBaEbsRk y2 o0n1 J7ohn how to give concrete form to incomplete abstractions. New York Graham REVIEWS Robert Pincus-Witten on New York Florian Pumhösl explores this path toward the concrete via abstraction. In his works, usually produced in Bernard Buffet CRhoibceartg Poincus-Witten on ensembles, he begins with a system of representation or instruction that aims to abstract the world—a Alex Kitnick on Mathias DBaenrnieal rQd uBileufsf eotn Tania SEPTEMBER 2017 method of mapping, an architectural drawing, an alphabet. Pumhösl analyzes this system as well as the Poledna APleérxe zK itCnóicrkd oovna Mathias results of its application, comprehends its visual genealogy and sociopolitical context, and uses it to New York Alex Kitnick on Shannon Poledna generate concrete forms that are finally exhibited as artifacts, “rising from the abstract to the concrete.” A Robert Pincus-Witten on Ebner PAolerxtl Kaitnndic,k Oonr eSghaonnnon Bernard Buffet piece by Pumhösl is a physical actualization of a system in the form of an object. His recent exhibition Kate Sutton on Iván EJobnn eRraymond on Ryan Alex Kitnick on Mathias Argote McLaughlin “Kanal” (Canal) included seven pieces, titled Kanal Abschnitt (Canal Section) I through VII and all dated Poledna Kate Sutton on Iván David Frankel on Willie 2017. They are made from sheets of galvanized steel each measuring about seven-and-a-quarter by two- Alex Kitnick on Shannon Argote Doherty Los Angeles and-a-half feet, and painted in anticorrosive paint with an earthy red hue. Each piece is folded and pinched Ebner David Frankel on Willie Michael Wilson on Ceal Cat Kron on Rebecca Kate Sutton on Iván Doherty in an individual manner, and hangs on the wall as a unique relief. Argote Floyer Warren David Frankel on Willie Chloe Wyma on Sonja NMicicohlaaesl LWinilsneornt on Ceal The forms of these elegant reliefs were related, in the artist’s mind, to canal systems, perhaps to the one Doherty Sekula MFlcoDyermott & McGough that regulates the water flow of Vienna. Pumhösl examined the structure of these systems and developed a Michael Wilson on Ceal Colby Chamberlain on Chloe Wyma on Sonja general principle according to which his forms were in dialogue with those of real canals. His principle was Floyer Anne Neukamp VSaenkcuolaver Chloe Wyma on Sonja related to other strategies of urban growth as well. For instance, Vienna’s canal and subway systems were Rachel Churner on CLeoelb Py leCshtaemd boenr laEliniz aobneth Sekula intertwined in their early development. The history of the city’s modernization has been the history of how Barbara Bloom AMncnInet oNsehu,k Maomnpique Colby Chamberlain on its systems to regulate flows of traffic, goods, people, capital, and water evolved. Indeed, urban planning is Anne Neukamp Jeffrey Kastner on Allan RMaocuhteoln C, hSuilrknee rO otnto- Floriana rPguumahbölys la, Kn aanbasl tArbascct hsmysilte VmII (pCaarn aelx Sceeclletionnc VeI It)h, at aims to remodel an entire society and its built environment Rachel Churner on D’Arcangelo Knapp Barbara Bloom 2017, anticorrosive paint on galvanized sheet steel, 86 5/8 × Barbara Bloom Barry Schwabsky on Sam London according to its conceptual framework. Thus, these seemingly austere reliefs are in effect conceptual Jeffrey Kastner on Allan Contis 30 3/8 × 2". Jeffrey Kastner on Allan Himali Singh Soin on portraits of the city’s modernity. Florian Pumhösl, Kanal Abschmilt VII (Canal Section VII), D’Arcangelo Florian Pumhösl, Kanal DAb’Ascrchmaniltg VeIlIo (Canal Section VII), Donald Kuspit on Larry Isaac Julien 2017, anticorrosive paint on galvanized sheet steel, 86 5/8 × Barry Schwabsky on Sam Zox 2017, anticorrosive paint oBna grarylv aSncizhewd ashbesekty s toenel, S 8a6 m5/8 × The material, the technique, and the paint used for these reliefs are normally used for roofing, meaning that 3K0a 3r/l8 M ×a 2r"x. argued in tShyelw Giaru Snderisafsineo (w1ic85z7 o–n58) that it is impossible to grasp the complexity of the world with 30 3/8 × 2". Contis Robert Snowden on Jef Contis their physical properties are derived from another system that controls the flow of water to keep building an abstract concept. SAonr idele Eat riso gmerely a starting point, which must be fleshed out through “the method of Donald Kuspit on Larry Geys Donald Kuspit on Larry interiors dry. Rainwater from the city’s rooftops may eventually flow into the very canal network from which Zox rising from the abstraKcat tteo Sthuet tcoonn ocnre Gtee.t”a When applied to the aesthetic realm, this fundamentally anti- Karl Marx arguLeadu inra t hMec LGeraun-dFrisersreis (o1n857–58) that it is impossible to grasp Zthoex complexity of the world with Robert Snowden on Jef Brtescu tKhaer lf oMrmarsx oafr gthueesde in p iethcee Gs rwuenrder isdeseriv (e1d8.5 T7h–e5 8fo) rtmhaatl ita nisd im supbosstsaibntleia lt oa sgpraescpts tohfe t hcoem wpolerkxsit ya roef ptheerf ewcotlyrld in with an abstract conQcueipnt.t eAsns aid eMaa istr amnegraely a starting poinPtla, wtohnicich cmounsct ebpet fiolens hoefd a obustt rtharcotuiognh r“uthnes m ceotuhnodte or fto the idea that artists reach abstract forms via distillation, Geys Robert Snowden on Jef sync with their historical conditions and conceptual structure, creating a picture with formidable complexity rising from the abstract to the concrete.” When appliethde t op rthoec easess tThehteico r evalmn D, toheiss fbuundrga mfaemntoaullys lyan illuti- strated with ahisn a1b91s7tr aacbts tcroacntcioenp to.f Aan c oidwe. aB uist mif aebrestlyra cat iostna isrting point, which must be fleshed out through “the method of Laura McLean-Ferris on Johanna Fateman on WGeesyst Bretton, United Platonic conception of abstraction runs counter to thae sidteaart inthgat paortinists a rneda cnho at bas tgraocat l,fo trhmes s veiap adrisattillaiontio onf, the abstrarthiscatin ta gisn df rn tohemev e ftigrhtuhere aletbivssest r inawc hat ortolly is t haree fsa colsolvene cddrice. htEeoxt.o”t emWnysh,ivene ahpisptoliericda tlo k tnhoew aleedstghee taicn dre tahlme u, nthdise rfsutannddainmge notfa tllyhe a lontgi-ic Quintessa Matranga Maureen Gallace Laura McLean-Ferris on the process Theo van Doesburg famously illustratedb weitcha uhsise 1 e9v1e7 rayb asrtrtawcKotiorikn isgo fd aa odceomvwe. loBupte ifd a fbosrtmra cotfio anb isstraction Pbrelaghtainorndicle t hscseo onsfcy itesstp estmiotylen o .of Tfa habisbs tsidrtareacatc iomtionon rae rouevn ecsro cnocuenterar tteod t hine t hidee aco tnhcarte atert,is stos prheisactich aatbesdt rfaocrmt fso romf sth veia e xdhisibtillaitetdion, Johanna Fateman on QShueinrmteasns aS aMma torann Tgoany Maureen Gallace a starting poinWt aantde nr oMt ai lgl,o aNl,e thwe sYeoprakration of the eanbastbralecst aunsd t oth ere feigxuaramtivinee in a ratr th isis tao rfayls neo dt icahso ato pmryo,gress towtwahroder akpbsro.s tcIrnea csthtsioe Tn Gh, beruotn vadasrisn a s Dlaeor,g eMes abpruoxro gwl ofrafo msteoo lutuhtsioalytn saillu nfo arsbtrsattreadc tw citohn cheisp 1t 9is1 v7a alidbs otrnalyc twiohne onf ita isco “wa. rBicuht tifo taablitsytr aocf tmioann isy JCorhaagngna Fateman on because everyB aartrwryo Srkc hisw aa bdsekvye loonp eJdo hfonrm of abstrahcotiown t ore gaivred lecsosn ocfr eittse s ftoylerm. T thois in idceoam mpleorteeo vaebrstractions. determinations and relations.” This is an apt description of Pumhösl’s works. Water Mill, New York enables us to rGeeraxahmamine art history not as a progress toward abstraction, bMut aausr ae elanrg Ge aplolaocl oef solutions for a starting point and not a goal, the separation of the abstract and the figurative in art is a false dichotomy, because every artwork is a developed form of abstraction regardless of its style. 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In his works, usually produced in Portland, Oregon Chicago generate concrJeoten fRoarmyms othnadt oanre R fyinaanlly exhibited asp aiertcifaec btsy, “Prisuinmgh öfrsolm is t hae pahbysstricacatl tao cthtuea clizonactrioente .o” fA a system ine nthsee mfobrmle so,f ahne obbejegcint.s H wisit rhe cae snyt setxehmib itoiof nrepresentation or instruction that aims to abstract the world—a Portland, Oregon Daniel Quiles on Tania Jon Raymond on Ryan piece by PumhMösclL isa uag phhlyinsical actualization of a sys“tKeman inal ”th (eC faonrmal) o fin acnlu Bodbeejerdcl tis.n eHvise nre pceienct eesx,h ibtititleiodn Kanal Abschmnitet t(hCoadn aolf Smeactpiopnin) gI ,t harnou agrhc hVitIIe acntudr alll draatewding, an alphabet. Pumhösl analyzes this system as well as the Pérez Córdova McLaughlin “Kanal” (Canal) included seven pieces, titled Kanal A2b0s1c7h.n Titth (eCya naarel S mecatdioeJn e)f rnIo tsmh rAo ssuhtghehoe Vftfs IoI oanfn Adg naalvsll eadlnamtizeded steel eacrhe msueltass uorfin itgs aabpopulict saetvioen-,a cnodm-ap-qreuharetenrd bsy it tsw vois- ual genealogy and sociopolitical context,‹ aGenevand uses it tAntwerpo › 2017. They arLeo msa dAen frgoeml eshseets of galvanized steealn eda-cah- hmaelfa fseuerint, ga anbdo puRat esinyetlveeedn -inan adn-atic-qourarrotesriv bey ptwaoin-t with an earthy red hue. Each piece is folded and pinched Los Angeles generate concrete forms that are finally exhibited as artifacts, “rising from the abstract to the concrete.” A and-a-half feet,C aant dK proanin otend R ine baencticcaorrosive paint witinh an einadrtivhyid rueda lh muea.n PEnMaoecrahr, r takpln ieaNdcna ehds aish,n foOgonldsr “eoJdnga atgohnudena pwrinsacllh aeds a unique relief. Cat Kron on Rebecca in an individualW maarnrenner, and hangs on the wall as a unique relief. Jon Raymond on Ryan piece by Pumhösl is a physical actualization of a system in the form of an object. His recent exhibition Warren and Electric Eels” Nicolas Linnert on The forms of these eMlegcaLnatu rgehlielinfs were related, in the artis“Kt’sa mnainl”d (, Ctoa cnaanl)a lin scylustedmeds ,s peevrehnap psie toc ethse, otitnleed Kanal Abschnitt (Canal Section) I through VII and all dated Nicolas Linnert on The forms of these elegant reliefs were related, in the artist’s mind, to canalJ suyrsriateamns ,B peenrhsacphso pto o thne one McDermott & McGough that regulates the water flow of Vienna. Pumhösl examine2d0 t1he7 .s Ttrhucetyu raer eof mthaedse sfryosmte mshs eaentds doef vgealolvpaend izaed steel each measuring about seven-and-a-quarter by two- McDermott & McGough that regulates the water flow of Vienna. Pumhösl examined the structure oLf Iotuhlseias eA N sniyssgttoermles sand developed a general principle according to which his forms were gine dniaeloragl uper inwcithip tleho ascec oofr rdeinalg c aton awlsh. icHhis hpisrin fcoiprmles w wasere in dialoangdu-ea w-hitahlf t hfeoseet, oafn rdea pl acinantaelsd .in H isa nptricinocriproles ivweas paint with an earthy red hue. Each piece is folded and pinched Vancover Cat Kron on Rebecca Vancover related to other strategies of urban growth as well. Froerla intsetda ntcoe o, tVhieenr nsatr’sa tceagnieals a ondf usrubbawna yg rsoywsttehm ass w weerell. For insinta nacne ,in Vdieivnidnau’as lc manaanl naenrd, asunbdw haayn sgyss toenm sth wee wreall as a unique relief. Lee Plested on Elizabeth Lee Plested on Elizabeth Cologne intertwined in their early development. The history ofin thteer tcwityin’se md oind ethrneizira etioaWnrly ah radrse bnveelonp tmhee hnist.t oTrhye o fh hisotwory of the city’s modernization has been the history of how McIntosh, Monique Noemi Smolik on Claus McIntosh, Monique Nicolas Linnert on The forms of these elegant reliefs were related, in the artist’s mind, to canal systems, perhaps to the one Mouton, Silke Otto- its systems to rMegouulatoten ,f loSwilkse o Of ttrtaof-fic, goods, peopleit, sc aspyitsatel, mansd t ow aretegru elavotRelvi ceflodh.wt eInsrd oefe tdr,a uffricba, ng oplaodnsn,in pge isople, capital, and water evolved. Indeed, urban planning is Knapp arguably an abKstnracptp system par excellence that aimasr tgou raebmlyo daenl aanb estnrtaircet sMsoycsieDteteymr ma npodat ritt se& xb cMueiltclle Gennovcuirego nthhmaet natims to rethmaot drelg aunla etnetsir eth seo cwieattye ar nflod wits obfu Viltie ennnvairo. nPmuemnht ösl examined the structure of these systems and developed a Geneva general principle according to which his forms were in dialogue with those of real canals. His principle was VHaanncs oRvuedorlf Reust on related to other strategies of urban growth as well. For instance, Vienna’s canal and subway systems were Lee Plested on Elizabeth Bernard Voïta intertwined in their early development. The history of the city’s modernization has been the history of how McIntosh, Monique Mouton, Silke Otto- its systems to regulate flows of traffic, goods, people, capital, and water evolved. Indeed, urban planning is Vienna arguably an abstract system par excellence that aims to remodel an entire society and its built environment YKunkaip Hpigashino on Florian Pumhösl Antwerp Jos Van den Bergh on Patrick Van Caeckenbergh Otterlo, The Netherlands Annie Ochmanek on Ger van Elk Milan Eugenio Viola on Mirosaw Baka Giorgio Verzotti on Liliana Moro Venice Paola Nicolin on Lucy McKenzie Lisbon Alexandre Melo on Ana Vidigal Tallinn, Estonia Neringa erniauskait on Anu Põder Dubai Melissa Gronlund on Yazan Khalili Beijing Lee Ambrozy on Yang Jiechang Tokyo Victor Wang on Mitsutoshi Hanaga Mexico City Marcela Quiroz on Alejandro Paz São Paulo Camila Belchior on Daniel Senise

MIGUEL ABREU GALLERY ! FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Exhibition: Florian Pumhösl

Dates: March 2 – April 27, 2014

Reception: Sunday, March 2, 2 – 7PM

Miguel Abreu Gallery is pleased to announce Florian Pumhösl’s first solo exhibition at the gallery and in the United States, opening on Sunday, March 2, 2014. The show, which will inaugurate the gallery’s second space at 88 Eldridge Street, will be also on view at 36 Orchard Street. The exhibition is comprised of six paintings depicting formally reduced letters from the Georgian Mkhedruli alphabet and twelve paintings based on a 19th-century rabbinical map (“Eretz Israel,” from Boundaries of the Land by Rabbi Joshua Feiwel ben Israel, Grodno, 1813). The austere motifs, carefully stamped on ceramic plaster panels in oil paint, were produced using a separate rubber cliché for each line in the compositions. Pumhösl’s work can be characterized as an unfolding constellation of references encoded within a visual language that is purely formal. His paintings, films, and installations address the exhibition space as a medium. The mode of production of this most recent series, delicately situated between the proto-mechanical and the precise hand gesture, suggests early 20th-century avant-garde experiments in typography and graphic design. The geometricity of the rabbinical map—an abstracted representation of an imaginary land conjectured from historical writings— may recall the aesthetic idioms of Russian Futurism and Constructivism. Print publications are further evoked through Pumhösl’s manipulation and exhibition of the map. The diagram is divided into twelve equal fragments that are organized in a horizontal array, as if pages in a book. This method of display, which the artist considers an interruption of the architectural space, brings to the fore the contradiction between continuity and discontinuity that constitutes the book form and language in general. Through his transfer of the map and interpretation of Georgian letterforms, Pumhösl underscores the arbitrary nature of the sign. In emptying these systems of their use value, he opens them up to other associations. Transformed lines of obsolete and contemporary Georgian script become pictorial when freed from their linguistic weight and the linearity of written text. Similarly, a single line in a rabbinical map might simultaneously signify a territorial demarcation of land, a river, and a travel route. Cartographic text, too, functions arbitrarily, through its linkage of names to geographic locations. Pumhösl’s restaging of these sources exploits the threshold between the referent and the space of the image. The letterforms are stamped with a darker Pompeian red that brings to mind the tradition of fresco murals, while the map is rendered in a vivid orange-red favoured in modern design. Through the displacement and abstraction of his dual sources, Pumhösl reflects on the hierarchy of the graphic, semantic, and phonetic denotations of text. Whereas the Georgian graphemes are highly phonemic representations of linguistic utterances, the reformulated letter motifs remind us that the form of the written word is not necessarily motivated by the spoken, and that an alphabet is fundamentally compositional. Here the shapes of the letters are deconstructed into nonhierarchical units that could constitute any character – horizontal, vertical, diagonal lines, and curves. While Pumhösl’s panels might appear to be formalist abstractions, their signification is anchored by their historical sources. Thus he uses a vocabulary of reproduction to create works which underscore the fact that the fantasy of completely self-referential art was always already haunted by culturally specific aspirations.

88 Eldridge Street / 36 Orchard Street, New York, NY 10002 • 212.995.1774 • fax 646.688.2302 [email protected] • www.miguelabreugallery.com!

Florian Pumhösl was born in Vienna in 1971, where he lives and works. He studied at the Höhere Grafische Bundeslehr und Versuchsanstalt Wien and the Hochschule für angewandte Kunst Wien. Solo exhibitions of his work were staged at Kunsthaus Bregenz (2o12); Mumok (Vienna, 2011); Kunstverein für die Rheinlande und Westfalen (Düsseldorf, 2010); Musée d’Art Moderne Grand-Duc Jean (Luxembourg, 2009), Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam, 2008); Neue Kunsthalle St. Gallen (2005); Centre d’édition contemporaine (Geneva, 2004); Kölnischer Kunstverein (Cologne, 2003); Secession (Vienna, 2000); and Salzburger Kunstverein (1998), among others. His work was featured in Documenta 12 (Kassel, 2007), São Paulo Biennial (2006) and the 50th Venice Biennale (2003). In 2012, he exhibited his work in Parcours, a two-person show at The Art Institute of Chicago that he co-curated with Liz Deschenes and Matthew Witkovsky. Recently, Pumhösl’s work appeared in group exhibitions at Museum Abteiberg (Mönchengladbach), Generali Foundation (Vienna), MACBA (Barcelona), Raven Row (London), Künstlerhaus Vienna, Museum of Modern Art (Warsaw). He had solo exhibitions at Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne, and Lisson Gallery, London, both in 2013.

For more information or for visuals, please contact the gallery:

Miguel Abreu Gallery 88 Eldridge Street (between Hester & Grand) / 36 Orchard Street (between Canal & Hester) New York, NY 10002 Telephone 212.995.1774 • Fax 646.688.2302 • [email protected]

Hours: Wednesday – Sunday, 10:30AM to 6:30PM and by appointment Subway: F to East Broadway; B, D to Grand Street; J, M, Z to Delancey / Essex Street 4/21/2014 4/21/2014 Exhibitions - Florian PEuxmhihböitsilo -n sA -r tF ilno rAiamn ePruicmahösl - Art in America

“Florian Pumhösl,” The Lookout, ArtinAmerica.com, April 17, 2014

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FloriaFnl oPruiamnh Pöusml hösl at Miguel Abreaut GMailgluereyl ,Abreu Gallery, through Apr. 27 through Apr. 27 88 Eldridge St. and 3868 OElrdcrhidargde SStt.. and 36 Orchard St.

In his first U.S. solo, sIpna nhnisi nfgir sAt bUr.eSu.' ss oOlroc,h sapradn Snitnrege tA lborceauti'so nO arcnhdard Street location and his new venue on Eldrhidisg en eSwtr eveetn, uthe eo Vn iEenldnrai dagreti sSt tFreleotr,i athne P Vumienhnöasl artist Florian Pumhösl offers achingly eleganto pffaeirnst iancghsi,n bgalyse edl eogna neitt hpearin tthine glse,t tbear sfeodr mons eoifther the letter forms of the Georgian alphabet tohre aGn eeoarrglyia n1 9atlhp-hcaebnetut royr mana pe aorfly a 1f9atnht-acseyn otufry map of a fantasy of Israel drawn by a RussIisarna erla bdbrai.w Ena bchy lai nReu isss icarne artaebdb wi. iEtha cah r ulibnbee irs created with a rubber stamp on a ceramic panstealm. Tp hoens ea acbesrtarmacitcio pnasn beal.s eTdh oesne aabbssttrraaccttiioonnss abraesed on abstractions are alive with references toa laivrte hwisittohr riceafel raenndc elsit etora arryt phriestcoerdiecnalt sa, nadn dli taerrea ray precedents, and are a stripped-down visual fsetarsitp.ped-down visual feast.

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Sarah Lucas Sarah LKucriassten MorgiKnristen KMaorregni nKnorr Karen KBnroardr Brad Radamés Radamés at Gladstone, at Gladstonea,t Zach Feuer, at Zach Feueart, Danziger Gallery, at Danziger KGaallherlyh, amer Kahlham“eJruni” “Juni” through Apr. 26 through Aprt.h 2r6ough May 3 through Mayth 3rough May 3 through Maya t3 Jack Shainman at Jack ShaiFnmiganueroa Figueroa http://www.artinamerhicttapm://awgwazwin.aer.tcinoamm/eexrhicibaimtioangsa/zflionrei.acno-mpu/emxhhsibl/itions/florian-pumhsl/ 1/2 1/2 Ken Johnson, “Boldly Go, 70 Galleries To See This Spring,” The New York Times, April 3, 2014, p. C32 4/7/2014 Florian Pumhösl: Abreu : The New Yorker

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FLORIAN PUMHÖSL

The ch0aste elegance of large white paintings bearing a few neat red or sepia lines belies the Austrian artist’s eccentric technique and arcane subject matter. The lines were applied with rubber stamps to canvas coated with porcelain clay. The designs are exaggerated letter forms of the Georgian alphabet and dePtrainitls of a map, by an early-nineteenth-century Russian rabbi, of a fantasized Israel, with More boundaries defined partly by routes of historic Jewish migration. Even without explanation, the works radiate auras of things long ago and far away. Are they genuinely mystical or just gratuitously http://www.nSewhyoarkrere.com/arts/events/art/florin-pumhosl-abreu 1/3 mystifying? Either way, they look good. Through April 27. and 88 Eldridge St. Close Tumblr Reddit Linked In Email Pin It StumbleUpon

The chaste elegance of large white paintings bearing a few neat red or sepia lines belies the Austrian artist’s eccentric technique and arcane subject matter. The lines were applied with rubber stamps to canvas coated with porcelain clay. The designs are exaggerated letter forms of the Georgian alphabet and details of a map, by an early-nineteenth-century Russian rabbi, of a fantasized Israel, with boundaries defined partly by routes of historic Jewish migration. Even without explanation, the http://www.newyorker.com/arts/events/art/florin-pumhosl-abreu 1/3 3/21/2014 Florian Pumhösl | Miguel Abreu Gallery | Exhibitions | Time Out New York

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Reviews Not yet rated 0 Add + FRevlioew rthisa - yonu c oPuld wuinm a hösl luxury hotel stay Art Critics' pick P ainting Lower East Side Until Sun Apr 27 Time Out says Like 0 Posted: Wed Mar 19 2014 Reviews 0 Not yet rated 0 Add + RTehview A thuis -t ryioaun c oaurldt iwsitn f ail ls Abreu's original space, and inaugurates its second louxnu rEy lhdortiedl sgteay Street, with austere white panels featuring linear motifs that Critics' pick Tcuimrvee ,O buetn ds aory sintersect one another. The panels themselves are made of ceramic plaster, a material usually employed to create molds forL iskelip-0 Posted: Wed Mar 19 2014 casting pottery. The lines are imprinted in oil paint using custom rubbe0 r Near Miguel Abreu Gallery Tshtaem Aupsstr iaan da ratisrte f ildlse Aribvreud' sf roorimgin tawl osp saoceu, racneds i:n tahueg uGraeteosr gitsia sne caolnpdhabet and a on Eldridge Street, with austere white panels featuring linear motifs that 19th-century rabbinical map of Israel. It's a lot of backstory for works that Bars and Restaurants Shops curve, bend or intersect one another. The panels themselves are made are so reductively formal, but their elegance is hard to deny. pubs and cafés of ceramic plaster, a material usually employed to create molds for slip- casting pottery. The lines are imprinted in oil paint using custom rubber Near Miguel Abreu Gallery Sweet Paradise Lounge sWtamhpast adnod ayroe ud etrhiviendk fr?om two sources: the Georgian alphabet and a Review this - you could win a luxury hotel stay 19th-century rabbinical map of Israel. It's a lot of backstory for works that Bars and Restaurants Shops are so reductively formal, but their elegance is hard to deny. pubs and cafés

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http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/florian-pumhoesl 1/4 http://www.timeout.com/newyork/art/florian-pumhoesl 1/4 Eric C.H. de Bruyn, “Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art,” Grey Room 57, Fall 2014, pp. 24–49

Florian Pumhösl. Schlacht von Manila Bay (Wendemanöver) (Battle of Manila Bay [Transposition Maneuver]), 2005.

24 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_0015 4

Florian Pumhösl. Schlacht von Manila Bay (Wendemanöver) (Battle of Manila Bay [Transposition Maneuver]), 2005.

24 doi:10.1162/GREY_a_0015 4 Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art

ERIC C.H. DE BRUYN IN MEMORY OF P.L. DE BRUYN

Two incongruous points of departure gave rise to the following speculations on the notion of a political geometry and its relevance to contemporary art. The first is a remarkable painting by Florian Pumhösl of 2005: a single, black line that coils across a white ground. The second is a crucial passage in Carl Schmitt’s The Nomos of the Earth, where the legal scholar coins the resonant phrase, “global linear thinking.”1 The image and the text have no immediate kinship, yet they both raise questions concerning the kinds of pathways or lines, both lawful and clandestine, that have been inscribed and can be drawn upon the globe. Quite literally, the problem is one of geo-metricity; that is, not geometry as the universal science defined as a “branch of mathematics concerned with the properties and relations of points, lines, surfaces, and solids,” but geometry as a social technology that maps political and juridical boundaries upon the surface of the earth.2 This historicity of geometry is not only to be understood as immanent to an actual practice of political cartography; it also allows us, in turn, to plot the conceptual diagram of power within contemporary society.3 In short, political geometry will refer in this essay to actual lines and figures, whether drawn upon the earth or a pictorial surface, as well as to the spatial formations of sociopolitical forces as they emerge and transform themselves within history.4

What Is a Line? 5 To begin, I present a deceptively simple image by the Austrian artist Florian Pumhösl: a single curving line etched in stark relief against a white background. What would an animated version of this image look like? Entering the picture plane from behind the left frame, the line curves across the surface and then begins to coil in upon itself. As the loop tightens, the contours of two elliptical figures are outlined, one superimposed upon the other. However, before the line becomes fully ensnared in its own rotating motion, fastening itself into a knot from which it cannot

Grey Room 5 7 , Fall 2 0 1 4 , pp. 2 4 –4 9 . © 2 0 1 4 Grey Room, Inc. and Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2 5 escape, it sweeps around one more time in order to course back to its initial point of entry. Yet, before the line reaches its final destination it comes to a sudden end, expiring in full flight upon the white surface. Our first question must be, “What kind of line is this?” To the extent that Pumhösl’s line appears to propel itself forward as an autonomous agent, it resembles what Paul Klee calls an active line. In the Pedagogical Sketchbook (1925), based on his course at the Bauhaus, the Swiss artist defines an active line as moving freely in space, taking “a walk for a walk’s sake.”6 An active line is “free” to the extent that its inflections are not curbed by any exterior force or impeded by any obstacle placed in its path. Nothing exists to obstruct the progress of such a meandering line, since the very movement of the active line gives birth to space. The active line is abstract in the truest sense of the word, because as a pure vector of movement it remains beyond the geometric coordinates of any stable system of representation. Yet to what extent does Pumhösl’s graphic trace achieve such an autonomous status? His line alters its character once it commences to retrace its own path, twist- ing around itself. At this moment, its identity changes. The line creates a planar effect through the tracing of a geometric figure. Klee has another name for such a graphic trace: a medial line.7 If the active line exists beyond representational space, the medial line inheres within a geometric space. Active and medial lines may con- vert into each other, and Pumhösl’s line alters its properties three times: at the end, it spins off again, dropping its medial function and resuming its autonomous path. What has remained in the shadows in this account of lineal transformation, however, is a more essential mode of spatial transformation. From active to medial line, the relationship between figure and ground is fundamentally altered: figure and ground enter into a determinate, geometric set of spatial connections. The medial line adheres to a coherent, planar surface, whereas the active line provides no sense of dimensionality or measurement. A dual set of spatial terms has therefore been tacitly introduced in our analysis, which can be elaborated through Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s distinction between “striated and “smooth” space. Deleuze and Guattari took Klee as a point of departure to propose not two but three kinds of line.8 In turn, I take the different spatial properties of these three lines as a starting point for investigating the notion of political geometry in art, since Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of territorialization offers an initial bridge between formal and political understandings of the line. In the typology offered by Deleuze and Guattari, Klee’s medial line is the easiest to define; it corresponds to what they call a “segmentary” line, which marks bound-

26 Grey Room 57 Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, 1925.

aries, delineates contours, links locations, and establishes distances. By means of a segmentary line the properties of a territorial area become measurable in more than one sense; space assumes a metric dimension, whether we consider this in terms of cartographic scale or monetary value (i.e., land rent or wage distribution). Only within a homogenous system governed by fixed coordinates can one draw a segmentary line. Its counterpart, to a certain degree, is the “supple” line that is not strictly opposed to the segmentary line but is entangled with it. The supple line coex- ists with the segmentary line and crosses over into it. As such, the supple line constitutes another kind of segmentarity, one that is less rigid, one where a fluctu- ating, micropolitical realm of “fine segmentations” exists that operate at an angle or within the interstices of a totalized space of rigid segmentation.9 If linear segmentarity (re)territorializes space, feeding into “a machine of overcoding that constitutes more geometrico homogenous space and extracts segments that are determinate as to their substance, form, and relation,” then a supple linearity deterritorializes and decodes space.10 Or, rather, it constitutes a micrological, unstable space of force relations, a threshold that resides between the state apparatus of sovereign power and an ungovernable, turbulent outside of mutation, multitudes, and flows that escape quantification. Think, for instance, of the segmentary character of payment-money versus the creative-destructive flows of credit-money. The contemporary, specula- tive practice of high-frequency trading is a good example of how capitalism attempts to exploit the supple segmentarity of financial space, but it also clarifies how even the most fine-grained, mathematical mechanisms of computation can never bring the incalculable “quanta” of economic flux under control. If the supple line belongs to the microtextural realm of the social fabric, a knotty dimension within the overall, geometric pattern, then the third line, the “line of flight,” unravels the weave altogether. This Deleuzian line of flight is what resembles the active line of Klee most closely: it “does not go from one point to another, but runs between points in a different direction that renders them indiscernible.” This line is without coordinates—“it always begins off the painting”— confusing all relationships of inside and outside, foreground and background, surface and depth, merging with a “plane of consistency upon which it floats and that it creates.” A line without a stable background, it is without localizable connection and lacks not only any representative aspect “but any function of outlining a form of any kind.” The line of flight rushes headlong, that is, into the molecular

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 27 space of pure flow, an undifferentiated, formless “plane of consistency” in which the very phenomenon, if not concept, of the line as such must dissolve.11 Pumhösl’s drawing goes quite far in presenting a visual model of the disappear- ing line of flight, yet also illustrates the two basic modes of a striated and supple spatiality. We are still at a loss, however, to determine the possible cause of this line. Pumhösl’s line appears to have a will of its own, pushing itself beyond the frame to which it may be attached but which does not determine its shape. This line is not a particularly elegant line—no artfulness is involved—but it is no random or sponta- neous mark either. Indeed the line has been executed with painstaking precision in a rather unusual technique, reverse glass painting (Hinterglasmalerei). Furthermore, this line has been literally mapped onto the smooth surface of the glass. Its historical referent can be deduced from the German title of the painting: Schlacht von Manila Bay (Wendemanöver).12

Manila Bay And so it stands revealed: Pumhösl’s abstract line refers to a specific historical event; namely, the maneuver of the U.S. Asiatic fleet as it engaged and destroyed the Spanish Pacific fleet at the beginning of the Spanish-American War on May 1, 1898. The triple loop retraces the course of the American squadron as it repeatedly dou- bled back on itself in order to shell the Spanish warships within the enclosed Bay of Manila. Yet if we compare this painting to, for instance, the map of the same battle in the Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy, we see that Pumhösl has eliminated all topographical features: the coastal outline, the coordinates of longitude and latitude, the geographical scale, and, significantly, the successive points along the fleet’s path which log its exact time of passage.13 And, therefore, what appeared at first sight to be a pure, abstract line inhabiting a topological space of its own is, in fact, nothing of the kind. Pumhösl draws our attention to the ambivalent status of this line by deliberately obliterating certain historical and geographic details from the painting. The line is both supple and segmentary, active and medial. This overlapping of different geometric regimes in the same image is the object of my fascination. More specifically, it is the vexing manner in which this singular line is entangled with the political geometries of both modernist painting and maritime space that interests me in the present context. The reference to the Battle of Manila Bay is significant for two reasons: first, because it reveals that the space within Pumhösl’s painting cannot, strictly speaking, be described in aesthetic terms, since its abstract ground is no ground at all—

28 Grey Room 57 Battle of Manila Bay, May 1, 1898. From Craig L. Symonds, The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U. S. Navy, 1995.

it is a sea from which all coastal landmarks have been eradicated; second, because it suggests how the possible relationship between abstract and social diagrams can be historicized while avoiding the pitfalls of a reflectionist theory of artistic representation. That is, what is important here is not the referential content of the line as such. The line is not just the literal trace of a particular historical event. Rather, it functions as the historical index of a specific political geometry. What the line demonstrates is a singular mode of entanglement between smooth and striated spaces of social organization at the end of the nineteenth century. The linear trajectory Pumhösl transposed onto glass shows how the American ships looped around in order to discharge their cannons on both port and starboard sides. We may presume that this naval tactic was already practiced during the age of sailing ships, yet in the case of the Manila Bay attack the maneuver was executed with a geometric precision only made possible by steam power and its associate technologies. Linking the naval diagram to a new, industrial era of mechanized warfare gets us closer to the historical specificity of political geometry. Hence we can turn to my second prompt, in the work of Carl Schmitt, who saw in the Spanish- American War the mark of a world-historical shift, or Wende, in the evolution of global linear thinking. Schmitt coined the phrase “global linear thinking” to denote that the act of drawing lines over the globe has been fundamental to the history of political power since the early sixteenth century, when “the contours of the earth emerged as a real globe—not just sensed as myth, but apprehensible as fact and measurable as space.” In reference to the discovery of the American continent and the first circumnaviga- tions of the world, Schmitt writes, “there arose a wholly new and hitherto unimag- inable problem: the spatial ordering of the earth in terms of international law.” The European powers had to decide upon the nomos of the “New World”; that is, how the new spaces would be demarcated and divided in a spatial and a juridical sense.14 Geographical lines had to be drawn across the whole earth. If, at first, these lines were drawn superficially, more geometrico, that changed once the “historical and scientific consciousness had assimilated (in every sense of the word) the planet

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 29 down to the last cartographical and statistical details.” As a result, the development of a more substantive concept of the geopolitical order arose in the course of the seventeenth century. Schmitt thus feels justified to speak of a political cartography of modernity during which the globe was inscribed with rigid lines not only in order to fix the boundaries of geographical territories but to distinguish among different juridical dimensions of space. The new planetary consciousness of European culture, which Schmitt heralds as a “world-historical event,” transformed geometry into a state apparatus.15 To support his history of a politicized geometry, Schmitt invokes the “pessimistic maxim” of Thomas Hobbes, which states that the rational certainties of geometry become problematic once they enter the sphere of the political.16 The constitutive act of the sovereign is to draw a line between an anarchic state of nature, where homo homini lupus (man is a wolf to man), and the lawful order of the sovereign state. If the Hobbesian state of nature constitutes a “no-man’s-land,” it is not therefore a “nowhere” (or, literally, u-topia), Schmitt claims, but can be located in the dual “open spaces” of the New World—“the land of freedom, i.e., land free for appropriation by Europeans”—and the newly discovered oceans, which the English, French, and Dutch conceived as a mare liberum or “free sea”; that is, a maritime medium of free enterprise and primitive accumulation.17 Schmitt is concerned with the various historical acts of drawing geopolitical lines that established a division between the European order of sovereign nation-states and the unlawful space that existed “beyond the line” and created the necessary conditions for mercantile capitalism to thrive. Within this history, the Battle of Manila Bay coincides with the rise of the United States as a sea power and the end of U.S. isolationism. Schmitt states, “The Spanish- American War (1898) was a sign to the rest of the world that US foreign policy was turning to open imperialism. The war did not abide by the old continental concepts of the Western Hemisphere, but reached deep into the Pacific Ocean and into the Old East.”18 The United States began to project its sea power across the globe, usurp- ing the former British domination of the seas. Announcing this new imperialist ambition to the world, President Theodore Roosevelt sent his “Great White Fleet” on a two-year circumnavigation of the globe in 1907. Schmitt holds that the Spanish-American war was symptomatic of the demise of a global order of international law (or jus publicum Europaeum) that had been established in the wake of the first voyages of discovery of the sixteenth century. Thus Schmitt identifies two epochal changes in the international order, two

30 Grey Room 57 Wendungen in global linear thinking. One was brought about by the rise of England as a sea power, the other by its demise (and the concomitant rise of the U.S. as a global power). With each stage, the politico-juridical relation between sea and land was to change, coincident with a structural shift between mercantile and industrial capitalism.

Mare Liberum To what extent does Pumhösl present us with the linear diagram of such a historical Wendung? Schlacht von Manila Bay erases all but one line: the Wendemanöver. All geographical detail is absent, including the coastline. Pumhösl reinscribes a historical trace—the trajectory of the American flotilla—upon a virtual tabula rasa, or what we may also conceive as the smooth, featureless surface of the open sea. For this reason, we were able to succumb to a kind of pseudomorphological reading of the image and mistake the medial or supple line for a fully active line. This percep- tual ambivalence is a result of Pumhösl’s artistic strategy, which causes the difference between abstract and representational lines to become indiscernible. This very ambivalence sustains the critical value of his work, which merges an aesthetic and conceptual critique of the pictorial language of modernism in one gesture. Pumhösl does not treat graphic or linear systems as either a set of purely formal elements or an ensemble of notational signs that are inextricably linked to a historical referent. Rather, Pumhösl conducts a diagrammatic mode of political geometry that is located in the interstices between the two, which means we cannot take any line at face value. The basic premise here is that geometry is immanent to history; that is to say, Pumhösl would have us consider a kind of topology of modernity or, even better, modernity as a set of topological transformations that are derived from the dynamic entanglement of supple and rigid lines of segmentation. Paradoxically, Pumhösl’s eradication of spatial detail in Schlacht von Manila Bay, which situates the image in an ambivalent space between figuration and abstraction, impresses upon us the need to question the precise historical status of this visual diagram. Neither topographical map nor atopical abstraction, Schlacht von Manila Bay detaches a historical event from its “natural” background by an act of erasure. Yet, in doing so, Pumhösl’s formal gesture can be inscribed in a history of other, technological and economic, gestures that already took the unique geography of the sea as both their condition of possibility and also as the object of spatial homogenization. The sea provides the archetypical image of a smooth space, but it was gradually striated by technology throughout the modern period: regulated by the development

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 31 of astronomical and geographical techniques, testing site for the development of the chronometer, and theater for the substitution of wind power by steam power in the nineteenth century.19 This striation has more recently culminated in the containerization of commercial shipping and the full integration of maritime space within the logistics of global capitalism.20 Schmitt recounts this same process of maritime territorialization in The Nomos of the Earth, although he describes the transition in mostly juridical terms. At first, Schmitt argues for an elementary opposition between terrestrial and maritime space within the history of human civilization. The essence of the nomos of the sea is to be without fixed order: “On the open sea, there were no limits, no boundaries, no consecrated sites, no sacred orientations, no law, and no property.”21 Departing from this primal dualism of earth and sea, however, The Nomos of the Earth then proceeds to draw a more precise, historical diagram of the relation between maritime and terrestrial space. Central to this analysis is the concept of the free seas—the mare liberum—that functioned within the regulatory system of international law. One of the first jurists to expound this idea was the Dutchman Hugo Grotius. The Grotian doctrine of a free ocean, owned by no one, established an overseas domain that was open for trade and colonization. The principle of the mare liberum under- lay a global space of accumulation, commerce, and, indeed, transgressive acts of plunder in which mercantile capitalism would find a fertile ground for expansion. And so we arrive at the crux of global linear thinking. Crucial to Schmitt’s account are the so-called amity lines that were drawn across the surface of the globe’s oceans in order to divide a civilized area in which treaties and legal truces of European public law were respected from an overseas where only the law of the stronger prevailed and every kind of predation was permitted.22 In this global setting, two spatial orders coexisted, each universal in its own right and each with its own concepts of enemy, booty, and freedom. On one side of the line (land) was the lawful area of international law; on the other side (sea), a Hobbesian state of nature or anarchy, akin to the civil wars that once ravaged the European continent. This realm of ruthless, nonstate freedom found concrete historical orientation in the New World beyond the line: an enormous open space free for land appropriation.23 Schmitt identifies this lawless region beyond the line with a Hobbesian state of lawless nature where all men are wolves to other men. The free sea was the element in which the terrestrial laws of ownership did not apply, allowing the activities of the pirate and privateer to flourish, not to mention that other nonstate agency, the European merchant who was willing to risk all by sailing beyond the line—

32 Grey Room 57 to venture, that is, outside the international legal order of continental Europe. The domain of the mare liberum was not without lines—its gradual striation was the result of navigational techniques and maps—yet as a relatively open space it stood in a complicated relation to the closed nomos of the nation-state. As Giorgio Agamben specifies in his commentary on Schmitt, the mare liberum provides the sphere of reference that makes law regular; it is the state of exception conceived “as a complex topological figure in which not only the exception and the rule but also the state of nature and law, outside and inside, pass through one another.”24 Thus the violent, ruthless domain of the mare liberum provides the constituent outside of the nomos of the sovereign nation-state. Pumhösl’s abstract line is inscribed with a highly complex political geometry: what lies “beyond the line” is not a nomadic realm of freedom but a historically overdetermined, turbulent space in which linear forces of deterritorialization and reterritorialization do battle. The great commons of the mare liberum allowed free passage to privateer and merchant alike, sometimes sailing under the same flag, but this maritime space gradually came under the sway of one great sea power, Great Britain. By achieving sole hegemony on the oceans—instituting a Seenahme—the island nation thus became “of Europe, but not in Europe.” The rise of the United States at the end of the nineteenth century would bring a dramatic end to this situation. The Battle of Manila Bay marks the emergence of a new revolution of the Weltraum, according to Schmitt, that would fundamentally transform the prior opposition between the nomos of the sea and the nomos of the land. What are the consequences of this new global Wendung on space as a subject of contemporary art? On the one hand, Schmitt and Agamben posit (with different ends in mind) that maritime space has eradicated the former terrestrial order and that the conflict zone formerly confined to the sea has, for the most part, been displaced “beyond the line.”25 To use Agamben’s own terms: the state of exception no longer exists “overseas” but has become permanent and general (as is demonstrated, for instance, by the current fear that expatriate fighters joining the civil war in Syria will “bring home” the violence to Europe).26 Allan Sekula, on the other hand, submits the reverse, venturing that a terrestrial order has come to regulate maritime space, extending its lines of transit across the ocean surface. In the essay film The Forgotten Space (2010), which Sekula codirected with Noël Burch, the artist shows how the sea has become an extension of the mainland by acting as a medium for the global circulation of goods.27 If largely invisible in contemporary society, shipping forms the backbone of our global economy. In this interpretation, the former mare

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 33 liberum has become fully striated with the increased control of shipping by the various processes of standardization, containerization, and satellite tracking. As I have discussed elsewhere, these two versions of our current political cartography—the sea takes over the earth or the earth takes over the sea—are not necessarily at odds.28 If Sekula’s version of events is more relevant here, it is because in The Forgotten Space and his photo-essay Fish Story, among other places, he has addressed how the mechanization of naval ships imposed a new, linear abstraction upon the sea: The critical space of naval maneuver and engagement was eminently pic- turable, and legible to a knowledgeable viewer. Coal-fired boilers, torpedoes and long-range naval guns introduced a new abstractness to the maritime space of combat. Abstract measured distance . . . came to matter more than the immediate and local vagaries of the wind . . . steam gave precedence to space . . . tethered ships more firmly to the land, by a line that stretched back to the bowels of the earth.29 While Great Britain inaugurated this mechanization of seafaring, it would not see this development through to the end. Rather, the United States was to become the main agent of the “new abstractness” in the maritime theater of warfare. This happened not only in practice during the Battle of Manila Bay but also in theory. The main propagandist of America’s rise as a naval power was Alfred Thayer Mahan, who in The Influence of Sea Power upon History (1890) established the powerful doctrine that “the prosperity of nations” depends upon domination of the seas. He described the sea as a “wide common” where certain “well-worn paths” and “lines of travel” had been laid down during centuries of colonial trade.30 The sea, for him, represented a “great medium of circulation established by nature, just as money has been created by man for the exchange of products.” Mahan argued that military control should follow these same pathways of trade, establishing another system of communication lines atop the network of trade routes to string together coal fuel stations and naval bases in strategic, overseas locations.31 Mahan’s geostrategic vision of maritime expansion was supported by technological change, especially in the regularization of maritime time. Steam would make the sea the first terrain upon which a fully mechanized warfare took place, transforming it into a smooth, abstract field of action: “modernization proceeds as a substitution of efficient, smooth surfaces for broken, interrupted surfaces.”32 This observation leaves little to argue with, although we might prefer to substitute the more dialectical term supple segmentarity for Sekula’s (and Deleuze’s) notion of a smooth space.

34 Grey Room 57 Mahan’s diagram swept into place during the naval battle at Manila Bay eight years later. According to Schmitt, Mahan was only accidentally clairvoyant: “[Mahan] did not realize that the Industrial Revolution affected the elementary relationship of man to sea. This is why he continues thinking along the old lines.”33 Mahan, that is, had not taken note of the true meaning of the most recent, global Wendung, which had rendered the old division between land and sea irrelevant. Thus the eradication of the distinction between land and water in Pumhösl’s image acquires yet another significance: it not only figures the “new abstractness” of naval maneuvers (or what we first mistook to be an “active” line) but indicates what Schmitt infamously decried as the “new universalism” that undermined the old international equilibrium between land power (of European nations) and sea power (of England). Schmitt’s pessimism is rooted in two modern tendencies that subverted the sovereign power of the nation-state: in the first place, the transition from mercantile to industrial capitalism, which further liberalized the market place on a global scale; and in the second place, the “criminalization” of warfare after World War I. Western society had, as it were, been cast “beyond the line”: the mare liberum had washed far ashore. Industrial capitalism had caused the directionless sea to transform itself into second nature; namely, “the total rootlessness of modern technology.” Schmitt blames industrial capitalism for the annihilation of England’s former maritime existence and for bringing about “an enormous destruction of all orientations based on the old nomos of the earth.”34

S.S. Bauhaus Schlacht von Manila Bay was first shown together with a series of nine other reverse glass paintings.35 Although uncommon, this technique is not exceptional within the history of modern painting; it derives from a mostly rural tradition of popular art and was generally employed in the depiction of sacral scenes. In the early twentieth century the avant-garde, particularly in the environment of the Bauhaus, would revive reverse glass painting. Admiring the ancient technique for its creation of translucent color and smooth surfaces, Wassily Kandinsky, Josef Albers, Walter Dexel, and Oskar Fischinger, among others, employed the method in the fashioning of abstract paintings, and, with the assistance of Dexel, it would also find a new field of application in the emergent advertising industry. The implementation of such minor, if not anachronistic, practices is a constant in Pumhösl’s work.36 The other paintings shown in the same exhibition as Schlacht von Manila Bay are

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 35 also linear compositions on either a white or black ground. But they employ a different formal language. They exhibit a more rigid, inflexible type of line, resembling technical diagrams that are not drawn by hand but with ruler and compass: the instruments of an engineer, architect, or navigator. One of the paintings is even identified by the title Diagramm. Others are named Element or Figurine (despite being abstract in appearance) or are referred to as Ohne Titel (Untitled). Pumhösl’s series of reverse glass paintings initiates an inconclusive game of com- binatory logic. Although the paintings are comparable in technique, appearance, and size, the viewer is led to question to what degree they form a coherent set. If Schlacht von Manila Bay provides the indexical trace of a historical event, the others appear to be fully self-referential. Nevertheless, the geometric figures—identified by the diverse names of Diagramm, Element, Figurine, or Ohne Titel and consisting of various configurations and composites of straight and circular lines—do not safely inhabit a nonsymbolic zone of pure abstraction. Consider, for instance, Ohne Titel (Weiss), which consists of two sets of graphic marks: a vertical, black line and two horizontal red lines that intersect with the black line. The vertical line presents a kind of contour—a medial line—that is situated within a geometric grid that is indicated by the horizontal red lines, which pass through the inflection points of the black contour. Yet the contour neither establishes the full profile of a person or object, nor does it fully circumscribe a closed area. The contour line even reverses its orientation at the point where it crosses the lower of the two red lines. Is this image, then, to be understood as the demonstration of a geometrical proposition, an experiment in graphic design, an abstracted human figure, a segment of a mechanical drawing, or all of the above? I venture that Ohne Titel (Weiss) represents the virtual diagram of all these possibilities. The set of paintings operates at the edges of a rigidly segmented space. The series contains multiple points of bifurcation rather than constituting a closed series that converges on one axiomatic principle. Their schematic, graphic language—a combination of straight lines, curves, and circles—appears to derive from the loopy, vectorial path of the American fleet described in Schlacht von Manila Bay; a path that itself inhabited an interstitial zone of supple segmentarity. Another painting, Diagramm, fortifies my thesis. The painting’s title seems to state that the work func-

36 Grey Room 57 Opposite: Florian Pumhösl. Ohne Titel (Weiss), 2005. Right: Florian Pumhösl. Diagramm, 2005.

tions as the formal template of the series as a whole. Yet one is hard put to determine a generative principle common to all the paintings on the basis of this work alone. Diagramm consists of a white, hook-shaped line that merges with a blue circle. This composite figure is itself mapped upon a set of diagonal lines and a faint cross, which, like a reticule, is placed in the center of the black field. But the place of this painting within the series is again not obvious. What might Diagramm be a diagram of, if not the series as a whole? One might again list the various options: the schematic representation of an “abstract” painting, a human figure, a mechanical drawing, a geometric statement, and so on. But rather than running through this list of possible references, a better option is to state that Diagramm approximates the diagrammatic operations of the “plane of consistency,” which lacks any definite figuration or dimensionality and instead constitutes the very matrix of spatial (and symbolic) differentiation. Diagramm is not the diagram of something in particular—not even in the sense that a modernist painting may be taken as the diagram of a utopian idea; it is, rather, an instance of that segmentary logic, which formalizes space and structures the diagrams of political geometry. The reverse glass series thus deliberately plays off the different semantic regis- ters of abstraction within the cultural field of modernity. Pumhösl is not indulging in an ahistorical mode of neoformalism.37 Rather, the obverse is true. The artist insists on the “historicity of formal and imaginary languages,” which, he reasons, makes impossible a full disengagement of abstraction from other forms of representational practice, even though modernism might have thought such a separation to be necessary. Hence his paintings stage a return to what he identifies as “repressed systems of meaning and projection” within the overlapping social and aesthetic formations of modernity. What his practice attempts to foreground in its restaging of the modernist language of abstraction is how a specific relationship between the human body and space was established during a modernity informed by the forces of “mechanization, war technology, and standardization.”38 Hence, the invitation card to the exhibition reproduces a photograph of an Austrian soldier and his wife during the First World War. This found photograph lies at the origin of a film, Animated Map, that Pumhösl shot the same year Schlacht von Manila Bay (Wendemanöver) was made.39 A series

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 37 of patterns is traced by red and white lines against a black background. If the reductive visual grammar of this graphic animation bears a slight resemblance to the abstract films produced during the early 1920s by avant-garde artists such as Hans Richter or Viking Eggeling, its morphology derives from a different source. What Animated Map projects is not the autonomous forms of modernist abstraction but the actual cutting pattern of the Austrian soldier’s uniform.40 Furthermore, the title of the film is meant to invoke the genre of animated war maps, first implemented during World War I to visualize the ebb and flow of a battle front. In a film program accompanying his exhibition of Animated Map, Pumhösl showed, for instance, F. Percy Smith’s depiction of naval battles in Fight for the Dardanelles (1915). This early film uses graphic devices such as arrows and cardboard cutouts to represent the movements of bat- tleships.41 Such animated diagrams, the artist contends, “represent evidence of exchanges between the military- industrial complex and abstract pictorial language at the beginning of the twentieth century.”42 The emphasis in this rather dense statement should be placed on the notion of exchange (Austauch) in order to avoid the impression that a rather crude model of referentiality is at work here. To state, for instance, that the pictorial system of modernist abstraction directly reflects the disciplinary formations of the military-industrial apparatus would be absurd. That would be to

38 Grey Room 57 Opposite, top: Florian Pumhösl. Animated Map, 2005. Opposite, bottom: Florian Pumhösl. Invitation card to exhibition at Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Vienna, 2005–2006. Right: Florian Pumhösl. Installation of Animated Map at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen (2005–2006) based on wall system designed by Hannes Meyer for the Bauhaus exhibition of 1929.

disregard the gestaltungsutopien of the avant-garde, which in the case of Pumhösl’s exhibition was signaled through the appropriation of a modular wall system of display, originally designed by Alfred Arndt and Hannes Meyer for the Bauhaus traveling exhibition of 1929.43 With its freestanding walls placed at perpendicular angles within the open space, the modular system constructed an elementary, maze- like structure that detached itself from the actual architectural environment. What this exhibition design recalls, therefore, is not only the techno-utopian future that the Bauhaus desired to realize but also Schmitt’s equally arduous rejection of an “industrial-technical existence” that, as he feared, would destroy all orientations based on the old nomos of the earth and create a vast “u-topia” or no-where of equivalence in all directions of life. This is where the notion of a political geometry may prove its worth. The pictorial language of abstraction as practiced, for instance, at the Bauhaus during the interwar period is representative of a rationalist discourse that aimed to resolve the fragmentary, confused state of everyday life under modernity. Functionalism, standardization, and modularization were all means to organize industrial capitalism, to establish an artificial order and transparency where otherwise only an unruly “nature” of violent competition existed. Yet in its utopian ambition “to reconcile the social and technical infrastructure installed by the industrial revolution with the [cultural] superstructure of forms and meanings,” the Bauhaus remained bound to the instrumental logic of industrial capitalism.44 According to Jean Baudrillard’s classical critique of the Bauhaus project, its collective desire was to extend the aesthetic to cover the totality of the social environment and to conceive of design as technological control.45 In short, the elementary diagrams or “maps” of modernism

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 39 and industrial capitalism may be thought to operate as affiliated structures: the Bauhaus dream becomes Schmitt’s nightmare. Or, in Pumhösl’s more dialectical terms: “The absent figure of the soldier itself becomes an autonomous cartography, locating the logic of industrial production, in this case of textile goods, in close proximity to [the] cinematographic apparatus.”46 The full set of interrelations that Animated Map spins between the genealogical threads of fabric design, image technology, and mechanical production are too extensive to unpack here.47 What has become clear, nevertheless, is that Pumhösl’s work is engaged in an archeology of modernist visuality, or what he calls “modernology.”48 But this modernology is concerned not only with formalism in its past history; it also asks about the present status of abstraction. André Rottmann lays out what is at stake in such a political geometry of contemporary art: If the epistemes of modernist abstractions still promised to either relieve the subject of social contingency and hierarchy by a system of radical equivalence, or to permit it to constitute itself as an individual in the cognitive and somatic experience of maximum possible visual and tactile differentiation, then abstraction today operates within the algorithms of control.49 Today the relationship that holds between “supple” and “rigid” lines differs from that in the 1920s. But the more recent Wendung to which Rottmann refers and which Deleuze calls the “control society” is a further stage in the appropriation of lines of flight by capitalism. (This is why the so-called new economy of the 1990s became so enamored with metaphors of fluidity and liquidity.)50 What is at stake here is not any fixation of the political geometry of modernism. Geometric elements such as a line have no intrinsic value. To what extent a line is active or medial depends on the kind of surface it inscribes or is inscribed upon. We need, then, to develop a topological method that establishes how one (aesthetic) diagram may be transformed into another (sociopolitical) diagram. The strategy of Pumhösl’s work is to prompt this very problem by causing a deliberate indecisive- ness between the abstract and representational qualities of its linear form. The diagrammatic images of the artist displace the myth of functionalist aesthetics associated with the later Bauhaus, which was said to valorize a political geometry of rationalized form. This displacement is achieved, in part, by connecting the Bauhaus—in its pretense of founding a “major science” of social design—to the “minor medium” of glass painting.51 Pumhösl’s work does not simply equate a certain linearism with a particular form of power but questions how the one becomes

40 Grey Room 57 entangled in the other. As a result we need to be highly attentive to the structural nature of the lines he draws. Note, for instance, how the glass paintings call into question the conventional function of the line in drawing—namely, to establish the contour of solid objects. Yet, at the same time, the paintings continue to suggest the possibility of reading the lines as contours. The inflections of these lines suggest the schematic outline of a human profile, just as Richter and Dexel, among others, were to experiment with the notion of “abstract portraits” in the 1920s. Modernism, more often than not, would suppress contours, however. And thus another, more elemental principle of the line came to the fore; namely, its equation to a kind of armature or scaffolding that provides the very ground of representation, as in the linear grids of perspective. Not surprisingly, a constructivist, Aleksandr Rodchenko, would establish the essence of art on this second dispositif of the line, calling it the “foundation, carcass, system” of painting.52 Writing in Ship’s Log, his remarkably named journal, Rodchenko observed, “The line is the first and last, both in painting and in any construction at all. The line is the path of passing through, movement, collision, edge, attachment, joining, sectioning. Thus, the line conquered everything and destroyed the last citadels of painting—color, tone, texture, and surface.”53 Rodchenko set out his course with ruler and compass, the instruments of the engineer as well as the navigator. And although his line was the “path of passing through” that broke up the archaic “citadels” of painting, it also initiated a reterritorialization of the picture plane, transcoding it as the constructive diagram of a new socialist society. The constructivist line or armature seeks to regulate the geometries of the plane, to segment, join, and section its surfaces. Even so, the constructivist line retains something of that variability or “supple segmentation” that is “marked by quanta that are like so many little segmentations-in-progress grasped at the moment of their birth.”54 But the diagrams of constructivism do not represent strictly logical relationships between the linear elements. The fact, for instance, that they frequently lack any sense of scale is precisely what makes them utopian. One may think, for instance, of those “transfer stations from painting to architecture,” the Prouns of El Lissitzky, which create an ambivalence between inside and outside, front and back, dislodging the viewer from a stable foothold in space.55 Even though the constructivist line establishes a particular conjunction between the segmentary and the supple line, it bears no resemblance to the active line of Klee. The active line, that agent of a “primordial movement,” is not determined by any underlying armature.56 But how does this meandering line inhabit a plane,

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 41 according to Klee? What is sure is that it does not represent that third type of line; namely, a free or abstract line of flight. The virtual surface that Klee’s active line traverses is not simply vacant; it already contains the potential of multiple forms and objects. According to Klee, the function of the elements of linear expression is to elicit or produce these forms while maintaining their own identity. This is why, in Klee’s estimation, “the idea comes first” and not the act of drawing.57 Otherwise, how is one to begin a drawing? After all, he submits, “infinity,” like a circle, can begin “anywhere.” Drawing, therefore, resembles a cosmogonic act, the graphic artist a demiurge who spirits a world.58 And to support his theory of the cosmogonist line, Klee provides—what else?— a nautical example. Imagine, he asks his reader, the experiences of a modern man, walking across the deck of a steamer: 1. His own movement, 2. the movement of the ship which could be in the opposite direction, 3. the direction and the speed of the current, 4. the rotation of the earth, 5. its orbit, and 6. the orbits of the stars and satellites around it.59 But human beings are still the center of this universe, a window onto the world. “The result: an organization of movements within the cosmos centered on the man on the steamer.”60 And thus Klee’s line is returned to an ordered cosmos, one that is organized according to a foundational, original nomos of Ortung (positioning) and Ordnung (order). Once more we must conclude that the segmentary line and the supple line are always interlaced and superimposed. The active line folds back on itself, loops around and becomes a medial line, establishing forms, objects, and territories.

Clandestine Maneuvers Are our lines always destined to be captured by such a vicious circle? Are we always locked into a course of circumnavigation? What of that third line, the line of flight or absolute deterritorialization that does not return? How should we describe such a line? Deleuze and Guattari provide various formulas: the line of flight is like a “clandestine passenger on a motionless voyage,” its function “to become like everybody else,” “to paint oneself gray on gray.”61 However, a line that merges with its background becomes invisible. By way of contrast, Pumhösl’s line stands out against a background that has been erased. His line does not merge with the blank surface; at least not at first. Schlacht von Manila Bay (Wendemanöver) is thus emblematic of two divergent political geometries. On the one hand, the image presents a diagram of the modernization process whereby the oceans have undergone a progressive

42 Grey Room 57 abstraction or striation that allows only round trips to take place upon their combined surface. Only in maritime theme parks or on the Internet, as Sekula ironically remarks, are we still invited to “lose ourselves.” Yet, what of the absence of scale or compass directions? What of the featureless ground of Pumhösl’s image that ultimately absorbs the meandering line? The sea can be said to be “abstract” in more than one sense, and therefore we need to be historically specific in speaking thus. The sea is not truly a monotone surface, an equivalent of the modernist monochrome. For it is not a space without rules—which would be no space at all—but a space that is simply organized by fewer axiomatic principles than the juridical order of terra firma. Even the “free space” that existed “beyond the line” during the seventeenth century was never completely exterior to the rule of sovereign power. In Schmitt’s apocalyptic vision, the mare liberum would rise as a catastrophic flood inundating the earth during the twentieth century. We do not need to share Schmitt’s deeply conservative stand- point to find some truth in his prediction. The breakdown of the old international order of the nation-state has brought about a generalized state of exception, allowing transnational zones of commercial and financial transaction to emerge where new aggregations of state and business could operate free of former conditions of legality or legitimacy. In Agamben’s phrase, we have entered a “politics of imperceptibility” where the liminal figures of refugees and asylum-seekers live in a threshold realm of juridical nonbeing, which demands a different kind of spatial imagination, another topology. By way of a coda, I turn, therefore, to a set of images by another artist, Bouchra Khalili, which describes another kind of line—not a line of flight but a “line of resistance” that is continuously drawn across the political cartographies of the Mediterranean region. Whereas Agamben warns of a “politics of imperceptibility,” Khalili insists, as we will see, upon the need to develop an artistic strategy of “shaping invisibility.” The lines she traces inhabit the paradoxical condition of being “beyond the line.” A founding member of the Cinemathèque de Tanger with, among others, Yto Barrada, Khalili has shot a series of videos called Mapping Journeys (2008–2011). The conceit of these works is elegant in its simplicity: refugees are asked to narrate their clandestine attempts to travel to Europe.62 As they speak, they also draw their circuitous routes on a map of the Mediterranean area. The migrants themselves are not shown. We hear only their voices and see their hands as they inscribe their con- voluted itineraries. Khalili compares her procedure to that of Michel Foucault in his

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 43 unfinished project, Lives of Infamous Men, an anthology of the prison archives of the Hôpital Général and the Bastille. The book was to collect short, biographical texts recounting the misfortunes of obscure individuals in their momentary brushes with the state police. Foucault wondered at how public discourse became a mecha- nism of state control, but he was equally interested in the inverse strategy of modern literature “to tell the most common secrets” by placing itself outside the law. Literature’s game, Foucault maintained, was to displace the rules and codes of offi- cial discourse. And thus he would come to describe his anthology of infamous men as a collection of “singular lives, transformed into strange poems through who knows what twists of fate.”63 Khalili adopts this phrase as a motto for Mapping Journeys. The anonymous individuals who address the viewer in her videos speak out in public, but at the same time they inhabit a transitory, extrajuridical space of exception. Upon a normative map of lawful boundaries they trace a very different set of lines that are oriented toward a different set of coordinates. These individuals must remain invisible on the regular map, moving in a space of intervals without any clear points of orientation. They must invent their own pathways. As Khalili notes, “Many [refugees] explain that sometimes they arrive somewhere without knowing where they are. That’s what makes me work by elimination (of what could reference the place) and addition (of visual, sound, narrative constructions). As a matter of fact, rather than indications of places, I would speak about ‘shaping invisibility.’”64 She was thus compelled to take a further step and to imagine what it would mean to draw a map of invisibility that would exist without boundaries or landmarks. A radical gesture of elimination or eradication seemed to be called for, which led to a series of silkscreen prints called Constellations (2011). For this work, Khalili transferred the trajectories of Mapping Journeys onto a monochrome, deep-blue surface. The clandestine paths that were once marked upon a terrestrial map are now displaced onto the featureless expanse of a sea that also reads as an astronomical map of the nocturnal sky. The astral points of the constellations are formed by cities, but the sublunary travel of the illegal migrant is what connects these dots. Thus the Constellations collapse the astronomical map, which sailors once used to take their

44 Grey Room 57 Opposite: Bouchra Khalili. Mapping Journey #7, 2011. Right: Bouchra Khalili. Constellations Figure 7, 2011.

bearings at sea, onto the abstract surface of a sea that has washed away all landmarks and terrestrial boundaries. What the Constellations graph, therefore, are those invisible trajectories that take place in the spatial intervals of a generalized state of exception that is inhabited by the illegal immigrant. Within its interstices, many are lost without a trace. And this despite the fact that in our present age it has become almost impossible to think of the sea as that archetypical, Odyssean space of drift and exile. Seamlessly integrated within the trade routes of a global economy, the oceans have become fully territorialized. Even gazing at the stars has become unnecessary: with the advent of the Global Positioning System, ship captains no longer need to take bearings by consulting astronomical charts. Yet for many the sea remains a site of grave peril. In recent years the Mediterranean has become a mass grave for those seeking illegal passage to Europe. Khalili’s Constellations reminds us that star patterns have another cultural significance, one that predates their use as a navigational tool: namely, to commemorate the dead.

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 45 Notes 1. “The struggle among European powers for land-appropriations made necessary certain divisions and distributions. These sprang from what I call global linear thinking, which represents a chapter in the historical development of spatial consciousness.” Carl Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth in the International Law of the Jus Publicum Europaeum, trans. G.L. Ulmen (New York: Telos Press Publishing, 2006), 87; emphasis added. 2. Oxford English Dictionary, 3rd ed., s.v. “geometry.” 3. For more on this notion of the diagram as both “cartography” and “abstract machine” of the social field, see Gilles Deleuze, Foucault, trans. Seán Hand (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1988), 33–35. 4. The conception of a political geometry goes back to, among other places, Thomas Hobbes’s Leviathan (1651). Hobbes compared the foundational principles of his political theory to the axiomatic system of the “doctrine of Lines and Figures.” 5. An earlier version of this text was presented at the conference What Is a Path? Forms of Movement in a Global World, organized by Philip Ursprung in 2011. The present essay forms a tandem piece to my “Uneven Seas, Part 1,” which was published in Einunddreissig: Das Magazine des Instituts für Theorie 16/17 (December 2011): 84–100. 6. Paul Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, trans. Sibyl Moholy-Nagy (New York: Frederick A. Praeger, 1953), 16. 7. Klee, Pedagogical Sketchbook, 18. 8. Deleuze and Guattari develop a transformational set of three lines on the basis of Paul Klee’s On Modern Art (1924): first “a tangle of aberrant lines,” which then “radiates a dimensional space with horizontal layers, vertical cross sections . . . a whole terrestrial interior force,” and, finally, a wandering line “powered by centrifugal forces that triumph over gravity.” Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia, trans. Brian Massumi (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987), 312. 9. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 214. 10. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 212. 11. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 298. 12. The English translation is less elegant: Battle of Manila Bay (Transposition Maneuver). 13. Craig L. Symonds, The Naval Institute Historical Atlas of the U.S. Navy (Annapolis, MD: The Naval Institute, 1995), 111. 14. Schmitt defines nomos as “a matter of the fundamental process of apportioning space that is essential to every historical epoch—a matter of the structure-determining convergence of order and orientation in the cohabitation of peoples on this now scientifically surveyed planet.” Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 78. 15. All quotes in this paragraph are from Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 86. 16. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 88. 17. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 94, 96. 18. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 292.

46 Grey Room 57 19. See, for instance, Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 479. 20. On containerization, see Allan Sekula, “Dismal Science: Part 2,” in Fish Story (Rotterdam: Witte de With, Center for Contemporary Art, 1995), 134–136; and Brian Holmes, “Do Containers Dream of Electric People?” Open 21 (2011): 181–193. 21. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 43. 22. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 92–94. 23. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 293. 24. Giorgio Agamben, Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life, trans. Daniel Heller-Roazen (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998), 37; emphasis added. As Agamben notes, only the sovereign can declare a state of exception and suspend the validity of the law. Yet, in doing so, he places himself outside the law. The sovereign, therefore, has a paradoxical status in relation to the law, existing both within and without its domain. This paradox can be described in spatial terms as “topological.” 25. Schmitt states, for instance, that “instead of moving forward to peace in fulfillment of this dream we seem to have been catapulted back in time into the nightmare of a perpetual and indeter- minate state of war, suspending the international rule of law, with no clear distinction between the maintenance of peace and acts of war.” Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 173. 26. See Giorgio Agamben, State of Exception, trans. Kevin Attell (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005). 27. For more on this topic, see my “Uneven Seas: Part 1.” See also “Allan Sekula and the Traffic in Photographs,” special issue, Grey Room 55 (Spring 2014). 28. Agamben proposes in State of Exception that “one of the elements that make the state of exception so difficult to define is certainly its close relationship to civil war, insurrection, and resistance.” Whereas Agamben emphasizes “the unstoppable progression of what has been called a ‘global civil war,’” Sekula and Burch are more concerned with the forces of “insurrection and resistance” that once thrived in maritime space. Agamben, State of Exception, 2. Mariners, after all, formed the first global proletariat, a cosmopolitan community signed on to an international fleet of ships where low wages and harsh discipline would often incite rebellion. 29. Sekula, Fish Story, 107. 30. Alfred Thayer Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783, 12th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), 139. 31. Mahan, cited by Sekula, Fish Story, 108. 32. Sekula, Fish Story, 108. 33. Schmitt, as translated in Christopher Connery, “Ideologies of Land and Sea: Alfred Thayer, Carl Schmitt, and the Shaping of Global Myth Elements,” boundary 2 28, no. 2 (2001): 192. For the original German, see Carl Schmitt, Land und Meer, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart: Klett-Cotta, 1981), 102. 34. Schmitt, The Nomos of the Earth, 178. 35. The exhibition took place at Krobath Wimmer, Vienna, from 10 November 2005 to 15 January 2006. 36. For more on the critical value of these anomalous techniques, see André Rottmann, who aligns

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 47 Pumhösl’s use of minor techniques, or what Rottmann calls “anomalies” in modern media history, such as reverse glass painting, abstract films, and photograms, with Friedrich Kittler’s critical project of media archeology. André Rottmann, “History and Abstraction in the Work of Florian Pumhösl,” in Florian Pumhösl: Spatial Sequence: Works in Exhibitions 1993–2012 (Cologne: Walther König, 2012), 65. 37. See Sabeth Buchman’s crucial distinction between a first-order formalism (i.e., self-referential) and a second-order formalism (i.e., referential) in Pumhösl’s work. Sabeth Buchmann, “Abstract Characters? Reference and Formalism in the Works of Florian Pumhösl,” Texte zur Kunst 18, no. 69 (March 2008): 162–170. André Rottmann has also been careful to distinguish Pumhösl’s work from the current inflation of “reenactment” strategies in contemporary art and the “restaurative [sic] project of a vehement neo-formalism.” Rottmann, “History and Abstraction,” 62. 38. All quotes in this paragraph are from Florian Pumhösl, press release (Vienna: Krobath Wimmer Gallery, 2005). 39. On another intermedia complex in the work of Pumhösl, see my “Social Choreographies: On Florian Pumhösl’s Expressive Rhythm,” in Florian Pumhösl: 678, exh. cat. (Vienna: Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien, 2011), 93–109. 40. To date the artist has made four “abstract” films that each engage different historical and cultural grammars of abstraction: Animated Maps; OA 1979-3-5-036 (2008) and EI335721443JP (2009) are based on Kimono pattern books of the seventeenth century; and Tract (2011) refers to early forms of dance notation. 41. The exhibition Animated Map took place at Kunst Halle Sankt Gallen in 2005 and included, besides the two films Animated Map and Picture Clock ca. 1830: Charles I before His Execution, U.I. No. 2553 (2004), a photogravure series called Études abstraits (2004), three reverse glass paintings, and Untitled (Feline Faces with Raised Arms) (2004), consisting of a sample of pre-Columbian gauze. 42. Pumhösl, “Animated Map,” in Spatial Sequence, 170. 43. See Rottmann, “History and Abstraction,” 66. 44. To the extent that such a joint project can be said to take shape at the Bauhaus during the 1920s, it was engaged in a “double movement of analysis and rational synthesis of forms” that not only oper- ated within the artistic domain of pure form but within the very fabric of the social, constructing the latter as a functional ensemble of rational elements. Jean Baudrillard, “Design and Environment,” in For a Critique of the Political Economy of the Sign, trans. Charles Levin (New York: Telos Press, 1981), 186. Baudrillard’s proposition that the Bauhaus instigated a notion of the “total design” of life, which would be fully realized in postmodern society, lacks historical specificity. However, I cannot engage this debate here. For a more recent appraisal of Baudrillard’s thesis, see Hal Foster, “Design and Crime,” in Design and Crime and Other Diatribes (London: Verso, 2002), 13–26. 45. Baudrillard, “Design and Environment,” 186. 46. Pumhösl, “Animated Map,” in Spatial Sequence, 170. 47. But Rottmann has already laid out much of the groundwork. See Rottmann, “History and Abstraction,” 66–67. 48. Pumhösl borrows this term from urban ethnologist Kon Wajiro, who studied material practices—both corporeal and architectural—in Tokyo after the devastating earthquake of 1923. Pumhösl’s

48 Grey Room 57 investigations of the political geometry of modernity are not limited to a Western trajectory, which is an aspect of the work that, sadly, is beyond the scope of this article. Modernology (Triangular Atelier) is the name of an installation by Pumhösl, first exhibited in 2007 at Documenta 12 in Kassel, which makes cross-references between the European and Japanese avant-garde. 49. Rottmann, “History and Abstraction,” 64–65. 50. For an excellent take on the maritime metaphors of the new economy, see Allan Sekula, “Between the Net and the Deep Blue Sea (Rethinking the Traffic in Photographs),” October 102 (Autumn 2002): 3–34. 51. This connection was explored by Bauhaus artists who used glass painting for advertising pur- poses. For an alternative take on the “diagrammatic” as a countermodernist strategy, see David Joselit, “Dada’s Diagrams,” in The Dada Seminars, ed. Leah Dickerman and Matthew S. Witkovsy (Washington, DC: National Gallery of Art, 2005), 221–239. 52. Pumhösl’s film Expressive Rhythm (2010/2011) directly engages with the work of Rodchenko. 53. Aleksandr Rodchenko, “The Line,” in Experiments for the Future: Diaries, Essays, Letters, and Other Writings, trans. Jamey Gambrell (New York: Museum of Modern Art, 2005), 113. 54. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 195. 55. “Proun ist die Umsteigestation von Malerei nach Architektur.” El Lissitzky and Hans Arp, Die Kunstismen 1914–1924 (Erlenbach-Zurich: Eugen Rentsch, 1925), 11. 56. Paul Klee, The Thinking Eye, vol. 1 of Notebooks (London: Lund Humphries, 1969), 105. 57. Paul Klee, “Creative Credo,” in Herschel B. Chipp, Theories of Modern Art (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1968), 184. 58. “Out of abstract elements a formal cosmos is ultimately created independent of their groupings as concrete objects or abstract things such as numbers of letters, which we discover to be so closely similar to the Creation that a breath is sufficient to turn an expression of religious feelings, or religion, into reality.” Klee, “Creative Credo,” 186. 59. Klee, “Creative Credo,” 186. 60. Klee, “Creative Credo,” 186. 61. Deleuze and Guattari, A Thousand Plateaus, 218. 62. With one exception: a Palestinian who travels from the Occupied Palestinian Territories to Jerusalem. 63. Michel Foucault, “Lives of Infamous Men,” in Power: Essential Works of Foucault, vol. 3, ed. Paul Rabinow (New York: The New Press, 2000), 157. 64. Bouchra Khalili, “The Opposite of the Voice-Over: Conversation between Bouchra Khalili and Omar Berrada,” in Story Mapping: Bouchra Khalili (Marseille: Bureau des Compétences et Désirs, 2010), 63.

de Bruyn | Beyond the Line, or a Political Geometry of Contemporary Art 49 Barbara Kasten, “Parcours,” Best of 2012: The Artists’ Artists, Artforum, December 2012

BEST OF 2012 The Artists’ Artists Francesco Manacorda, “Florian Pumhösl, Three Animated Films,” Mousse, No. 35, October-November 2012, pp. 164-165

Agenda

1. Florian Pumhösl, Three Animated Films also made the aesthetic and editorial strategies more obvious. Looking at the experimental and radical work that pre-war avant-garde artists invested in LISSON GALLERY those publications, one gets a sense how important, liberating, and exciting Via Zenale 3, 20123 Milan those means of communication might have been. The role abstraction plays lissongallery.com inin theirtheir designsdesigns hashas alwaysalways beenbeen anan idealideal forfor me.me. In In relationrelation toto whatwhat youyou justjust said,said, howhow dodo youyou seesee youryour relationshiprelationship toto history?history? The three films that you bring together in the Milan show clearly point to Do you see your practice as enabling a diferent, diagonal historiographic a backdoor toward abstraction. This is one that does not try to invent a new model? world or language, but rather is linked to the body (through clothes or dance) No model, I am afraid, just a practice. One reason why my generation seems and the traces left by its absence. Is it your intention to question the “received to be so fxated on connecting with historical issues might be that we are principles” of abstraction? witnessing very fundamental econo-archival enterprises and changes in our To reconsider the received principles of abstraction, one might have to go feld. When I started as an artist, the “end of history” had just begun. As much back to the late 19th century, when the possibility of nonrepresentational as it cleared the air to question originality and linearity within 20th-century visual languages became conceivable. This happened because of non- art, it was also essential for me to learn that this is exactly where the historical Western cultural and technological infuences. Abstraction since then has avant-gardes had begun. Emancipation means to act in relation to history. accompanied modernization and emancipation, and it went through just as Rather than asking you what you are working on now, I’d like to know many paradigm shifts. But from its very beginning, the project (if you can what you are reading, looking at, thinking of—or, to use a metaphor, call it one) dealt with two main concerns: a relationship and reconnection “digesting”—at the moment. with historical art, and its ability to analyze, transform, and circumscribe The book designs of Paul Bonet and the life and work of Friedl Dicker- the human fgure, the body, the subject—present or absent. What all of the Brandeis. And what to do after the exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz, which animated flms presented in Milan have in common is the abstraction of a opens October 25. (Florian Pumhösl interviewed by Francesco Manacorda) human fgure: as the anthropomorphic frame or canvas a kimono might represent, the mechanization of the human body represented through a uniform pattern, or as the receiver of a dance instruction. What is the relationship between your drawings and the animations? In other words, how does the element of time work in your projects? The “scripts” for these flms—a uniform pattern, a notation system, a pattern catalogue—do not qualify as dramatic narratives. The flms just organize my drawings in time and space—the space and time of the exhibition. I think of them only as projections, not as media art or flm. As much as I love abstract flm, expanded cinema, et cetera, I understand the work as physical—more spatial, maybe, than flmic. In 678 at Mumok Vienna you curated a temporary exhibition from their collection. How did you approach it, since you were also showing your work simultaneously? That exhibition consisted of two parts: the collection display entitled “Abstract Space” and the presentation of three recent works of mine: the flm installations Expressive Rhythm and Tract, and a series of glass paintings called Diminution. It seemed most natural to me not to mix up the formats but to put them in parallel. In the collection part, the curator Matthias Michalka and I basically tried to contextualize Mumok’s abstract inventory in correspondence with other collections from the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Germany. Vienna pretty much wants to historicize itself as the hotspot of Jugendstil and forget the rest, so in a local context, focusing on abstraction might point to blind spots, tragic biographies, and interruptions. The historians Sabeth Buchmann and Christian Kravagna organized a conference discussing what is not represented in a collection of modern art that was mainly conceived in the 1960s. In the end, I believe that the way a museum collects, and the way I as an artist relate to or experience historical art, are of a diferent nature. The museum is not a person, to begin with. I did not visit the show, but I am very interested to hear how you conceived and put together the room called “concrete media” containing issues of selected magazines arranged on shelves like a collage/painting. It seemed logical to place avant-garde magazine and editorial production in the center of the exhibition, making it equal to the original artworks in the show. To me, they represent the emergence of a modern art audience and debate as we know it. Egidio Marzona, who loaned the magazines, is an Florian Pumhösl, Animated Map. 2005. amazing collector, and we had access to complete sets of publications, which 1 Courtesy the artist and Lisson Gallery, London/Milan also made the aesthetic and editorial strategies more obvious. Looking at the Diedrich Diedrichsen, “Florian Pumhösl: 678,” Artforum, December 2011, pp. 210-213

BEST OF 2011 “Florian Pumhösl: 6 7 8” Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien

DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN

210 ARTFORUM

DEC.FEAT.DIEDERICHSEN.indd 210 11/7/11 5:18 PM What modernism said when it said very little was the substantive question Pumhösl here posed.

View of “Abstract Space,” 2011, Typeface designs by Herbert Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Bayer, 1928, ink and pencil on 1 1 Ludwig Wien. paper, each sheet 16 ⁄2 x 23 ⁄2". From “Abstract Space,” 2011, Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien.

subsidized institutions by playing with other uses for constantly pointed to an even greater instance of going abstraction and information. The first half of the the buildings that house them. unsaid—one that might also have room for uproarious twentieth century appeared as a concrete site of Florian Pumhösl chose a different path. Admit- laughter. The exhibition’s title itself sounded like one tensions in which the formal liberation from art’s tedly, his show “6 7 8” could be read as didactic: It of those typically modernist numerical titles that serve illustrative function resulted in translations into featured systems, instigated symbolic and actual archi- to underscore the rigorous immanence of an artistic the political—as demonstrated in the juxtaposition tectonic openings, and was concerned with decon- project. But the title was also, of course, simply a list of portraits of writers and composers by Oskar struction in the truest sense of the word. The panes of of the floors of mumok occupied by Pumhösl’s show. Kokoschka and Richard Gerstl with Ireny Blühovej’s frosted glass on the sixth floor (per European num- It thus pointed blithely to the act of devoting three documentary photographs of workers and peas- bering, as throughout) of mumok, for example, were floors of a museum to a solo contemporary art show, ants—as well as into communicative design and the removed to allow brighter, more direct light to strike only to represent a selection of modern art (largely development of semiotic systems, as evidenced by a the cycle of clear glass panels with minimal black from the museum’s own collection) jointly curated by large selection of Soviet magazine designs and picto- markings that made up the exhibition’s central work, Pumhösl and curator Matthias Michalka in a seper- graphic and alphabet sketches by figures ranging Diminution, 2010. But Pumhösl’s method of calling ately titled exhibition, “Abstract Space,”on the eighth from Otto Neurath to Ladislav Sutnar. Moreover, attention to space, surface, light, and emptiness was floor, while showcasing a grand total of three of the Pumhösl focused on Eastern European avant-garde Opposite page, top: Florian Opposite page, bottom: Above: Florian Pumhösl, Pumhösl, Tract, 2011, stills from Florian Pumhösl, Diminution Expressive Rhythm, 2010–11, also, conversely, decried as sacralization. Had he in artist’s own works on the other two. movements, in particular Czech Surrealism. (It is, a color film in 16 mm, 9 minutes. (detail), 2010, acrylic lacquer color film in 35 mm, 28 minutes. fact built a temple to modernist formalism, wrested Being laconic in this case fundamentally meant incidentally, too little recognized that the central on 2-mm float glass, each Installation view, Museum 1 3 panel 26 ⁄4 x 17 ⁄4". Moderner Kunst Stiftung eternal aesthetic values from the grip of polemical having it both ways, both exaggerating proportional- point of departure of the modernisms of the Austro- Ludwig Wien, 2011. confrontation, and raised them up in veneration? Or ity to the point of absurdity and cultivating an ongo- Hungarian Empire before World War I was not was this merely a laconic visual withdrawal? After ing state of suspense—just as when I say very little, I Vienna but, to at least as great an extent, the new OVER THE PAST FEW YEARS, it seems an increasing monality shared by these exhibitions—which I often metaphoric architecture of an institution, a strategy all, must empty space in large rooms always mean an may be elucidating an important absence but I am also Czech industrial regions.) number of shows have given rise to vehement debate. find myself defending to quite various groups of long familiar to us as a response to the demand that exaltation of the remaining objects, or can it also be just saying very little. This is key, since what modern- From a distance, the simple arrangements of black Such debate has often been both informal and produc- people—is that they have managed to conjoin contemporary art address its contexts, has given way read as purposefully taciturn—in keeping with the ism actually said when it said very little was precisely lines on the verres églomisés of Diminution might have tive: Conversational circles that for years enjoyed con- so-called artistic and so-called curatorial elements. to something new: a certain virtuosity. The contex- artist’s endeavor to express his central concerns with the substantive question Pumhösl here posed. been confused with typical Lucio Fontana slashes, sensus on the merits of this or that exhibition are now I am thinking of such shows as “The Death of the tual approaches no longer seem a violent rejection of the barest of means, to drastically reduce modern- On the eighth floor he organized rarely exhibited but after visiting the historical show two floors having to reevaluate their views in light of new Audience,” curated by Pierre Bal-Blanc at the Wiener other, more hegemonic modes, and this is less ism’s formal languages to their smallest, most sig- early- to mid-twentieth-century works taken primar- above, you would have made a connection with controversies. The largely tedious legibility of rooms Secession in 2009; “Principio Potosí,” organized by because such reflexive gestures themselves might nificant elements, just short of the collapse of their ily from mumok’s holdings into nine categories: Fonction, courbes vertes (Function, Green Curves), filled with art—tedious because we now read them Alice Creischer, Max Jorge Hinderer, and Andreas now count as hegemonic but because the plurality of basic parameters? “portraits,” “figure/dance,” “scene,” “transitions,” a semidrawn painting by Georges Vantongerloo automatically—has been repeatedly upturned, as is Siekmann, which was on view in Madrid, Berlin, and methods has blurred the distinctions between them. Pumhösl’s resolve to take the laconic as far as it “concrete media,” “interstices of the representational,” from 1938 that was displayed there, which itself evident not only in a surprising plurality of readings La Paz, Bolivia, in 2010–11; Willem de Rooij’s show Like the historicizing and interrogation of institu- would go had decisive consequences, in that he pushed “construction/plane/space,” “concepts of abstrac- consists only of three curved, thin lines on a white but also in almost physical responses on the part of “Intolerance” at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie in tions, the art exhibition’s educational or discursive it to the extremes of two possible outcomes. On the tion,” and “alphabets/sign systems.” Arranged in a ground. A diminution in music is the reduction viewers. And while it sometimes seems that every- 2010; and, most recently, Florian Pumhösl’s “6 7 8” function has become familiar, a matter of course. one hand, the laconic allowed for a profound earnest- square configuration, these sections corresponded to of a motif, but reduction in this case represents thing that happens in the art world is recorded and at the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig Wien Often such shows have had a genuinely critical back- ness that took on the largest imaginable themes (mod- a grid of nine equally sized rooms interconnected in an attempt to formulate a problem: What is the stored, this phenomenon was not: The casual conver- this past summer—the show I will be focusing on here. ground, but sometimes this was nothing more than ernism, its transcendence, its catastrophes), willfully various ways. These categories produced intersec- minimum condition for a sign? In other words, sations diverged markedly from discussions about the These contested exhibitions all suggest that a trick of neoliberal cultural politics, an attempt to disregarding the proximity to sacralization. On the tions and connections that revealed Pumhösl’s atten- how much can one reduce the characteristics of same exhibitions in art journals. Yet another com- addressing the archival history and the literal and undermine the sacrosanct status of these costly, state- other, these powerful acts of omission and reduction tion to specific moments in modernity’s traffic in a visual sign and have it still qualify for all three of

DECEMBER 2011 211 212 ARTFORUM

DEC.FEAT.DIEDERICHSEN.indd 211 11/7/11 5:18 PM DEC.FEAT.DIEDERICHSEN.indd 212 11/7/11 5:18 PM What modernism said when it said very little was the substantive question Pumhösl here posed.

212 ARTFORUM

DEC.FEAT.DIEDERICHSEN.indd 212 11/7/11 5:18 PM Florian Pumhösl, Relief (Expressive Florian Pumhösl, Expressive Rhythm), 2011, display case, Rhythm, 2010–11, still from a color opened copy of USSR im Bau (USSR ﬁlm in 35 mm, 28 minutes. in Construction) 12 (1933) mounted 1 3 on fabric, 47 ⁄4 x 63 x 4 ⁄4".

C. S. Peirce’s elementary types of signs? To go through implications of a collision of contradictory social report on the White Sea–Baltic Sea Canal. (Pumhösl’s them in order: Pumhösl’s thin, vertical, and some- interpretations of the same conspicuous formal cameraman, Hannes Böck, shot the images for the times slightly curved lines are just barely still indexi- arrangements. Here a dimly lit and very large room film in the exact same landscape through which the cal, in that a vestigial sense of nervous handwriting, achieved the effect of a black box not by being closed canal flows.) The invitation to experience the sublime of bodily trace, adheres to them. They are just barely in but through the darkness of the walls, ceiling, and by looking, in a near-constant silence and in a large, still iconic, as scarcely legible abstractions of the floor. Viewers sat down somewhere on the ground. dark room, at the often puzzling constructions on the human figure. And they are just barely still sym- In between sections of pure black film we saw black- screen was made still more ambiguous by the dry bolic: They can pass as letters or elements of letters. and-white images of trees and interwoven twigs and historical contextualization in the display case. Sorrow But Pumhösl isn’t just after a semiotic game here. branches, which kept dissolving into abstractions and sarcasm seemed implicit, along with an apparently He is demonstrating in his art the observation that reminiscent of Pollock’s allover fields; at one point loving presentation or even fanlike sympathy for the early modernism’s abstracting movement was over- we even saw the surface of a body of water—or was historical artist. Here, once more, the catastrophes of whelmingly a unidirectional process of reduction it snow? At the same time, between long segments of modernism were invoked in what went unsaid. (e.g., from illustration toward the letter rather than silence, we heard short phrases from Charles Ives’s As a result of this exhibition, Pumhösl was accused toward concretion, gesture, or index). Piano Sonata No. 2 (the “Concord Sonata,” in a in some quarters of bourgeois formalism’s contem- Diminution reduces the triad of the (symbolic) recording made for Pumhösl’s piece by pianist porary equivalents. But the opposite is probably true: letter, the (iconic) illustration, and the (indexical) Marino Formenti), which were so greatly abbrevi- By reconstructing the experiments of modernism to gesture to their limit conditions by converting the ated as to recall the very process of diminution that expose the essence of design and visuality, Pumhösl strangely distancing and fussily ennobling medium gives the verre églomisé series its title. refutes bourgeois formalism in a new, more lasting of the verre églomisé into something resembling a pre- The decision to title this film installation Expressive way. He achieves this by contrasting these pictorial pared slide. Using a related approach, the silent film Rhythm is part of what creates a significant context elements not with content but with the other formal installation Tract, 2011—the only work installed on for the work: As several scholars—including Michalka and structural dimensions of each sign—all of which, the seventh floor—explores drawing and the line in in the show’s catalogue—have noted, the eponymous however, nevertheless express the formal necessity of motion using dance notations, with bare white lines gouache, created by Aleksandr Rodchenko in 1943– content. You cannot construct a canal from the traced out against a monochromatic background. 44, anticipates Pollock’s anticompositional strategies White Sea to the Baltic if you cannot see that treetops Here it is less a matter of a degree zero of visual nota- by nearly ten years. Expressive Rhythm, moreover, look like Pollocks and vice versa. Once you have tion than an engagement with another basic question: marked Rodchenko’s return to painting some fifteen achieved the purest modernist painting, you have When is a visual representation to be read as some- years after his style had proved so incompatible with also necessarily become a collaborator in a gigantic thing prescriptive, a plan, or as something descrip- the Party line that critics accused him of being a “bour- project of landscape design. Such a critique of the tive, an illustration? It is precisely the registration geois” formalist. (The accusation itself, of course, “old” formalism inescapably appears something like and recording of a motion, such as that carried out indicated the full rejection of revolutionary Russian a new one—one whose own limitations and possi- by surveillance systems, radar detectors, etc., that formalism under Stalin.) Pumhösl evoked this back- bilities are still taking shape. here resembles the notations for movement and their ground by installing a wall-mounted glass case con- DIEDRICH DIEDERICHSEN IS A BERLIN-BASED CRITIC AND prescriptive function. taining an issue of the magazine USSR im Bau (USSR A PROFESSOR OF THEORY, PRACTICE, AND COMMUNICATION In the only other work of Pumhösl’s in the show, in Construction) from 1933, open to a two-page OF CONTEMPORARY ART AT THE ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS VIENNA. Expressive Rhythm, 2010–11, we could see the full spread designed by Rodchenko accompanying a Translated from German by Oliver E. Dryfuss.

DECEMBER 2011 213

DEC.FEAT.DIEDERICHSEN.indd 213 11/7/11 5:35 PM Florian Pumhösl GALERIE DANIEL BUCHHOLZ Fasanenstraße 30 April 30–June 26 The sparse black lines and curves executed in black acrylic lacquer on the back side of glass panes in Florian Pumhösl’s latest exhibition are based on the operation of diminution in music and inspired by the abstract portraiture of early modernism (Marius de Zayas’s portraits of his friends, for example). Each group consists of between two and six vertically formatted “portrait” images. The show is erudite, refined, and precise, its pieces united by the compositional principle of the reduction of a motif. What gives the work its heft, however, is the reference from which Pumhösl derived his portrait reductions, and in this we find a twist, a conceptual gambit: The source is Constantin Brancusi’s Florian Pumhösl, Diminution Serie 1 1929 spiral portrait of James Joyce, which was printed at the time (Dimunition Series 1), 2010, acrylic lacquer of its making alongside an early section (titled “Tales Told of behind glass, 26 x 18” each. Shem and Shaun”) from what would become Finnegans Wake; the volume was published in Paris by Bostonian expatriate Harry Crosby’s Black Sun Press. Two examples of the book, opened to the first page with Brancusi’s spiral portrait, are displayed in the gallery. Whereas the show underscores themes of clarity and reduction, the presence of Joyce (who sought to put the whole world and all words into Finnegans Wake)—and, secondarily, of the doomed sensualist Crosby—introduces a countervailing current of augmentation and cacophonous excess, adding resonance to the exhibition and increasing its tension.

— David Lewis

All rights reserved. artforum.com is a registered trademark of Artforum International Magazine, New York, NY André Rottmann, “Florian Pumhösl,” Artforum, September 2009, pp. 276-279 aneustein log out ADVERTISE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE follow us search

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THE EMERGENCE OF POSTCOLONIALISM during the 1960s, which marked the delegitimization of Western modernism’s utopian and universalist project, was accompanied by an eclipse of medium- specificity—something that had in the pre- ceding decades been central to both the production and the criticism of American and European art. Rejecting the self-referentiality of the art object, site-specific Conceptual practices and early forms of institutional critique instead put forward the analysis of modern recent issues exhibition conventions (and the ideologies sustaining them) as the ineluctable context and precondition January 2014 of aesthetic experience and as a tool with which to explore the intricate interrelations of artistic and December 2013 mass-cultural codes. Today, however, such a radical debunking of modernism’s claims to autonomy and November 2013 hegemony is itself the subject of undergraduate textbooks. To use art historian Hal Foster’s formulation, October 2013 the once-solid canon of modern art has become “less a barricade to storm than a ruin to pick through.” September 2013 (As Foster notes, art today exists in the “wake not only of modernist painting and sculpture but of postmodernist deconstructions of these forms as well.”) Even so, when considering the specific Summer 2013 interrogations of this aftermath in art of the past decade, one can distinguish two opposing approaches May 2013 to aesthetic modernism and modernity at large. On the one hand, there is a glut of historicist works that Archive to 1962 appropriate, parody, or tout court fetishize inventions and ideas from the modernist canon in order to proffer them as legitimating symbols of taste and elegance (or simply use them to create a retro ambience, as in some installations by figures associated with so-called relational aesthetics). On the other hand, media-reflexive approaches have been developed by neo-Conceptual artists who engage in critical reconstructions of modernism’s legacy, choosing not to declare obsolete its formal language and ambitions but rather to address its internal contradictions while attending in particular to its geographically and sociopolitically marginalized manifestations. Since the early ’90s, the Vienna-based artist Florian Pumhösl has emerged as one of the central figures in this latter group. His complex installations not only further our understanding of modernism’s lingering influence on art, design, and architecture but also provide insights into modernism’s historicization and, specifically, into how the paradigms guiding its critique since the ’60s have themselves turned into the conventions of the international infrastructure of contemporary art. The interaction between these two concerns is especially well illustrated by Pumhösl’s expansive, room-size installation Modernology (Triangular Atelier), 2007, which was on view at Documenta 12. Based on the artist’s research into multidisciplinary exchanges among the German, Russian, and Japanese historical avant-gardes, the work features adjustable architecture—made of two black buckram–covered partitions, each featuring several hinged sections—intended to evoke the black walls at the exhibition organized in 1914 in Tokyo by the German Expressionist gallery Der Sturm as well as Tomoyoshi Murayama’s Triangular Atelier, a two-story studio and exhibition space the Japanese designer built next to his house in 1926. Hanging on Pumhösl’s folding screens are three unframed single-color textile works made in 1955 by Atsuko Tanaka, which commingle the decorative concerns of fabric design and the self-referential autonomy of monochromatic painting. Two Lucite display cases mounted nearby contain editions of the magazine Front from 1943—one showing parachute jumpers in formation, and the other a white airplane wing whose red circle suggests both the Japanese flag and the motifs of Constructivist painting—reflecting military recodings of the artistic avant-gardes’ topoi and rhetorics. More generally, the interpenetration of the fields of graphic design, (exhibition) architecture, and abstract painting in Pumhösl’s installation results in what art historian Sabeth Buchmann has described as a revisionist conflation of “‘functional’ and ‘autonomous’ object languages”: The rigid boundary between applied art and high art, propagated in modernist art historiography—which called for the separation of utility from the notion of the work as an end in itself, and of commerce from aesthetics—is thus indirectly put on display. The mode of operation here perhaps emerges most clearly, however, in the eight small verres églomisés also mounted on the installation’s black walls. In Pumhösl’s take on this generally forgotten medium (typically associated with Constructivist painter and designer Walter Dexel), lacquer was applied to the backs of panes of glass to create a vocabulary of black lines, occasionally forming narrow triangles, implied circles, and various check marks—made rhythmic and dynamic through repetition— that seem to float over a white glass background, once again condensing, by way of what could be called second-order abstraction, the formal repertoires of the historical avant-gardes. Yet if the artist in this way seems to be citing the avant-gardes’ renunciation of traditional European models of aesthetic representation in favor of abstraction as a universal “world language” of modernity, he is also, more significantly, articulating this renunciation in a manner that draws attention to—and asks for some interrogation of—his own installation. After all, the piece is itself conceptually based on a secondary process of translation reiterating the exchange between centers of modernism in the Soviet Union and aneustein log out ADVERTISE BACK ISSUES CONTACT US SUBSCRIBE follow us search

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WITH ALL THEIR LAYERS of meaning, function, and context, the historical references negotiated by Pumhösl’s work are often difficult for audiences to decipher, even verging on the hermetic. But this very difficulty is a central aspect of the way his work addresses the medium of the exhibition and provides critical reflection on the globalized system of contemporary art. In being based on a recombination of sources and their adaptation rather than on an immediately decipherable reconstruction of references recent issues and models, Pumhösl’s “modernology” proposes a model of intercultural transmission that stands apart January 2014 from the administrative (and often exploitative) logic of “biennial culture,” wherein episodes in the history December 2013 of modernism are made all too readily legible. Indeed, the very ideological premises of “global” November 2013 exhibitions, with all their amalgamations of local artistic traditions, are brought into question. As October 2013 philosopher Juliane Rebentisch remarks in her description of the Modernology installation in the September 2013 Documenta 12 catalogue, Pumhösl’s exhibition-as-medium “opposes both the conservative notion of self-contained cultures as well as the neoliberal goal, currently becoming reality, of a single world Summer 2013 culture.” May 2013 Archive to 1962 In a statement published in the catalogue to “Modernologies,” a group show curated by Sabine Breitwieser opening this month at the Museu d’Art Contemporani de Barcelona (where this installation will again be on view), Pumhösl suggests the origins of such concerns: A few years ago I reached a point where it no longer seemed to make sense to engage with the themes and events of modernism outside the Western canon without addressing the origins and the “grammar” of modern art. I felt that the referential approach, which made sense in the 1990s as part of a critical reconstruction, had ceased to be of use to me. I wanted to get down to the basics: abstraction, autonomy, presence, and implementation. As the artist indicates, the focus in many of his recent projects is emphatically on the grammatical structures underlying modern art—although a basic recognition of the generative function of the exhibition as a model or even a blue- print for the lasting legacies of modernism can be traced back more than a decade in Pumhösl’s practice. His 1996 exhibition “On and Off Earth” at the Grazer Kunstverein in Austria, for example, addressed the attempts of Victor Papanek, author of the classic study Design for the Real World: Human Ecology and Social Change (1971), to adjust the universalist aspirations of modern design to fit local requirements using such principles as recycling and do-it-yourself. To this end, Pumhösl presented realizations of Papanek’s designs for mobile “living cubes” made from wooden beams with fabric stretched between them; architectural modules based on hexagonal structures derived from fat cells; and other sculptural reconstructions. Yet as the critic Christian Kravagna remarked at the time, within the institutional model of the contemporary art exhibition the works in the show appeared not only as artifacts of reformist and experimental ideas but also as prototypes for standardized commodity production. In such a context, contrary to Papanek’s original intention, these design solutions do not represent an antithesis to the expansionist ambitions of modernism, but actually complement them. In the related installation Humanist and Ecological Republic, shown in 2000 at the Secession in Vienna, Pumhösl again reflected on the medium of the exhibition, this time while charting a history of the design utopias of Western modernism in “underdeveloped” regions, with specific reference to the ruins of International Style buildings in Madagascar. The main space housed modular sections of models for modernist buildings along with a sculpture by Henry Moore. Bringing together such examples of urban design with an icon of mid- century art, in an installation reminiscent of the ’50s, the exhibition came to seem paradigmatic of modernism itself. In an adjoining gallery, Pumhösl showed Lac Mantasoa, 2000, a silent video montage of architectural plans and models, decaying buildings, and underwater footage documenting the titular industrial city in Madagascar, which was partially flooded in 1936–37 during the construction of a reservoir. This meditative video focuses less on the implications of modernization’s failure, however, than on what artist Mathias Poledna describes in the exhibition catalogue as the “double binds of facticity and abstraction, of concrete function and the concomitant economy of desire, of projection and frustration.” Artistic and architectural utopias have always been enmeshed in these binds—and, it can be added, artistic reinterpretations of those utopias, such as Pumhösl’s own, are structurally implicated in them as well.

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INCREASINGLY, THE THEMATIC CONNECTIONS among the components of Pumhösl’s exhibition designs have ceded to a stronger emphasis on the act of transmission itself—a process that underscores Pumhösl’s general reservations about any expectation of unambiguous legibility from critical art. An exemplary instance is the 16-mm film OA 1979-3-5-036; after Take Hiratsugi, Gozen Hiinagata (Dress Patterns for Noble Ladies), ca. 1690, 2007. In this animated film, cryptic ornamental recent issues white lines, lattices, and zigzags appear against a black background. These abstract marks are, as the January 2014 title states, based on Gozen Hiinagata, a catalogue of kimono-tailoring patterns printed as woodcuts by December 2013 Take Hiratsugi in the late seventeenth century, which feature topographic, floral, and military motifs. “OA November 2013 1979-3-5-036,” meanwhile, refers to the catalogue’s call number at the British Museum in London and October 2013 thus evokes the archival amassing of traditional artifacts of foreign cultures by ethnographers— as well September 2013 as the administrative aesthetic of ’60s Conceptual art. By “sampling” the dress patterns and rotating them ninety degrees, Pumhösl’s film renders them abstract forms, expunging any reference to their Summer 2013 original purpose. Although their functional context as instructions for dressmakers and, more broadly, as May 2013 social markers “for noble ladies” is no longer apparent, these decorative patterns retain a semiotic Archive to 1962 potential: Hints of figuration are often discernible in the shorthandlike marks as they flare in the projection. The binding nature of forms—the impossibility of exhausting or exceeding their gestalt in various media and contexts of use and display—is put to the test in this transference of Japanese ornamentation into abstract film. The history of experimental animated film, moreover, establishes a renewed tension in the work between the utilitarian dimension of abstraction (most notably in the Bauhaus and Constructivism), prefigured in Hiratsugi’s pattern book, and the high-modernist artwork’s claim to autonomy. This work too, then, circumvents function by aestheticizing it. Yet its vestiges remain implicit, here as elsewhere, in the title of the work, which provides information about the historical contexts of the formal languages Pumhösl appropriates. In exhibition, the film is invariably accompanied by a 2007 series of verres églomisés, whose point of origin in ’20s and ’30s Japanese typography is suggested by their being titled after layout formats used in graphic design, such as Aushang (notice), Plakat (poster), and Tabloid. In a manner that is typical of Pumhösl’s recent practice, he thus makes the case that form and content cannot be transmitted without also engaging the media technologies and distribution mechanisms through which this transmission occurs. Against the foil of our globalized culture and modernism’s lasting influence on art, design, and the world of commodities, Pumhösl’s project of a critical modernology reflects Adorno’s notion of “aesthetic form as sedimented content” while also arguing that this content-derived form can never claim universal validity: Rather, it must exhibit the context of its production in spite of itself. André Rottmann is a Berlin-based art historian and critic, and an editor of Texte zur Kunst. Translated from German by Elizabeth Tucker.

MORE IMAGES Sven Lütticken, “Under the Sign of Design,” Texte zur Kunst, No. 72, December 2008, pp. 116-123

plex devices was always based on the perspec- someone else is willing to buy it, I cannot find SVEN LÜTTICKEN reading a paper. A few moments bit later, the tive of the user — but it was the doctor, not the an argument against that. One typical feature UNDER THE SIGN OF DESIGN miracle of double exposure conjures up an elegant patient, who was seen as the user. The machine’s of the avant-garde has always been the notion woman, who gradually appears like a vision on design was uncomfortable for the patient but of a universalism. The Surrealists believed that the foot stool, or ottoman, holding an apple. After convenient for doctors. There are thousands of everyone needed to be a Surrealist, and abstract a few seconds she once more fades into thin air. problems of this sort across the entire medical painters such as Mondrian were convinced that The man then turns back into his worker field. Medicine is an important part of the social, the entire world needed to be blue and red and persona and disassembles the chair, putting the and a major part of public budgets is spent on it. yellow in orthogonal arrangements. I am in favor parts back into their Herman Miller boxes. At the It is a field in which truly meaningful work is to of diversification. It must be absolutely clear that end, he lies down next to a screwdriver — the be done. But social questions also have bear- the existence of others is regarded with tolerance. sole tool needed to put together and take apart ing on areas in mechanical engineering and the But I cannot renounce my own judgment—my this design icon. The film does not merely make optics of controlling devices and tools. But of aesthetic and ethical judgment of what we create the point that the lounge chair is comfortable, or course, that is not a field young people find very in the name of design or art. Democratic tolerance easy to use. In transforming the manual laborer glamorous. Instead, they continue to believe in is not the same as eclecticism. We have to accept One could observe a paradigmatic shift in post-war worker into a white-collar worker, and in making the inexhaustible designing of chairs. That is the existence of certain things, which does not design, as far as the functionality of quotidian objects a desirable woman appear at his feet, the Eameses completely absurd; they want to make fashion mean approving of everything that is being done. was increasingly supplanted by their symbol meaning stress that the chair is a signifier that attracts other in the sense of insignia of good taste and an upscale and lamps. Endless lamps. I live in a country that That is the foundation of a democratic society. signifiers. What the film stages and celebrates is life style. has a great tradition of aestheticizing problems. the becoming-sign of the object, which around (Translation: Gerrit Jackson) Artistic strategies have reacted to this shift from In the historical context of the past twenty years, the use value to the sign value of design in various 1970 would lead Jean Baudrillard to diagnose the Italians have not managed to make the next ways. Whereas forms of “relational aesthetics” inte- fundamental changes in capitalism by supple- step in the development of industrialization pos- grated iconic designs in installations that were said menting the categories of use value and exchange sible. Fiat and Olivetti, for instance, have lost their to have a social function in terms of interaction and value with his concept of sign value.1 In this way, participation following the model of club culture, con- battles; they missed the right moment of industri- he effectively theorized an economy in which the ceptual practices chose a reconstructing approach to alization, the moment of the electronic revolu- the emancipatory aspects of modern design utopia. But circulation of sign value creates exchange value. tion, the onset of the world of computers. And it can use and sign values still be distinguished under the While Baudrillard noted that exchange value is was it this moment of failed industrialization that production conditions of postfordism? based on “equivalence” and sign value of “dif- the intense attention paid to furniture and lamps ference”, the latter is at the service of the former: began. That is what Italian design today repre- the difference between Brand A and Brand B is sents. What designers really want is to revise well- In a 1956 film about their famous Lounge Chair, expressed in prices that are subject to the law of known models and make a career out of rolling Charles and Ray Eames show the chair being exchange, hence of equivalence.2 out ever new armchairs, new chairs, new colors. assembled, used and then disassembled again by In Bik Van der Pol’s installation “Past Imper- In Italy we still have the old problem: Is design a worker. The film ends and begins with boxes fect” (2005), the Eames Lounge Chair figures art? This core question has to do with the absence bearing the logo of the company producing the in a set-up that seems to exaggerate the oneiric of a large-scale industrial production structure chair, Herman Miller, in which the chair and its qualities of the Eameses’ film, with its dreaming that would develop objects of a certain tech- accompanying foot stool or ottoman can be eas- laborer.3 Set on a rotating platform, the chair in nological complexity. But I shouldn’t like to be ily stored. The entire film consists of high-speed Bik Van der Pol’s installation allows the viewer too polemical and reject the limitations of these footage, resulting in quick and quasi-mechanical place him- or herself in the position of the older forms of applied arts outright. In a democratic motions of the worker. Ostensibly, the film pro- Howard Hughes, ensconced in the penthouse of a society, we have to accept that there are different motes the chair’s proto-IKEA qualities: it comes in Las Vegas hotel, seated (naked, so the story goes), ways of interpreting the world of products. I have separate parts that can be assembled in no time. in his Eames chair watching videos. A box of tis- pursued one way. I am surrounded by a variety of However, an oneiric dimension is introduced sues next to the chair refers to Hughes’ pathologi- products that make me nauseous. When someone when the worker sits/lies down in the chair, and cal fear of germs. Hughes-related video projec- in a capitalist society makes a horrible object and apparently imagines himself as a businessman tions include footage from the last film produced

114 115 by the tycoon, one that he watched regularly such retro chic, but in the exploration of alterna- the relation between titles such as “Vir Heroicus lated to “regular” objects. While Donald Judd saw late in “Life, The Conqueror” (1955).4 Hughes’ tive uses, of possible or impossible functions. Sublimis” and Newman’s idiom of color planes a logical progression from Stella’s works to the use of the chair is excessive, unproductive — it and “zips” is so opaque that the forms are often “specific objects” of Minimalism, Michael Fried is enabled only by the wealth and power he had DESIGN AND OBJECTHOOD, OR: experienced as meaningless.10 sought to inscribe Stella in a history of modernist amassed earlier. No longer the sign of a desirable THE SYMBOL AND THE SCREWDRIVER In the 1960s younger artists such as Frank painting that refused to allow paintings to slide lifestyle and a tool for relaxation at the service Against all attempts to blur the distinction Stella would distance themselves from all sym- into objecthood, into mundane presence.13 What of productivity, it becomes a different kind of between art and applied arts or industrial produc- bolic pretentions. Stella permutated forms in a makes it inevitable to once more revisit these mirage altogether, a grotesque double of its offi- tion, Barnett Newman maintained that “[the] more systematic manner than Newman ever did, over-canonized protagonists and debates is the cial image. The chair’s meaning is tampered at the God image, not pottery, was the first manual systematically working through formal options in fact that, collectively, they articulate the transforma- same time as its use is being détourned from the act”.5 His claims for a lofty art of sublime symbols one series after another. Leo Steinberg noted the tion of objecthood itself through modern design in an exem- norm. In this respect, “Past Imperfect” recalls a was threatened by a variety of interwoven prac- collusion of such art with the rigidity of corpo- plary way. Clement Greenberg, who contrary to somewhat earlier Eames appropriation in Barbara tices, all centering around the status of the object, rate innovation when he observed “ how often Fried, was not convinced that Stella’s work pulled Visser’s 2000 photographic series “Detitled” and all calling the distinction between art objects recent American painting is defined and described off the feat of repelling objecthood by absorbing which consists of more or less classic designer and other — particularly industrial — objects into almost exclusively in terms of internal problem- some of its characteristics, once described the chairs and couches in some form of disar- question. Newman argued that Duchamp’s ready- solving. […] The dominant formalist critics today threat posed to modernist painting in these terms: ray — missing one or more legs, melted, or with mades had helped to create a situation in which tend to treat modern painting as an evolving the painting, reduced to its bare essentials, to bare ripped upholsterings. Visser shows the Eames museums “show screwdrivers and automobiles technology wherein at any moment specific canvas, risked becoming an arbitrary object just chair appears in a neutral, white environment. and paintings” without making a fundamental tasks require solution — tasks set for the artists as like a table, a chair, or a sheet of paper.14 But in In this respect it resembles the designer couple’s distinction between them. Duchamp’s ready- tasks are set for researchers in the big corpora- the age of hyper-designed Bauhaus screwdrivers, film more than Bik Van der Pol’s darkened cavern. mades and the designs of “Bauhaus screwdriver tions”.11 The results also looked corporate — serially which object can still be termed arbitrary? Like the other design classics in Visser’s series, it designers” both claimed to be art, and they were executed in industrial paint, with compositions In the late 1940s, Greenberg had written is ruined; there is a separate photograph of the thus two manifestations of the same fundamental that recalled nothing so much as post-war logo- about the “period style” constituted by modern- ottoman in a similar state. problem.6 types, which are equally centralized and geo- ist art, design, and architecture. Taking his cues With its back having been broken off, the In the 1940s, Clement Greenberg described metric. The logo suggests that it is the apparition from the Museum of Modern Art’s emphasis chair is at the moment clearly unsuitable for a loose group of American artists that included of a transcendental logos or idea, but in contrast on the aesthetic aspects of “International Style” reclining and dreaming of a life of corporate Newman and Mark Rothko as a “new indigenous to the romantic/modernist symbol it is patently design, Greenberg effectively acknowledged the glamour. But this is not just a demolition of the school of symbolism”.7 Newman is at the end arbitrary and differential. Rather than emanation sign value of design by privileging stylistic over chair as useful object is also an intervention in its of a romantic tradition that seeks to counter from transcendental ideas, it is generated through functionalist concerns.15 In the 1960s, what was meaning and thus, potentially, in its sign value. the confusion of modernity by seeking salva- the interplay of signifiers. We are thus dealing framed by Fried and Judd in particular as the There is something pathetically comic about see- tion in the sensuous revelation of truth in visual with a code of desymbolized signs; we are moving threat or promise of the object was in fact the ing the epitome of a certain kind of functional, symbols — symbols that are themselves confused, from romantic symbol theory into semiotics, and return of what Greenberg has earlier on ana- managerial luxuriousness in this state. Obviously, but in the positive sense of being mysterious and into the applied semiotics that is design. lyzed as an international style: as Stella’s example the sign value and exchange value of the Lounge thus distinct from the profane banality of modern Caroline A. Jones, who compared Stella’s shows, the collapse of the distinction between Chair are not substantially altered by one artistic media.8 However, in spite of efforts by vari- “Sidney Guberman” (1963) to the 1960 logo for art and objecthood takes place under the sign intervention, but Visser’s — literally — broken ous symbolist and abstract artists, the twentieth the Chase Manhattan Bank, noted that in the post- of design. While phenomenological and other allegory suggests that we should go beyond the century saw the definitive demise of the dream war years corporate logotypes were increasingly approaches to the rise of the objects and of envi- normalized consumption of stylish signs for func- of the symbol as an anti-idol, an instantaneous simplified, moving “away from narrative and ronments and installations repressed this insight tionality. Like Bik Van de Pol’s excessive and perform of sensuous knowledge. As Adorno put it, toward iconicity”, so as “form a visual imprint, during much of the late 1960s and 1970s, it came verse use value, Visser’s apparent destruction of “Art absorbs symbols by no longer having them as if branded on the retina”.12 But Stella’s paintings to the surface in the art of the last decades. use value points beyond the “design art” of recent symbolize anything […]. Modernity’s ciphers and are bulky logotypes, hanging on the wall like Certain works by John Armleder are crucial decades, which often milked stylistic signifiers characters are signs that have forgotten them- quasi-reliefs. This made Stella a crucial pawn in here, in particular the two rooms titled “Ne dites for their obvious retro associations. Both pieces selves and become absolute.” 9 This development the 1960s battles over objecthood, in which the pas non!” (1996/97), which combine furniture suggest that the meaning of design does not lie in can already be seen in Newman’s work, in which work of art was either contrasted with or assimi- and objects on pedestals with a variety of abstract

116 117 by the tycoon, one that he watched regularly such retro chic, but in the exploration of alterna- the relation between titles such as “Vir Heroicus lated to “regular” objects. While Donald Judd saw late in “Life, The Conqueror” (1955).4 Hughes’ tive uses, of possible or impossible functions. Sublimis” and Newman’s idiom of color planes a logical progression from Stella’s works to the use of the chair is excessive, unproductive — it and “zips” is so opaque that the forms are often “specific objects” of Minimalism, Michael Fried is enabled only by the wealth and power he had DESIGN AND OBJECTHOOD, OR: experienced as meaningless.10 sought to inscribe Stella in a history of modernist amassed earlier. No longer the sign of a desirable THE SYMBOL AND THE SCREWDRIVER In the 1960s younger artists such as Frank painting that refused to allow paintings to slide lifestyle and a tool for relaxation at the service Against all attempts to blur the distinction Stella would distance themselves from all sym- into objecthood, into mundane presence.13 What of productivity, it becomes a different kind of between art and applied arts or industrial produc- bolic pretentions. Stella permutated forms in a makes it inevitable to once more revisit these mirage altogether, a grotesque double of its offi- tion, Barnett Newman maintained that “[the] more systematic manner than Newman ever did, over-canonized protagonists and debates is the cial image. The chair’s meaning is tampered at the God image, not pottery, was the first manual systematically working through formal options in fact that, collectively, they articulate the transforma- same time as its use is being détourned from the act”.5 His claims for a lofty art of sublime symbols one series after another. Leo Steinberg noted the tion of objecthood itself through modern design in an exem- norm. In this respect, “Past Imperfect” recalls a was threatened by a variety of interwoven prac- collusion of such art with the rigidity of corpo- plary way. Clement Greenberg, who contrary to somewhat earlier Eames appropriation in Barbara tices, all centering around the status of the object, rate innovation when he observed “ how often Fried, was not convinced that Stella’s work pulled Visser’s 2000 photographic series “Detitled” and all calling the distinction between art objects recent American painting is defined and described off the feat of repelling objecthood by absorbing which consists of more or less classic designer and other — particularly industrial — objects into almost exclusively in terms of internal problem- some of its characteristics, once described the chairs and couches in some form of disar- question. Newman argued that Duchamp’s ready- solving. […] The dominant formalist critics today threat posed to modernist painting in these terms: ray — missing one or more legs, melted, or with mades had helped to create a situation in which tend to treat modern painting as an evolving the painting, reduced to its bare essentials, to bare ripped upholsterings. Visser shows the Eames museums “show screwdrivers and automobiles technology wherein at any moment specific canvas, risked becoming an arbitrary object just chair appears in a neutral, white environment. and paintings” without making a fundamental tasks require solution — tasks set for the artists as like a table, a chair, or a sheet of paper.14 But in In this respect it resembles the designer couple’s distinction between them. Duchamp’s ready- tasks are set for researchers in the big corpora- the age of hyper-designed Bauhaus screwdrivers, film more than Bik Van der Pol’s darkened cavern. mades and the designs of “Bauhaus screwdriver tions”.11 The results also looked corporate — serially which object can still be termed arbitrary? Like the other design classics in Visser’s series, it designers” both claimed to be art, and they were executed in industrial paint, with compositions In the late 1940s, Greenberg had written is ruined; there is a separate photograph of the thus two manifestations of the same fundamental that recalled nothing so much as post-war logo- about the “period style” constituted by modern- ottoman in a similar state. problem.6 types, which are equally centralized and geo- ist art, design, and architecture. Taking his cues With its back having been broken off, the In the 1940s, Clement Greenberg described metric. The logo suggests that it is the apparition from the Museum of Modern Art’s emphasis chair is at the moment clearly unsuitable for a loose group of American artists that included of a transcendental logos or idea, but in contrast on the aesthetic aspects of “International Style” reclining and dreaming of a life of corporate Newman and Mark Rothko as a “new indigenous to the romantic/modernist symbol it is patently design, Greenberg effectively acknowledged the glamour. But this is not just a demolition of the school of symbolism”.7 Newman is at the end arbitrary and differential. Rather than emanation sign value of design by privileging stylistic over chair as useful object is also an intervention in its of a romantic tradition that seeks to counter from transcendental ideas, it is generated through functionalist concerns.15 In the 1960s, what was meaning and thus, potentially, in its sign value. the confusion of modernity by seeking salva- the interplay of signifiers. We are thus dealing framed by Fried and Judd in particular as the There is something pathetically comic about see- tion in the sensuous revelation of truth in visual with a code of desymbolized signs; we are moving threat or promise of the object was in fact the ing the epitome of a certain kind of functional, symbols — symbols that are themselves confused, from romantic symbol theory into semiotics, and return of what Greenberg has earlier on ana- managerial luxuriousness in this state. Obviously, but in the positive sense of being mysterious and into the applied semiotics that is design. lyzed as an international style: as Stella’s example the sign value and exchange value of the Lounge thus distinct from the profane banality of modern Caroline A. Jones, who compared Stella’s shows, the collapse of the distinction between Chair are not substantially altered by one artistic media.8 However, in spite of efforts by vari- “Sidney Guberman” (1963) to the 1960 logo for art and objecthood takes place under the sign intervention, but Visser’s — literally — broken ous symbolist and abstract artists, the twentieth the Chase Manhattan Bank, noted that in the post- of design. While phenomenological and other allegory suggests that we should go beyond the century saw the definitive demise of the dream war years corporate logotypes were increasingly approaches to the rise of the objects and of envi- normalized consumption of stylish signs for func- of the symbol as an anti-idol, an instantaneous simplified, moving “away from narrative and ronments and installations repressed this insight tionality. Like Bik Van de Pol’s excessive and perform of sensuous knowledge. As Adorno put it, toward iconicity”, so as “form a visual imprint, during much of the late 1960s and 1970s, it came verse use value, Visser’s apparent destruction of “Art absorbs symbols by no longer having them as if branded on the retina”.12 But Stella’s paintings to the surface in the art of the last decades. use value points beyond the “design art” of recent symbolize anything […]. Modernity’s ciphers and are bulky logotypes, hanging on the wall like Certain works by John Armleder are crucial decades, which often milked stylistic signifiers characters are signs that have forgotten them- quasi-reliefs. This made Stella a crucial pawn in here, in particular the two rooms titled “Ne dites for their obvious retro associations. Both pieces selves and become absolute.” 9 This development the 1960s battles over objecthood, in which the pas non!” (1996/97), which combine furniture suggest that the meaning of design does not lie in can already be seen in Newman’s work, in which work of art was either contrasted with or assimi- and objects on pedestals with a variety of abstract

116 117 painting-objects on the walls, including works work that we see in Gillick’s video “Everything refuses to limit the notion of the aesthetic to the use value by modern industrial capitalism with by Imi Knoebel and Günther Förg. Exhibited in Good Goes” (2008), in which architectural play of commodified signs, instead taking the his concept of excessive expenditure, with the 1997 in an exhibition that also included works forms appear on a trendy flatscreen in a stylishly aesthetic to a wide set of questions pertaining to potlatch as its ultimate example; this was one by Jorge Pardo and Tobias Rehberger, Armleder’s minimalist office, the Mac mouse being manipu- the sensible — including the (in)visibility of labor of the ingredients for Baudrillard’s later notion piece can be seen as a desublimation of such lated by an operator who remains unseen — in conditions and ecological costs. The challenge of “symbolic exchange”, which resuscitated the relational works, which revive the “theatricality” spite of the mirror behind the monitor. On the would be to intervene in the signs’ complexity romantic cult of the symbol by redefining it in that Michael Fried decried in much 1960s art with soundtrack, there are some semi-audible phone and contradictions, to question the conditions social and performative — rather than instanta- hints at the 1990s club/lounge/networking con- messages on contemporary labor. What is care- under which their programmed surfaces came neous and visual — terms.20 What Bataille by and text. If the promise of sociability or at least of use fully left out of this video is anything that could into being. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh once linked large failed to perceive was that the distinction he is an important part of the younger artists’ aes- complicate the image of disembodied sign pro- the “lack of surface aesthetics” in Dan Graham’s made between premodern sociétés de consommation thetic, Armleder bluntly puts chairs, beds as well duction: the production of the machinery being works of the 1970s and in the designs of Russian (societies in which value is completely “con- as guitars and artworks on pedestals. The result is used, the hidden world of server centers and their constructivism/productivism to the promise of a sumed” by uneconomical excessive rituals and a theater of design fetishes that brutally seems to ecological implications, the potential execution use value, a potential use value, inherent in such gifts) and modern sociétés de consommation (in which exclude any possibility for human inhabitation. of the design seen on the screen, its implications works.17 “consumption” is at the service of production and In the early 1970s, Baudrillard had already outside a rarified environment where everything The concept of use value is of course notori- economic growth) was eroding. Does capitalist come to realize that functionalism leads to the is perceived in terms of fashion, of the right signi- ously contested. In anchoring exchange value consumption not finally result in a global potlatch triumph of fashion and this to a play of retro fier at the right time. in sign value, Baudrillard broke with what he that consumes the planet itself?21 Thus, while it styles, since the reduction of the object to a sign To be sure, there are impulses in some of regarded as a Marxist fetishization of use value, would be a mistake to equate use value with some of functionality opens up an endless play of the “design art” of the late twentieth and early which is just a case of nostalgia for a lost refer- simple, everyday, “productive” use of objects, signifiers. In Amleder’s work we have, as it were twenty-first century that point beyond the ent, a “real” that was swiped away by capital- there is an obvious need to go beyond the culture a postmodern version of Greenberg’s “period limitations of “standard” relational discourse ism — even while Baudrillard himself nostalgi- of conspicuous consumption and waste that style”, a recycling of neo-modernist signs ruled by and practice. Some relational pieces suggest or cally gloried pre-modern societies of “symbolic dominated the last decades. the eternal returns and permutations of fashion. stimulate non-orthodox uses, deviant or impossi- exchange”.18 There are passages in Marx that If use value is far more flexible than mini- If pieces by Tobias Rehberger — and particularly ble functions; others even dare to foreground the seem to justify such an argument. If exchange malist definitions suggest, this means that the their titles — such as “Lying around lazy. Not even production process of design, however indirectly, value is pure quantity, an abstraction, use value determination of what is actually useful and moving for TV, sweets, Coke and Vaseline” seem as in the designer chairs that Tobias Rehberger is equated by Marx with the sensuous qualities of socially desirable under current circumstances to evoke a private duration that breaks with the had African craftsmen execute after his sketches. the commodity’s physical side, which is “real- is subject to political debate. Use value is not an time of fashion, they are indeed — in Ina Blom’s There are seeds, here and there, for a differ- ized” in actual use. On the other hand, that every ontological given. It also suggests that we should words — “less design solutions than ephem- ent approach to design — one that perhaps takes commodity with an exchange value must perforce not merely look at the individual usefulness of eral style suggestions imbued with the restless the notion of the aesthetic rather more seriously also have a use value throws another light on the a commodity, but also at its wider ramifications knowledge of being precisely dated, fashion-wise, precisely in so far as it is tries to ask what remains issue: if this is the case, then even “pure” design beyond the individual. No wonder that con- and so also soon outdated”, leading Rehberger unseen in the stylish signs of design. fetishes and all commodified works of art must structivism/productivism, as well as 1960s/70s to make new versions that “update” the works.16 have one.19 This means that use value can be pioneers in ecological and social design such as What remained dominant in many “relational” THE USE OF VALUE more intangible than Marx’s examples suggest. Victor Papanek are meeting with renewed inter- practices was the play of signs and thus sign value. Taking cues from Baudrillard’s exploration of sign Often, the primary use may be the accruing of est. This reappraisal started more than ten years Liam Gillick’s work in a sense provides the value, 1980s theories of postmodernism often social capital from the sign value of, for instance, ago; in his 1996 exhibition “On or off Earth” at mythic narrative for this art, with its reduction diagnosed and criticized an “aestheticization” of being a vintage Eames chair, or perhaps a Bauhaus the Grazer Kunstverein, Florian Pumhösl visited of theories of post-Fordism to a cartoon-like capitalism, the economy becoming culturalized as screwdriver. But perhaps the real use is systemic, design solutions advocated by Papanek. Whereas narrative about closed factories becoming sites the commodification of art reached new heights. economical: do not economists constantly remind Pardo and Rehberger use generic and nostalgic for immaterial labor working as the founding However, it might be more productive to argue us that we need to consume in order to keep the readymade signifiers, Pumhösl presents very myth justifying an endless series of quasi-mod- the reverse: that what appears as hyper-aestheti- economy going? precise and somewhat arid forms; his neo- or ernist forms that seem to be almost accidental cization is in fact an impoverishment of the aesthetic. In the 1930s and 1940s, Georges Bataille meta-modernism opposes the hypercoded signi- manifestations of the kind of clean, disembodied There is a chance in proper aestheticization if one opposed the “productivism” and fetishization of fiers of the 1990s with forms whose significance

118 119 painting-objects on the walls, including works work that we see in Gillick’s video “Everything refuses to limit the notion of the aesthetic to the use value by modern industrial capitalism with by Imi Knoebel and Günther Förg. Exhibited in Good Goes” (2008), in which architectural play of commodified signs, instead taking the his concept of excessive expenditure, with the 1997 in an exhibition that also included works forms appear on a trendy flatscreen in a stylishly aesthetic to a wide set of questions pertaining to potlatch as its ultimate example; this was one by Jorge Pardo and Tobias Rehberger, Armleder’s minimalist office, the Mac mouse being manipu- the sensible — including the (in)visibility of labor of the ingredients for Baudrillard’s later notion piece can be seen as a desublimation of such lated by an operator who remains unseen — in conditions and ecological costs. The challenge of “symbolic exchange”, which resuscitated the relational works, which revive the “theatricality” spite of the mirror behind the monitor. On the would be to intervene in the signs’ complexity romantic cult of the symbol by redefining it in that Michael Fried decried in much 1960s art with soundtrack, there are some semi-audible phone and contradictions, to question the conditions social and performative — rather than instanta- hints at the 1990s club/lounge/networking con- messages on contemporary labor. What is care- under which their programmed surfaces came neous and visual — terms.20 What Bataille by and text. If the promise of sociability or at least of use fully left out of this video is anything that could into being. Benjamin H. D. Buchloh once linked large failed to perceive was that the distinction he is an important part of the younger artists’ aes- complicate the image of disembodied sign pro- the “lack of surface aesthetics” in Dan Graham’s made between premodern sociétés de consommation thetic, Armleder bluntly puts chairs, beds as well duction: the production of the machinery being works of the 1970s and in the designs of Russian (societies in which value is completely “con- as guitars and artworks on pedestals. The result is used, the hidden world of server centers and their constructivism/productivism to the promise of a sumed” by uneconomical excessive rituals and a theater of design fetishes that brutally seems to ecological implications, the potential execution use value, a potential use value, inherent in such gifts) and modern sociétés de consommation (in which exclude any possibility for human inhabitation. of the design seen on the screen, its implications works.17 “consumption” is at the service of production and In the early 1970s, Baudrillard had already outside a rarified environment where everything The concept of use value is of course notori- economic growth) was eroding. Does capitalist come to realize that functionalism leads to the is perceived in terms of fashion, of the right signi- ously contested. In anchoring exchange value consumption not finally result in a global potlatch triumph of fashion and this to a play of retro fier at the right time. in sign value, Baudrillard broke with what he that consumes the planet itself?21 Thus, while it styles, since the reduction of the object to a sign To be sure, there are impulses in some of regarded as a Marxist fetishization of use value, would be a mistake to equate use value with some of functionality opens up an endless play of the “design art” of the late twentieth and early which is just a case of nostalgia for a lost refer- simple, everyday, “productive” use of objects, signifiers. In Amleder’s work we have, as it were twenty-first century that point beyond the ent, a “real” that was swiped away by capital- there is an obvious need to go beyond the culture a postmodern version of Greenberg’s “period limitations of “standard” relational discourse ism — even while Baudrillard himself nostalgi- of conspicuous consumption and waste that style”, a recycling of neo-modernist signs ruled by and practice. Some relational pieces suggest or cally gloried pre-modern societies of “symbolic dominated the last decades. the eternal returns and permutations of fashion. stimulate non-orthodox uses, deviant or impossi- exchange”.18 There are passages in Marx that If use value is far more flexible than mini- If pieces by Tobias Rehberger — and particularly ble functions; others even dare to foreground the seem to justify such an argument. If exchange malist definitions suggest, this means that the their titles — such as “Lying around lazy. Not even production process of design, however indirectly, value is pure quantity, an abstraction, use value determination of what is actually useful and moving for TV, sweets, Coke and Vaseline” seem as in the designer chairs that Tobias Rehberger is equated by Marx with the sensuous qualities of socially desirable under current circumstances to evoke a private duration that breaks with the had African craftsmen execute after his sketches. the commodity’s physical side, which is “real- is subject to political debate. Use value is not an time of fashion, they are indeed — in Ina Blom’s There are seeds, here and there, for a differ- ized” in actual use. On the other hand, that every ontological given. It also suggests that we should words — “less design solutions than ephem- ent approach to design — one that perhaps takes commodity with an exchange value must perforce not merely look at the individual usefulness of eral style suggestions imbued with the restless the notion of the aesthetic rather more seriously also have a use value throws another light on the a commodity, but also at its wider ramifications knowledge of being precisely dated, fashion-wise, precisely in so far as it is tries to ask what remains issue: if this is the case, then even “pure” design beyond the individual. No wonder that con- and so also soon outdated”, leading Rehberger unseen in the stylish signs of design. fetishes and all commodified works of art must structivism/productivism, as well as 1960s/70s to make new versions that “update” the works.16 have one.19 This means that use value can be pioneers in ecological and social design such as What remained dominant in many “relational” THE USE OF VALUE more intangible than Marx’s examples suggest. Victor Papanek are meeting with renewed inter- practices was the play of signs and thus sign value. Taking cues from Baudrillard’s exploration of sign Often, the primary use may be the accruing of est. This reappraisal started more than ten years Liam Gillick’s work in a sense provides the value, 1980s theories of postmodernism often social capital from the sign value of, for instance, ago; in his 1996 exhibition “On or off Earth” at mythic narrative for this art, with its reduction diagnosed and criticized an “aestheticization” of being a vintage Eames chair, or perhaps a Bauhaus the Grazer Kunstverein, Florian Pumhösl visited of theories of post-Fordism to a cartoon-like capitalism, the economy becoming culturalized as screwdriver. But perhaps the real use is systemic, design solutions advocated by Papanek. Whereas narrative about closed factories becoming sites the commodification of art reached new heights. economical: do not economists constantly remind Pardo and Rehberger use generic and nostalgic for immaterial labor working as the founding However, it might be more productive to argue us that we need to consume in order to keep the readymade signifiers, Pumhösl presents very myth justifying an endless series of quasi-mod- the reverse: that what appears as hyper-aestheti- economy going? precise and somewhat arid forms; his neo- or ernist forms that seem to be almost accidental cization is in fact an impoverishment of the aesthetic. In the 1930s and 1940s, Georges Bataille meta-modernism opposes the hypercoded signi- manifestations of the kind of clean, disembodied There is a chance in proper aestheticization if one opposed the “productivism” and fetishization of fiers of the 1990s with forms whose significance

118 119 Postwar American Artist, Chicago/London 1996, p. 162. In derives, at least in part, from the suggestion of peer group of the 1990s. We are not dealing with design, it becomes a necessity once we realize that speaking of forms being “branded on the retina”, Jones is potential uses. a new trendy style cobbled together from defunct under present conditions, it is in political-eco- paraphrasing Stella himself. That Pumhösl presented his exhibition as an period styles for trendy chill-out spaces. Neither nomic structures that the true design challenges 13 Fried’s relevant texts here are of course “Three American investigation into a certain formal rhetoric can be is it particularly a “generational” matter; after all, lie. This is the unrecognizable rebirth of design Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella” (1965) and “Art and Objecthood” (1967), in: Art and seen as an indication that at that moment, when an artist like Peterman exhibited throughout the from its own ashes. Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago/London 1998, the looming resources and ecological crisis was 1990s, sometimes together with Pardo, Rehberger pp. 148–172, 213–265. still largely repressed in public discourse, Papa- and Co. If anything, it is the coming to the fore of Notes 14 In 1960 s, Greenberg still argued that the “limiting con- 1 Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique ditions with which a picture must comply in order to be nek’s work was not yet read with the new sense of modes of practice and lines of inquiry that were du signe, Paris 1972, pp. 59–194. experienced as a picture” could be “pushed back indefini- urgency with which we approach it today. If this long marginalized. 2 Ibid., p. 64. tely before a picture stops being a picture and turns into suggests a return to a certain puritan valorization It is telling that in one recent project at 3 Oddly, the second hand chair used in this installation, an arbitrary object”; a few years later, the work of Stella, bought online, has four legs instead of five, which is of simple and elementary uses and a suspicion MAMbo in Bologna, Natascha Sadr Haghighian has Judd and others suggested to Greenberg that this leap into usually the sign of an imitation, but it does have a Herman the arbitrary was now a real threat. Clement Greenberg, towards anything smacking of excess and waste, investigated the productions of artworks by artists Miller label. “Modernist Painting” (1960), in: The Collected Essays and one can also see it as a collective or social version who mostly belong to the generation that came to 4 This giant flop starred John Wayne, who would later Criticism 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969, of the motif of excessive and perverse use value prominence in the 1990s; in a kind of reverse pro- contract cancer, as did a suspiciously high number of other ed. John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1993, pp. 89f. See also people who had worked on the film. in some design-related art from the last twenty ductivism (an investigation into production rather Thierry De Duve, Kant After Duchamp, Cambridge, Mass/ 5 Barnett Newman, “The First Man Was an Artist” (1947), London 1996, pp. 199 –279. years. If the capitalist system is predicated on than its glorification), Sadr Haghighian’s project in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill 15 Clement Greenberg, “Our Period Style” (1949), in: The unlimited growth and expansion, then the intro- “Solo Show” focuses on the shadowy world of (Berkeley/Los Angeles: California Press, 1992), p. 159. Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 2, pp. 322–326. duction of social and ecological considerations companies that specialize in producing works for 6 Barnett Newman, “Open Letter to William A.M. Burden, 16 Ina Blom, On The Style Site: Art, Sociality, and Media President of the Museum of Modern Art” (1953) and into design must appear as an excess, as a danger- the Pardos, Höllers and other art-world bigshots. Culture, Berlin/New York 2007, p. 101. “Remarks at the Fourth Annual Woodstock Arts Con- 17 Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Moments of History in the Work ous indulgence — a danger that is not so much In Sadr Haghiahian’s reversal of values, the pro- ference” (1952), in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. of Dan Graham” [1978], in: Neo-Avantgarde and Culture countered as obfuscated by attempts to present cess is more interesting than the end result, and John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1992, pp. 38, 245. Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 the eco businesses as the economical motor of the what usually remains invisible is brought to light: Intriguingly, Duchamp’s 1918 painting “Tu m’” contains to 1975, London/New York 2000, p. 191. the shadows of a number of known readymades as well as 18 During the course of the 1970 s, as he increasingly future. the works by the fictitious artist Robbie Williams, that of a screwdriver. distanced himself from Marxism, it became increasingly In this context, “design” not only refers to which were made by one of those specialized 7 Clement Greenberg, “Review of Exhibitions of Hedda obvious that Baudrillard’s work was underpinned by a shaping the actual products, but also their pro- firms that execute artists’ designs, are aestheti- Sterne and Adolph Gottlieb” (1947), in: The Collected hysterical mourning for a lost reality. In a fine example of Essays and Criticism 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945–1949, ed. duction processes, distribution, and “afterlife”. cally void compared to the interviews with which the pot calling the kettle black, Baudrillard accused Mar- John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1986, pp. 188f. xism of a nostalgia for pre-capitalist economies, a nostalgia Here, design is being redefined in terms of formal Sadr charts the circumstances under which such 8 On Romantic symbol theory see Sven Lütticken, “After the for an oneiric reality before the universal rule of exchange, 23 interventions in social/economical/political contemporary art is produced. Gods”, in: New Left Review 30 (November/December 2004), before alienation, while his own narrative of an increasing structures.22 Superflex’ “Free Beer” is an “open Such examples show that the excessive focus pp. 90–94. loss of reality certainly went hand in hand with such a 9 “Kunst absorbiert die Symbole dadurch, dass sie nichts source” recipe which anyone can brew, even if it on the consumption of exchange value and sign nostalgia. Baudrillard’s own utopia was premodern eco- mehr symbolisieren […]. Die Chiffren und Charaktere der nomies of “symbolical exchange”, in which objects were is still branded in a way that is reminiscent of capi- value is now supplemented by a consideration of Moderne sind durchweg absolut gewordene, ihrer selbst not exchanged as abstract commodities but as part of a talist brands; the actual design of the brand, with production and its consequences. Some work that vergessene Zeichen”. Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische network of symbolical obligations, anchored in a hierarchy its blithely pop-modernist logo, has no imagina- is relevant in this respect does not employ any Theorie, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, eds. Gretel that is sustained by the gods (or, in certain tribal societies, Adorno/Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt/M 1972, p. 47. tive force and thus contributes to the project’s design forms in the narrow sense, for instance the ancestors, who are seen as ever-present). Here the 10 This was obviously the case for Erwin Panofsky, whose symbolic is not a platonic archetype, but part of enacted inability to progress much beyond the “nice video pieces such as Steve McQueen’s “Gravesend” reactions to the misprinted title Vir Heroicus Sublimus social obligations. In the capitalist market, such symbolic idea” stage. By contrast Dan Peterman’s modular (2007) or Marc Boulos’ two-channel projection (instead of Sublimis) betrays his anger at the, in his view, obligations are replaced by equivalence; this means that, as constructions out of recycled materials are a more “All That Is Solid Melts into Air” (2008), which misplaced pretensions of Newman, who after all only this market penetrates societies more and more, reality is painted abstract planes devoid of iconological meaning. successful model for alternative structures and a trace the transformations of a commodity — re- lost and simulation takes over. See Barnett Newman, “Letters to the Editor (Replies to 19 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, trans. Ben Fowkes, London different habitus, precisely because they manage to spectively, the mineral coltan between a com- Erwin Panofsky), ARTnews”, in: Selected Writings and etc. 1990, p. 131. stimulate the imagination. It should come as no modity between a Congolese mine and a western Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1990, 20 The usual French term for the “consumer society” is société pp. 216–220. surprise that contemporary practices that are rele- high-tech environment, and oil between the de consommation. In “Theory of Religion” and “The Accursed 11 Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twen- Share”, Bataille consistently uses consommation when sacri- vant in this respect do not immediately constitute Nigerian delta and Wall Street. While it may seem tieth-Century Art, New York 1972, pp. 77f. fice, waste or excessive consumption are concerned. The some quasi-organic group à la the “relational” abstruse to discuss such works in the context of 12 Caroline Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the counterpart of the société de consommation is a société d’entreprise,

120 121 Postwar American Artist, Chicago/London 1996, p. 162. In derives, at least in part, from the suggestion of peer group of the 1990s. We are not dealing with design, it becomes a necessity once we realize that speaking of forms being “branded on the retina”, Jones is potential uses. a new trendy style cobbled together from defunct under present conditions, it is in political-eco- paraphrasing Stella himself. That Pumhösl presented his exhibition as an period styles for trendy chill-out spaces. Neither nomic structures that the true design challenges 13 Fried’s relevant texts here are of course “Three American investigation into a certain formal rhetoric can be is it particularly a “generational” matter; after all, lie. This is the unrecognizable rebirth of design Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella” (1965) and “Art and Objecthood” (1967), in: Art and seen as an indication that at that moment, when an artist like Peterman exhibited throughout the from its own ashes. Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago/London 1998, the looming resources and ecological crisis was 1990s, sometimes together with Pardo, Rehberger pp. 148–172, 213–265. Postwar American Artist, Chicago/London 1996, p. 162. In Notes 14 In 1960 s, Greenberg still argued that the “limiting con- stillderives, largely at leastrepressed in part, in publicfrom the discourse, suggestion Papa of- andpeer Co. group If anything, of the 1990 it iss. theWe coming are not todealing the fore with of design, it becomes a necessity once we realize that speaking of forms being “branded on the retina”, Jones is 1 Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique ditions with which a picture must comply in order to be nek’spotential work uses. was not yet read with the new sense of modesa new trendyof practice style and cobbled lines togetherof inquiry from that defunct were under present conditions, it is in political-eco- paraphrasing Stella himself. du signe, Paris 1972, pp. 59–194. experienced as a picture” could be “pushed back indefini- 13 Fried’s relevant texts here are of course “Three American urgencyThat with Pumhösl which presented we approach his exhibition it today. If as this an longperiod marginalized. styles for trendy chill-out spaces. Neither 2nomic Ibid., p.structures 64. that the true design challenges tely before a picture stops being a picture and turns into Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella” investigation into a certain formal rhetoric can be is it particularly a “generational” matter; after all, 3lie. Oddly, This the is thesecond unrecognizable hand chair used inrebirth this installation, of design an arbitrary object”; a few years later, the work of Stella, suggests a return to a certain puritan valorization It is telling that in one recent project at (1965) and “Art and Objecthood” (1967), in: Art and bought online, has four legs instead of five, which is Judd and others suggested to Greenberg that this leap into ofseen simple as an and indication elementary that usesat that and moment, a suspicion when MAMan artistbo in like Bologna, Peterman Natascha exhibited Sadr throughout Haghighian the has from its own ashes. Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago/London 1998, usually the sign of an imitation, but it does have a Herman the arbitrary was now a real threat. Clement Greenberg, the looming resources and ecological crisis was 1990s, sometimes together with Pardo, Rehberger pp. 148–172, 213–265. towards anything smacking of excess and waste, investigated the productions of artworks by artists Miller label. “Modernist Painting” (1960), in: The Collected Essays and Notes 14 In 1960 s, Greenberg still argued that the “limiting con- onestill can largely also repressed see it as a incollective public discourse, or social versionPapa- whoand Co.mostly If anything, belong to it the is the generation coming tothat the came fore toof 4 This giant flop starred John Wayne, who would later Criticism 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969, 1 Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique ditions with which a picture must comply in order to be nek’s work was not yet read with the new sense of modes of practice and lines of inquiry that were contract cancer, as did a suspiciously high number of other ed. John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1993, pp. 89f. See also of the motif of excessive and perverse use value prominence in the 1990s; in a kind of reverse pro- du signe, Paris 1972, pp. 59–194. experienced as a picture” could be “pushed back indefini- people who had worked on the film. Thierry De Duve, Kant After Duchamp, Cambridge, Mass/ inurgency some design-related with which we art approach from the it last today. twenty If this ductivismlong marginalized. (an investigation into production rather 2 Ibid., p. 64. tely before a picture stops being a picture and turns into 5 Barnett Newman, “The First Man Was an Artist” (1947), London 1996, pp. 199 –279. 3 Oddly, the second hand chair used in this installation, an arbitrary object”; a few years later, the work of Stella, years.suggests If the a return capitalist to a systemcertain is puritan predicated valorization on thanIt its is glorification),telling that in Sadrone recentHaghighian’s project project at in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill 15 Clement Greenberg, “Our Period Style” (1949), in: The bought online, has four legs instead of five, which is Judd and others suggested to Greenberg that this leap into unlimitedof simple andgrowth elementary and expansion, uses and then a suspicion the intro - “SoloMAM boShow” in Bologna, focuses Nataschaon the shadowy Sadr Haghighian world of has (Berkeley/Los Angeles: California Press, 1992), p. 159. Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 2, pp. 322–326. usually the sign of an imitation, but it does have a Herman the arbitrary was now a real threat. Clement Greenberg, 6 Barnett Newman, “Open Letter to William A.M. Burden, 16 Ina Blom, On The Style Site: Art, Sociality, and Media ductiontowards of anything social and smacking ecological of excessconsiderations and waste, companiesinvestigated that the specialize productions in producing of artworks works by artists for Miller label. “Modernist Painting” (1960), in: The Collected Essays and President of the Museum of Modern Art” (1953) and Culture, Berlin/New York 2007, p. 101. intoone designcan also must see itappear as a collective as an excess, or social as a danger version- thewho Pardos, mostly Höllers belong and to the other generation art-world that bigshots. came to 4 This giant flop starred John Wayne, who would later Criticism 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969, “Remarks at the Fourth Annual Woodstock Arts Con- 17 Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Moments of History in the Work contract cancer, as did a suspiciously high number of other ed. John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1993, pp. 89f. See also ousof the indulgence motif of —excessive a danger and that perverse is not so use much value Inprominence Sadr Haghiahian’s in the 1990 reversals; in ofa kind values, of reversethe pro pro- - ference” (1952), in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. of Dan Graham” [1978], in: Neo-Avantgarde and Culture people who had worked on the film. Thierry De Duve, Kant After Duchamp, Cambridge, Mass/ counteredin some design-related as obfuscated art by fromattempts the lastto present twenty cessductivism is more (an interesting investigation than intothe endproduction result, and rather John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1992, pp. 38, 245. Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 5 Barnett Newman, “The First Man Was an Artist” (1947), London 1996, pp. 199 –279. Intriguingly, Duchamp’s 1918 painting “Tu m’” contains to 1975, London/New York 2000, p. 191. theyears. eco If businesses the capitalist as the system economical is predicated motor on of the whatthan usuallyits glorification), remains invisible Sadr Haghighian’s is brought projectto light: in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill 15 Clement Greenberg, “Our Period Style” (1949), in: The the shadows of a number of known readymades as well as 18 During the course of the 1970 s, as he increasingly future.unlimited growth and expansion, then the intro- the“Solo works Show” by thefocuses fictitious on the artist shadowy Robbie world Williams, of (Berkeley/Los Angeles: California Press, 1992), p. 159. Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 2, pp. 322–326. that of a screwdriver. distanced himself from Marxism, it became increasingly 6 Barnett Newman, “Open Letter to William A.M. Burden, 16 Ina Blom, On The Style Site: Art, Sociality, and Media ductionIn this of context,social and “design” ecological not considerationsonly refers to whichcompanies were thatmade specialize by one of in those producing specialized works for 7 Clement Greenberg, “Review of Exhibitions of Hedda obvious that Baudrillard’s work was underpinned by a President of the Museum of Modern Art” (1953) and Culture, Berlin/New York 2007, p. 101. shapinginto design the actualmust appear products, as an but excess, also their as a dangerpro - firmsthe Pardos, that execute Höllers artists’ and other designs, art-world are aestheti bigshots. Sterne and Adolph Gottlieb” (1947), in: The Collected hysterical mourning for a lost reality. In a fine example of - - “Remarks at the Fourth Annual Woodstock Arts Con- 17 Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Moments of History in the Work Essays and Criticism 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945–1949, ed. the pot calling the kettle black, Baudrillard accused Mar- ductionous indulgence processes, — adistribution, danger that andis not “afterlife”. so much callyIn Sadr void Haghiahian’s compared to reversal the interviews of values, with the whichpro- ference” (1952), in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. of Dan Graham” [1978], in: Neo-Avantgarde and Culture John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1986, pp. 188f. xism of a nostalgia for pre-capitalist economies, a nostalgia countered as obfuscated by attempts to present cess is more interesting than the end result, and John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1992, pp. 38, 245. Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 Here, design is being redefined in terms of formal Sadr charts the circumstances under which such 8 On Romantic symbol theory see Sven Lütticken, “After the for an oneiric reality before the universal rule of exchange, 23 Intriguingly, Duchamp’s 1918 painting “Tu m’” contains to 1975, London/New York 2000, p. 191. interventionsthe eco businesses in social/economical/political as the economical motor of the contemporarywhat usually remains art is produced. invisible is brought to light: Gods”, in: New Left Review 30 (November/December 2004), before alienation, while his own narrative of an increasing the shadows of a number of known readymades as well as 18 During the course of the 1970 s, as he increasingly future. 22 the works by the fictitious artist Robbie Williams, pp. 90–94. loss of reality certainly went hand in hand with such a structures. Superflex’ “Free Beer” is an “open Such examples show that the excessive focus that of a screwdriver. distanced himself from Marxism, it became increasingly 9 “Kunst absorbiert die Symbole dadurch, dass sie nichts nostalgia. Baudrillard’s own utopia was premodern eco- source”In this recipe context, which “design” anyone notcan onlybrew, refers even toif it onwhich the consumptionwere made by of one exchange of those value specialized and sign 7 Clement Greenberg, “Review of Exhibitions of Hedda obvious that Baudrillard’s work was underpinned by a mehr symbolisieren […]. Die Chiffren und Charaktere der nomies of “symbolical exchange”, in which objects were shaping the actual products, but also their pro- firms that execute artists’ designs, are aestheti- Sterne and Adolph Gottlieb” (1947), in: The Collected hysterical mourning for a lost reality. In a fine example of is still branded in a way that is reminiscent of capi- value is now supplemented by a consideration of Moderne sind durchweg absolut gewordene, ihrer selbst not exchanged as abstract commodities but as part of a Essays and Criticism 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945–1949, ed. the pot calling the kettle black, Baudrillard accused Mar- talistduction brands; processes, the actual distribution, design of and the “afterlife”.brand, with productioncally void and compared its consequences. to the interviews Some work with that which vergessene Zeichen”. Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische network of symbolical obligations, anchored in a hierarchy John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1986, pp. 188f. xism of a nostalgia for pre-capitalist economies, a nostalgia Theorie, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, eds. Gretel that is sustained by the gods (or, in certain tribal societies, itsHere, blithely design pop-modernist is being redefined logo, inhas terms no imagina of formal- isSadr relevant charts in the this circumstances respect does notunder employ which any such 8 On Romantic symbol theory see Sven Lütticken, “After the for an oneiric reality before the universal rule of exchange, 23 Adorno/Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt/M 1972, p. 47. the ancestors, who are seen as ever-present). Here the tiveinterventions force and thusin social/economical/political contributes to the project’s designcontemporary forms in art the is narrow produced. sense, for instance Gods”, in: New Left Review 30 (November/December 2004), before alienation, while his own narrative of an increasing 10 This was obviously the case for Erwin Panofsky, whose symbolic is not a platonic archetype, but part of enacted 22 pp. 90–94. loss of reality certainly went hand in hand with such a inabilitystructures. to progress Superflex’ much “Free beyond Beer” the is an“nice “open videoSuch pieces examples such as show Steve thatMcQueen’s the excessive “Gravesend” focus reactions to the misprinted title Vir Heroicus Sublimus social obligations. In the capitalist market, such symbolic 9 “Kunst absorbiert die Symbole dadurch, dass sie nichts nostalgia. Baudrillard’s own utopia was premodern eco- idea”source” stage. recipe By contrastwhich anyone Dan Peterman’s can brew, modular even if it (on2007 the) orconsumption Marc Boulos’ of two-channelexchange value projection and sign (instead of Sublimis) betrays his anger at the, in his view, obligations are replaced by equivalence; this means that, as mehr symbolisieren […]. Die Chiffren und Charaktere der nomies of “symbolical exchange”, in which objects were misplaced pretensions of Newman, who after all only this market penetrates societies more and more, reality is constructionsis still branded inout a ofway recycled that is reminiscentmaterials are of a capimore- “Allvalue That is now Is Solid supplemented Melts into Air”by a (consideration2008), which of Moderne sind durchweg absolut gewordene, ihrer selbst not exchanged as abstract commodities but as part of a painted abstract planes devoid of iconological meaning. lost and simulation takes over. successfultalist brands; model the foractual alternative design ofstructures the brand, and with a traceproduction the transformationsand its consequences. of a commodity Some work — that re - vergessene Zeichen”. Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische network of symbolical obligations, anchored in a hierarchy See Barnett Newman, “Letters to the Editor (Replies to 19 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, trans. Ben Fowkes, London Theorie, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, eds. Gretel that is sustained by the gods (or, in certain tribal societies, differentits blithely habitus pop-modernist, precisely because logo, has they no manage imagina to- spectively,is relevant thein thismineral respect coltan does between not employ a com any- Erwin Panofsky), ARTnews”, in: Selected Writings and etc. 1990, p. 131. Adorno/Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt/M 1972, p. 47. the ancestors, who are seen as ever-present). Here the stimulatetive force the and imagination. thus contributes It should to the come project’s as no moditydesign formsbetween in thea Congolese narrow sense, mine forand instance a western Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1990, 20 The usual French term for the “consumer society” is société 10 This was obviously the case for Erwin Panofsky, whose symbolic is not a platonic archetype, but part of enacted pp. 216–220. de consommation. In “Theory of Religion” and “The Accursed surpriseinability that to progress contemporary much beyondpractices the that “nice are rele- high-techvideo pieces environment, such as Steve and McQueen’s oil between “Gravesend” the reactions to the misprinted title Vir Heroicus Sublimus social obligations. In the capitalist market, such symbolic 11 Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twen- Share”, Bataille consistently uses consommation when sacri- idea” stage. By contrast Dan Peterman’s modular (2007) or Marc Boulos’ two-channel projection (instead of Sublimis) betrays his anger at the, in his view, obligations are replaced by equivalence; this means that, as vant in this respect do not immediately constitute Nigerian delta and Wall Street. While it may seem tieth-Century Art, New York 1972, pp. 77f. fice, waste or excessive consumption are concerned. The misplaced pretensions of Newman, who after all only this market penetrates societies more and more, reality is someconstructions quasi-organic out of group recycled à la materialsthe “relational” are a more abstruse“All That to Is discuss Solid Melts such intoworks Air” in (the2008 context), which of 12 Caroline Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the counterpart of the société de consommation is a société d’entreprise, painted abstract planes devoid of iconological meaning. lost and simulation takes over. successful model for alternative structures and a trace the transformations of a commodity — re- in which consumption is mere consommation. See Georges See Barnett Newman, “Letters to the Editor (Replies to 19 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, trans. Ben Fowkes, London Bataille, “La Part maudite” (1949), in: Œuvres Complètes, Jacques Rancière, to be sure, is not the first phi- toward authoritarianism, the third regime, thus ing of claims as well as the conflicts that accom- different habitus, precisely because they manage to spectively, the mineral coltan between a com- Erwin Panofsky), ARTnews”, in: Selected Writings and etc. 1990, p. 131. vol. VII, Paris 1976, pp. 51–54. losopher working on aesthetics to come to mind Rancière, acts as a liberating and democratizing pany such divisions. Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1990, 20 The usual French term for the “consumer society” is société stimulate the imagination. It should come as no modity between a Congolese mine and a western 21 There are, however, moments in Bataille’s postwar wri- pp. 216–220. de consommation. In “Theory of Religion” and “The Accursed when we think about design; the more so since he force. It eludes all rules of a priori determina- That is also why the autonomy of art under 120surprise that contemporary practices that are rele- high-tech environment, and oil between the 121 tings in which Bataille reveals an early insight into this 11 Leo Postwar Steinberg, American Other Artist, Criteria: Chicago/London Confrontations 1996 with, p. Twen162. In- Share”, Bataille consistently uses consommation when sacri- has lately drawn attention primarily as a theorist tion, ethical as much as representative, and the the aesthetic regime, which emerges around derives, at least in part, from the suggestion of peer group of the 1990s. We are not dealing with design, it becomes a necessity once we realize that development; See “Théorie de la religion” (1948), in : vant in this respect do not immediately constitute Nigerian delta and Wall Street. While it may seem tieth-Centuryspeaking of forms Art, Newbeing York “branded 1972, pp.on the77f. retina”, Jones is fice, waste or excessive consumption are concerned. The Œuvres Complètes, vol VII, p. 339: “Le développement of a more, rather than less, autonomous art. Still, hierarchies associated with them. Around 1750, a 1750 — its dissociation from the communication potential uses. somea new quasi-organic trendy style cobbled group à together la the “relational” from defunct abstruse to discuss such worksunder in thepresent context conditions, of it is in political-eco- 12 Carolineparaphrasing Jones, Stella Machine himself. in the Studio: Constructing the counterpart of the société de consommation is a société d’entreprise, géant des moyens de production a seul la force de révéler 13 Fried’s relevant texts here are of course “Three American his theory of art has from the outset granted perception takes hold in art that considers all pre- of ethical or religious ideas and its liberation from That Pumhösl presented his exhibition as an period styles for trendy chill-out spaces. Neither nomic structures that the true design challenges pleinement le sens de la production, qui est la consomma- Painters: Kenneth Noland, Jules Olitski, Frank Stella” a constitutive role to the crafts, the sciences, viously hierarchically differentiated contents — be rules of representation — is not the end of all investigation into a certain formal rhetoric can be is it particularly a “generational” matter; after all, lie. This is the unrecognizable rebirth of design tion improductive des produits”. (1965) and “Art and Objecthood” (1967), in: Art and politics, and other fields neighboring that of art. they hypotheses, situations, or objects — equal, heteronomy. What art shares, for instance, with 22 A similar redefinition of design is also evident from the seen as an indication that at that moment, when an artist like Peterman exhibited throughout the from its own ashes. Objecthood: Essays and Reviews, Chicago/London 1998, programme of Casco, Office for Art, Design and Theory Without doubt, he devoted the most extensive or equally worthy of artistic treatment. Rancière’s the sciences, crafts, or the arts of government, the looming resources and ecological crisis was 1201990s, sometimes together with Pardo, Rehberger 121 pp. 148–172, 213–265. (Utrecht), developed by Emily Pethick and Binna Choi. Notes 14 In 1960 s, Greenberg still argued that the “limiting con- depiction — or rather, defense — to the interrela- favorite in this respect is Flaubert, who describes and what they compete over, is the always already still largely repressed in public discourse, Papa- and Co. If anything, it is the coming to the fore of 23 See the exh. cat. “Solo Show”, MAMbo – Museo d’Arte 1 Jean Baudrillard, Pour une critique de l’économie politique ditions with which a picture must comply in order to be tion of art and politics. Yet his scattered explicit people and motifs from the most different social contentious division of the first sensible, the nek’s work was not yet read with the new sense of modes of practice and lines of inquiry that were Moderna di Bologna, London 2008. du signe, Paris 1972, pp. 59–194. experienced as a picture” could be “pushed back indefini- considerations upon design are no less fascinat- classes, from the salons of Paris to farmers’ “primary aesthetics”. In its totality this aesthetics urgency with which we approach it today. If this long marginalized. 2 Ibid., p. 64. tely before a picture stops being a picture and turns into ing for it; on the one hand, they lead us back into markets in the provinces, with the same attention articulates what can at all be perceived, identified, suggests a return to a certain puritan valorization It is telling that in one recent project at 3 Oddly, the second hand chair used in this installation, an arbitrary object”; a few years later, the work of Stella, bought online, has four legs instead of five, which is Rancière’s early historical work, and, on the other to minute detail. The slightly misleading term and thought at any given moment: e.g., works of of simple and elementary uses and a suspicion MAMbo in Bologna, Natascha Sadr Haghighian has Judd and others suggested to Greenberg that this leap into usually the sign of an imitation, but it does have a Herman the arbitrary was now a real threat. Clement Greenberg, RUTH SONDEREGGER hand, they might point a way for his theory of “aesthetic regime”, however, should not lead the art, furniture, airplanes, and emails, but not elves towards anything smacking of excess and waste, investigated the productions of artworks by artists Miller label. “Modernist Painting” (1960), in: The Collected Essays and TRANSGRESSION REQUIRED art out of a number of dead ends and debates that reader to conclude from the triumphant victory of or the end of capitalism. one can also see it as a collective or social version who mostly belong to the generation that came to 4 This giant flop starred John Wayne, who would later Criticism 4: Modernism with a Vengeance, 1957–1969, A Comment on Jacques Rancière seem to have gotten stuck. this equalizing perception that the art governed In light of this, it is not astonishing that of the motif of excessive and perverse use value prominence in the 1990s; in a kind of reverse pro- contract cancer, as did a suspiciously high number of other ed. John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1993, pp. 89f. See also people who had worked on the film. A central element of Rancière’s theory of art by it is reducible to a sensory event. The anti-hier- Rancière, in his essay “The Surface of Design”, in some design-related art from the last twenty ductivism (an investigation into production rather Thierry De Duve, Kant After Duchamp, Cambridge, Mass/ 5 Barnett Newman, “The First Man Was an Artist” (1947), London 1996, pp. 199 –279. is the distinction between “three major regimes archical, deregulating effect of sensation is only points out features shared by Stéphane Mallarmé, years. If the capitalist system is predicated on than its glorification), Sadr Haghighian’s project in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill 15 Clement Greenberg, “Our Period Style” (1949), in: The of identification” “[w]ith regard to what we call sparked by identifiable — which is to say, already the French poet writing “Un coup de dés jamais unlimited growth and expansion, then the intro- “Solo Show” focuses on the shadowy world of (Berkeley/Los Angeles: California Press, 1992), p. 159. Collected Essays and Criticism Volume 2, pp. 322–326. art”.1 The first two of these — the ethical and the hierarchized — objects and meanings. In other n’abolira le hasard” and Peter Behrens, German duction of social and ecological considerations companies that specialize in producing works for 6 Barnett Newman, “Open Letter to William A.M. Burden, 16 Ina Blom, On The Style Site: Art, Sociality, and Media President of the Museum of Modern Art” (1953) and representative regimes of art — originate in clas- words: the art of the aesthetic regime takes place architect, engineer and designer, who, ten years into design must appear as an excess, as a danger- the Pardos, Höllers and other art-world bigshots. Culture, Berlin/New York 2007, p. 101. “Remarks at the Fourth Annual Woodstock Arts Con- 17 Benjamin H.D. Buchloh, “Moments of History in the Work sical antiquity. The third, which Rancière calls where a categorized meaning is confronted by the later, was in charge of designing the products, ous indulgence — a danger that is not so much In Sadr Haghiahian’s reversal of values, the pro- ference” (1952), in: Selected Writings and Interviews, ed. of Dan Graham” [1978], in: Neo-Avantgarde and Culture the aesthetic regime, takes shape around 1750. chaotic sensible. adverts and even buildings of the electricity com- countered as obfuscated by attempts to present cess is more interesting than the end result, and John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1992, pp. 38, 245. Industry: Essays on European and American Art from 1955 All three have in common that they define not so Rancière distinguishes a “first”3 or “primary” 4 pany AEG (Allgemeine Elektrizitäts Gesellschaft)”5 the eco businesses as the economical motor of the what usually remains invisible is brought to light: Intriguingly, Duchamp’s 1918 painting “Tu m’” contains to 1975, London/New York 2000, p. 191. the shadows of a number of known readymades as well as 18 During the course of the 1970 s, as he increasingly much objects as practices of producing, perceiv- aesthetics from these three artistic ways of defin- (a coincidence that might easily have gone unno- future. the works by the fictitious artist Robbie Williams, that of a screwdriver. distanced himself from Marxism, it became increasingly ing, identifying, and engaging what is at a given ing a certain sector of the perceptible world as art, ticed). The “surface” on which Mallarmé’s l’art In this context, “design” not only refers to which were made by one of those specialized 7 Clement Greenberg, “Review of Exhibitions of Hedda obvious that Baudrillard’s work was underpinned by a moment considered to be art. Whereas the ethical pointing out that the aesthetics of art is pre- pour l’art and Behrens’ industrial design commu- shaping the actual products, but also their pro- firms that execute artists’ designs, are aestheti- Sterne and Adolph Gottlieb” (1947), in: The Collected hysterical mourning for a lost reality. In a fine example of Essays and Criticism 2: Arrogant Purpose, 1945–1949, ed. Jacques Rancière and his comments on the “distribu- regime, which Rancière illustrates with reference ceded by a land of the sensible which is divided nicate, thus Rancière, is nothing other than what duction processes, distribution, and “afterlife”. cally void compared to the interviews with which the pot calling the kettle black, Baudrillard accused Mar- John O’Brian, Chicago/London 1986, pp. 188f. xism of a nostalgia for pre-capitalist economies, a nostalgia tion of the sensible” have been circulating in the art to Plato, defines art by assigning it a didactic role by an internal structure — Rancière speaks of a his other writings call primary aesthetics. Here, design is being redefined in terms of formal Sadr charts the circumstances under which such 8 On Romantic symbol theory see Sven Lütticken, “After the for an oneiric reality before the universal rule of exchange, context for a considerable time as if taken for granted, 23 in service to the state, the representative-poetic ‘division’ (partage) — into a variety of modes of As Rancière summarizes at the end of “The interventions in social/economical/political contemporary art is produced. Gods”, in: New Left Review 30 (November/December 2004), seemingly offering suitable terms for just about any before alienation, while his own narrative of an increasing regime,2 which emerges later, is centered in all perception, fields of action, and their correspond- Surface of Design”, this surface is primarily (1) structures.22 Superflex’ “Free Beer” is an “open Such examples show that the excessive focus pp. 90–94. loss of reality certainly went hand in hand with such a occasion in order to demonstrate a reflective and cri- 9 “Kunst absorbiert die Symbole dadurch, dass sie nichts nostalgia. Baudrillard’s own utopia was premodern eco- tical understanding of the “aesthetic regime of art” in those rules that define the production of artistic ing subjects. Art is one of these fields; two well the surface of that equality which, from 1750 source” recipe which anyone can brew, even if it on the consumption of exchange value and sign mehr symbolisieren […]. Die Chiffren und Charaktere der nomies of “symbolical exchange”, in which objects were modernity. objects as actions of imitation without practical known others are labor and the sciences. Rancière on, makes all that is perceptible accessible to is still branded in a way that is reminiscent of capi- value is now supplemented by a consideration of Moderne sind durchweg absolut gewordene, ihrer selbst not exchanged as abstract commodities but as part of a However, from the perspective of his image theory, it purpose, rules closely associated with the clas- emphasizes, on the one hand, that this primary art; but also (2) the surface that enables a play- talist brands; the actual design of the brand, with production and its consequences. Some work that vergessene Zeichen”. Theodor W. Adorno, Ästhetische network of symbolical obligations, anchored in a hierarchy is not only the works of art but especially the utopias sification of subjects as high, low, and unworthy of aesthetics entails the relationality of all parts, i.e., ful exchange between media as diverse as that Theorie, in: Gesammelte Schriften, vol. 7, eds. Gretel that is sustained by the gods (or, in certain tribal societies, its blithely pop-modernist logo, has no imagina- is relevant in this respect does not employ any and specific manifestations of early twentieth century Adorno/Rolf Tiedemann, Frankfurt/M 1972, p. 47. the ancestors, who are seen as ever-present). Here the artistic treatment, or with the hierarchical division the fact that they are mutually defining; we can of three-dimensional objects, that of letters or tive force and thus contributes to the project’s design forms in the narrow sense, for instance industrial design that become the focal point of interest 10 This was obviously the case for Erwin Panofsky, whose symbolic is not a platonic archetype, but part of enacted of the arts into forms and genres. This regime first never speak solely about a single field. On the words, and that of forms. Mallarmé, who seeks inability to progress much beyond the “nice video pieces such as Steve McQueen’s “Gravesend” reactions to the misprinted title Vir Heroicus Sublimus of his studies on the re-distribution of the field of per- social obligations. In the capitalist market, such symbolic appears in Aristotle, but it maintains a powerful other hand, he stresses the hegemonic quality of to make the poem a book and the book a space, idea” stage. By contrast Dan Peterman’s modular (2007) or Marc Boulos’ two-channel projection (instead of Sublimis) betrays his anger at the, in his view, obligations are replaced by equivalence; this means that, as ception and its influence on democracy. On closer rea- presence in the various conceptions of rhetoric and these factual divisions of the sensible: they are not participates in this play, which is directed against constructions out of recycled materials are a more “All That Is Solid Melts into Air” (2008), which misplaced pretensions of Newman, who after all only this market penetrates societies more and more, reality is ding, it is design’s attempt to give the world a different painted abstract planes devoid of iconological meaning. form which may bring Rancière’s aesthetic thoughts on poetological treatises as late as the 18th century. merely there, or the result of mere coincidence, any media essentialism, as much as Behrens’ successful model for alternative structures and a trace the transformations of a commodity — re- lost and simulation takes over. See Barnett Newman, “Letters to the Editor (Replies to 19 Karl Marx, Capital, Volume I, trans. Ben Fowkes, London the autonomy of art out of many a dead end. In contrast with these apparatuses of the but owe their existence to acts of apportionment graphic types, which are meant to refer to concrete different habitus, precisely because they manage to spectively, the mineral coltan between a com- Erwin Panofsky), ARTnews”, in: Selected Writings and etc. 1990, p. 131. ethical and the poetic-representative, which lean to generally passive subjects or to the active stak- objects and their essence.6 But the surface of the stimulate the imagination. It should come as no modity between a Congolese mine and a western Interviews, ed. John P. O’Neill, Berkeley/Los Angeles 1990, 20 The usual French term for the “consumer society” is société pp. 216–220. surprise that contemporary practices that are rele- high-tech environment, and oil between the de consommation. In “Theory of Religion” and “The Accursed 11 Leo Steinberg, Other Criteria: Confrontations with Twen- Share”, Bataille consistently uses consommation when sacri- vant in this respect do not immediately constitute Nigerian delta and Wall Street. While it may seem tieth-Century Art, New York 1972, pp. 77f. fice, waste or excessive consumption are concerned. The some quasi-organic group à la the “relational” abstruse to discuss such works in the context of 12 Caroline Jones, Machine in the Studio: Constructing the counterpart of the société de consommation is a société d’entreprise, 122 123

120 121 Sabeth Buchmann, “Abstract Characters? Reference and Formalism in the Works of Florian Pumhösl,” Texte zur Kunst, No. 69, March 2008, pp. 98-111, pp. 182-190

SABETH BUCHMANN

SABETH BUCHMANN ABSTRAKTE CHARAKTERE? Referenz und Formalismus in den Arbeiten von Florian Pumhösl ABSTRAKTE CHARAKTERE? Referenz und Formalismus in den Arbeiten von Florian Pumhösl

Von „Altmeistern“ wie Robert Ryman und Ellsworth Kelly einmal abgesehen, die noch auf der Biennale von Venedig 2007 spätmodernistische Exerzitien in selbst- Vonbezüglicher „Altmeistern“ malerischer wie Robert Abstraktion Ryman vorführten,und Ellsworth kann Kelly für einmalden Bereich abgesehen, der „nicht- die nochgegenständlichen“ auf der Biennale Kunst von der Venedig Gegenwart 2007 spätmodernistische eine Tendenz konstatiert Exerzitien werden, in selbst sowohl- bezüglichertraditionelle malerischerMedienformate Abstraktion hinter sich vorführten, zu lassen kann – oder für zumindest den Bereich deren der Integri „nicht-- gegenständlichen“tät und historische ValiditätKunst der zu Gegenwart hinterfragen eine – alsTendenz auch diekonstatiert sozio-ökonomischen werden, sowohl traditionelleProzesse zu adressieren,Medienformate die hinter in formalistischen sich zu lassen Zeichensystemen – oder zumindest codiert deren Integriwerden.- tätDamit und einhergehend historische Validität rückt unter zu hinterfragen dem Einfluss – alsvon auch Konzeptualismus die sozio-ökonomischen und Institutions - Prozessekritik das zuAnliegen adressieren, in den dieMittelpunkt, in formalistischen die vermeintliche Zeichensystemen universale codiert Gültigkeit werden. einer Damitabstrakten einhergehend „Weltsprache“ rückt unterder Kunst, dem Einflusswie sie in von der Konzeptualismus Moderne postuliert und wurde, Institutions auf - kritikihre ideologischen das Anliegen Implikationenin den Mittelpunkt, hin zu die befragen. vermeintliche universale Gültigkeit einer abstraktenIn diesem „Weltsprache“ Zusammenhang der Kunst, setzten wie die sie jüngeren in der Moderne Arbeiten postuliert des österreichischen wurde, auf ihreKünstlers ideologischen Florian Pumhösl Implikationen eine Dialektik hin zu befragen. zwischen Bezügen auf spezifische Episo- den ausIn diesem der Geschichte Zusammenhang des Modernismus setzten die undjüngeren einer Arbeitenbewussten des visuellen österreichischen Reduktion Künstlersformaler Mittel Florian in GangPumhösl – und eine unternehmen Dialektik zwischen darin den Bezügen Versuch, auf eine spezifische methodische Episo - denKritik aus sowohl der Geschichte an den Verfahren des Modernismus des (Neo)Formalismus und einer bewussten als auch desvisuellen Referenzialis Reduktion- formalermus zu formulieren. Mittel in Gang – und unternehmen darin den Versuch, eine methodische Kritik sowohl an den Verfahren des (Neo)Formalismus als auch des Referenzialis- mus zu formulieren. Was in der traditionellen Kunstgeschichte als Errungenschaft der euro- päischen Moderne gilt, nämlich die weltweite Verbreitung abstrakter WasFormsprachen, in der traditionellen wurde – vor Kunstgeschichte allem unter dem als ErrungenschaftEindruck von Dekolonisie der euro- - päischenrungs- und Moderne Minderheitenbewegungen gilt, nämlich die weltweite der Nachkriegszeit Verbreitung – abstrakter ab den sech - Formsprachen,ziger Jahren zum wurde Gegenstand – vor allem des kritischen unter dem Diskurses. Eindruck Dasvon historische,Dekolonisie -von rungs-den Avantgarden und Minderheitenbewegungen im Sinne der Emanzipation der Nachkriegszeit vorangetriebene – ab Projekt den sech der- zigerAbstraktion Jahren habe,zum Gegenstandso die Argumentation, des kritischen aufgrund Diskurses. seiner Das bewussten historische, oder von denuneingestandenen Avantgarden im Komplizenschaften Sinne der Emanzipation mit der vorangetriebene Fortschrittsideologie Projekt kapitali der - Abstraktionstischer Herrschaftsformen habe, so die Argumentation, seine Legitimation aufgrund verloren. seiner In bewussten Gegenbewegung oder uneingestandenenhierzu wurden vom Komplizenschaften „High Modernism“ mit verbannte der Fortschrittsideologie Ausdrucksformen kapitali der - stischerFiguration Herrschaftsformen und Narration sukzessive seine Legitimation von post- undverloren. neoavantgardistischen In Gegenbewegung hierzuStrömungen wurden wieder vom aufgegriffen.„High Modernism“ Diese von verbannte Künstler/innen Ausdrucksformen wie von Histo der - Figurationriker/innen und seither Narration verfolgte sukzessive Auseinandersetzung von post- und mit neoavantgardistischen der Moderne und Strömungenden mit ihr assoziierten wieder aufgegriffen. Spielarten Diese des abstrakten von Künstler/innen Formalismus wie schlug von Histo sich- riker/innenbekanntlich seitherauch in verfolgte den kuratorischen Auseinandersetzung Programmen mit der der letzten Moderne zwei und docu - denmenten mit nieder:ihr assoziierten Auf der documentaSpielarten des 11 mitabstrakten dem Anspruch, Formalismus den Formenschlug sich- bekanntlich auch in den kuratorischen Programmen der letzten zwei docu- Florian Pumhösl, „Modernologie“, 2007, documenta 12, Kassel, Ausstellungsansicht kanon der Moderne als eine heterogene Konstellation lokaler und globaler mentenPhänomene nieder: zu begreifenAuf der documenta und somit 11die mit alleinige dem Anspruch, Urheberschaft den FormenWesteuropas- Florian Pumhösl, „Modernologie“, 2007, documenta 12, Kassel, Ausstellungsansicht kanonzu relativieren. der Moderne Hingegen als eine unternahm heterogene die Konstellation documenta 12lokaler eine rehabilitieund globaler- Phänomenerende, zwischen zu begreifen progressiv-emanzipativen und somit die alleinige und reaktionär-gewaltförmigen Urheberschaft Westeuropas zuStrömungen relativieren. unterscheidende Hingegen unternahm Revision die des documenta Modernismus 12 eine und rehabilitie suchte den- rende,damit gemeintenzwischen progressiv-emanzipativen Epochenbegriff für die von und den reaktionär-gewaltförmigen Kurator/ innen vermuteten Strömungen unterscheidende Revision des Modernismus und suchte den damit gemeinten Epochenbegriff für die von den Kurator/ innen vermuteten

98 99

98 99 SABETH BUCHMANN

ABSTRAKTE CHARAKTERE? Referenz und Formalismus in den Arbeiten von Florian Pumhösl

Korrespondenzen mit vormodernenVon „Altmeistern“ und wie außereuropäischen Robert Ryman und EllsworthFormspra Kelly- einmal abgesehen, die begriffs eintragen? Wie der gegenwärtigste, wenn auch im Vergleich mit chen zu öffnen. Inhaltlichnoch jedoch auf der streiftenBiennale vonbeide Venedig Ausstellungen 2007 spätmodernistische nur das, Exerzitien in selbst- der 2004/05 im Kunstverein in Hamburg gezeigten Ausstellung „Formalis- was seit geraumer Zeit bezüglicherpräzise umrissener malerischer Gegenstand Abstraktion modernekritischer vorführten, kann für den Bereich der „nicht- mus. Moderne Kunst, heute“ weniger zugespitzte Versuch der documenta künstlerischer Projektegegenständlichen“ ist, nämlich orts-, Kunst kontext- der Gegenwart und institutionsspe eine Tendenz- konstatiert werden, sowohl 12, (Neo-)Formalismus selbst als ein kunst- und gesellschaftskritisches Pro- traditionelle Medienformate hinter sich zu lassen – oder zumindest deren Integri- zifische Untersuchungen der Ungereimtheiten, Spannungen und Brüche jekt zu apostrophieren, gezeigt hat, überschneiden die unter diesem Label tät und historische Validität zu hinterfragen – als auch die sozio-ökonomischen abstrakter FormsprachenProzesse zwischen zu adressieren, modernistischem die in formalistischen Autonomieanspruch Zeichensystemen codiert werden. gefassten Positionen sich eben auch mit politisch konnotierten Ästhetiken, und ihrer systematischenDamit Industrialisierung einhergehend rückt und unter Popularisierung, dem Einfluss von vor Konzeptualismus allem und Institutions- definieren sich auch diese doch selten ohne eine begründungslose Bezie- durch eine globalisiertekritik Museums-, das Anliegen Ausstellungs- in den Mittelpunkt, und Medienkultur. die vermeintliche Im universale Gültigkeit einer hung zu einem (vermeintlich) unkritischen Formalismus. Unterschied zu Künstler/innen,abstrakten die „Weltsprache“ im Rahmen der ihrer Kunst, Auseinandersetzung wie sie in der Moderne postuliert wurde, auf Florian Pumhösl gehört zu einer Ende der achtziger, Anfang der neun- mit den historischen, kulturellen,ihre ideologischen sozialen Implikationen und gesellschaftsideologischen hin zu befragen. ziger Jahre unter dem Einfluss von Kontextkunst und Institutionskritik In diesem Zusammenhang setzten die jüngeren Arbeiten des österreichischen Prämissen formaler Abstraktion die hiermit assoziierten Ästhetiken mittels entstandenen verstreuten Gruppierung von Künstler/innen, die sich, wie Künstlers Florian Pumhösl eine Dialektik zwischen Bezügen auf spezifische Episo- inhaltlich codierter Referenzenden aus der (als Geschichte Zeichen, des als Modernismustextliche Information und einer bewussten visuellen Reduktion Fareed Armaly, Julie Ault/Martin Beck, Stan Douglas, Renée Green, Dorit oder Dokumentation) informaler ihre Arbeit Mittel ineinführten, Gang – und ließunternehmen der Fokus darin auf dendie Versuch, eine methodische Margreiter, Christian Philipp Müller, Mathias Poledna, Fred Wilson etc., ästhetische Form, wie erKritik auf sowohl der d 12an dendurch Verfahren das Motto des (Neo)Formalismuseiner „Migration als auch des Referenzialis- in Abgrenzung von einem transhistorischen und entpolitisierten Formbe- der Form“ gegeben war,mus diese zu formulieren. Brechung zuweilen unkenntlich werden. griff der Postmoderne den blinden Flecken des Modernismus und seinen Gleichwohl lässt sich in den vergangenen Jahren eine stärker werdende Erbschaften zugewandt hat. Insofern das Anliegen dieser Künstler/innen, Affinität zu abstrakten WasFormsprachen in der traditionellen erkennen, Kunstgeschichtedie sich nicht so alsohne Errungenschaft der euro- wie eingangs angedeutet, eine historische wie ästhetische Analyse der Weiteres auf „Inhalte“ päischenoder „Diskurse“ Moderne herunterbrechen gilt, nämlich die lässt weltweite und die Verbreitung sich abstrakter für den Hegemonieanspruch der europäischen Moderne konstitutiven augenscheinlich (post-)modernenFormsprachen, Ästhetiken wurde – der vor Figuration allem unter und dem Narra Eindruck- von Dekolonisie- Wechselbeziehungen zwischen universalistischen und marginalisierten tion ebenso widersetzt rungs-wie spezifischen und Minderheitenbewegungen Rhetoriken der Referenz. der Nachkriegszeit In dieser – ab den sech- respektive „kolonisierten“ Formsprachen war und zum Teil nach wie vor Perspektivierung drängtziger sich Jahren die These zum auf, Gegenstand dass die kritischedes kritischen Debatte Diskurses. um Das historische, von ist, ist es sicherlich nicht übertrieben zu behaupten, dass Pumhösl zu den Modernismus und Formalismusden Avantgarden der vergangenen im Sinne dervierzig Emanzipation Jahre zur wieder vorangetriebene Projekt der Künstler/innen zählt, die einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die inhaltliche größer gewordenen undAbstraktion sicherlich habe,nicht somarktunabhängigen die Argumentation, Anziehungs aufgrund -seiner bewussten oder Ausrichtung der documenta 12 hatten. Seine langjährige Aufmerksamkeit kraft „abstrakter Kunst“uneingestandenen beigetragen hat. DasKomplizenschaften heißt jedoch nicht, mit dassder Fortschrittsideologieihre kapitali- für die Geschichte abstrakter, vor allem geometrischer Formsprachen, deren zeitgenössischen Versionenstischer sich Herrschaftsformen auf jene unitär-universalistische seine Legitimation Program verloren.- In Gegenbewegung „Universalismus“ eine Folie seines künstlerischen Projekts bildet, wird auch matik und Erscheinungsweisehierzu wurden reduzieren vom ließen, „High deren Modernism“ historische verbannte Vorläufer Ausdrucksformen der an seiner zweiten Einzelausstellung erkennbar, die Ende letzten Jahres in verdächtig sind. Wenn Figurationvon einem und Einheitsprinzip Narration sukzessive die Rede vonsein post-kann, und dann neoavantgardistischen der Galerie Daniel Buchholz gezeigt wurde und die man als eine Art Spin- nur in einem Sinne, wieStrömungen ihn zeitgenössische wieder aufgegriffen. Markt- und DieseAusstellungslogiken von Künstler/innen wie von Histo- Off seines documenta 12-Beitrags „Modernologie (dreieckiges Atelier)“ suggerieren – nicht aberriker/innen in dem Sinn, seither dass verfolgte sich der AuseinandersetzungFormalismus erster, d.mit h. der Moderne und bezeichnen könnte.1 Wie in seinen früheren Werken und Ausstellungen selbstreferenzieller Ordnungden mit mit ihr einem assoziierten Formalismus Spielarten zweiter, des abstrakten d. h. referen Formalismus- schlug sich haben die Bezüge auf nichtwestliche Modernen hierbei die Funktion, die zieller Ordnung ohne Weiteresbekanntlich gleichsetzen auch in den ließe. kuratorischen Programmen der letzten zwei docu- Vorstellung von europäischer und US-amerikanischer „Moderne“ als einer Aufgrund des sich seitmenten einiger nieder: Zeit Aufausdifferenzierenden der documenta 11 Lagers mit dem des Anspruch, den Formen- soziogeografisch und kulturell kohärenten Entstehungs- und Entwicklungs- Florian Pumhösl, „Modernologie“, 2007, documenta 12, Kassel, Ausstellungsansicht sogenannten (Neo-)Formalismus,kanon der Moderne dem so unterschiedlicheals eine heterogene Künstler/innen Konstellation lokaler und globaler geschichte aufzubrechen. Insofern beide Ausstellungen in später dargestell- wie Tomma Abts, SergejPhänomene Jensen, Wade zu begreifen Guyton, Michaelund somit Krebber, die alleinige Florian Urheberschaft Westeuropas ter Form den Ort ihrer Präsentation berücksichtigen, tritt – sichtbar vor Pumhösl, Anselm Reylezu und relativieren. Katja Strunz Hingegen zugeordnet unternahm werden, die scheint documenta es 12 eine rehabilitie- allem in „Modernologie“ − die Spannung zwischen Universalismuskritik unnötig, dessen Antitheserende, gegen zwischen die Vorstellung progressiv-emanzipativen einer inhärenten und„Politi reaktionär-gewaltförmigen- und der zeitgenössischen Globalisierung solcher Kritik durch ein ubiqui- zität“ von Kunst auf dasStrömungen leicht überschaubare unterscheidende Feld der Revision üblichen des Verdächti Modernismus- und suchte den täres „kritisches“ Ausstellungs- und Diskurswesen zu Tage. gen zu projizieren: Aufdamit Issue- gemeinten und Kontextkunst Epochenbegriff einerseits für und die –von in derenden Kurator/ innen vermuteten Demgegenüber gaben sich der d 12-Beitrag und auch die Ausstellung negativer Verkehrung – auf unpolitischen Formalismus andererseits. Denn bei Buchholz mit „Criticality“-Beweisen weitgehend zurückhaltend. Das in der kleinste Nenner, der die Formalist/innen zusammenschweißt, scheint beiden Fällen äußerst kondensierte Formenvokabular, das auch Pumhösls eine (je nach Ausstellungskontext spezifisch vermessene) Distanz gegenüber aktuellste Ausstellung in der Londoner Lisson Gallery2 auszeichnet, scheint

98 99 kanonischen Kunst&Politik-Formeln zu sein, die indes auch von denen in seine Zuordnung zum Lager der (Neo-)Formalist/innen insofern zu recht- Anspruch genommen wird, die mit ihren Arbeiten ein „inhaltliches“ Anlie- fertigen, als hierin eine im Vergleich mit seinen früheren, oftmals installa- gen verbunden wissen wollen: Denn welche/r Künstler/in (und welche/r tiven Werkformen explizite Reduktion auf formal-abstrakte Bildhaftigkeit Kritiker/in) wollte sich allen Ernstes den Vorwurf eines formblinden Kunst- aufﬁel. Damit wird thematisch, was das eben doch nicht gänzlich span-

100 101 Korrespondenzen mit vormodernen und außereuropäischenKorrespondenzen Formspra- mit vormodernen und außereuropäischen Formspra- begriffs eintragen? Wie der gegenwärtigste, wenn auchbegriffs im Vergleich eintragen? mit Wie der gegenwärtigste, wenn auch im Vergleich mit chen zu öffnen. Inhaltlich jedoch streiften beide Ausstellungenchen zu nuröffnen. das, Inhaltlich jedoch streiften beide Ausstellungen nur das, der 2004/05 im Kunstverein in Hamburg gezeigten Ausstellungder 2004 /„Formalis05 im Kunstverein- in Hamburg gezeigten Ausstellung „Formalis- was seit geraumer Zeit präzise umrissener Gegenstand modernekritischerwas seit geraumer Zeit präzise umrissener Gegenstand modernekritischer mus. Moderne Kunst, heute“ weniger zugespitzte Versuchmus. der Moderne documenta Kunst, heute“ weniger zugespitzte Versuch der documenta künstlerischer Projekte ist, nämlich orts-, kontext- und künstlerischerinstitutionsspe Projekte- ist, nämlich orts-, kontext- und institutionsspe- 12, (Neo-)Formalismus selbst als ein kunst- und gesellschaftskritisches12, (Neo-)Formalismus Pro- selbst als ein kunst- und gesellschaftskritisches Pro- zifische Untersuchungen der Ungereimtheiten, Spannungenzifische und Untersuchungen Brüche der Ungereimtheiten, Spannungen und Brüche jekt zu apostrophieren, gezeigt hat, überschneiden die unterjekt zu diesem apostrophieren, Label gezeigt hat, überschneiden die unter diesem Label abstrakter Formsprachen zwischen modernistischem Autonomieanspruchabstrakter Formsprachen zwischen modernistischem Autonomieanspruch gefassten Positionen sich eben auch mit politisch konnotiertengefassten Ästhetiken, Positionen sich eben auch mit politisch konnotierten Ästhetiken, und ihrer systematischen Industrialisierung und Popularisierung,und ihrer systematischen vor allem Industrialisierung und Popularisierung, vor allem definieren sich auch diese doch selten ohne eine begründungslosedefinieren sich Bezie auch- diese doch selten ohne eine begründungslose Bezie- durch eine globalisierte Museums-, Ausstellungs- und Medienkultur.durch eine globalisierte Im Museums-, Ausstellungs- und Medienkultur. Im hung zu einem (vermeintlich) unkritischen Formalismus.hung zu einem (vermeintlich) unkritischen Formalismus. Unterschied zu Künstler/innen, die im Rahmen ihrer AuseinandersetzungUnterschied zu Künstler/innen, die im Rahmen ihrer Auseinandersetzung Florian Pumhösl gehört zu einer Ende der achtziger, AnfangFlorian der Pumhösl neun- gehört zu einer Ende der achtziger, Anfang der neun- mit den historischen, kulturellen, sozialen und gesellschaftsideologischenmit den historischen, kulturellen, sozialen und gesellschaftsideologischen ziger Jahre unter dem Einfluss von Kontextkunst und Institutionskritikziger Jahre unter dem Einfluss von Kontextkunst und Institutionskritik Prämissen formaler Abstraktion die hiermit assoziiertenPrämissen Ästhetiken formaler mittels Abstraktion die hiermit assoziierten Ästhetiken mittels entstandenen verstreuten Gruppierung von Künstler/innen,entstandenen die sich, verstreutenwie Gruppierung von Künstler/innen, die sich, wie inhaltlich codierter Referenzen (als Zeichen, als textlicheinhaltlich Information codierter Referenzen (als Zeichen, als textliche Information Fareed Armaly, Julie Ault/Martin Beck, Stan Douglas, RenéeFareed Green, Armaly, Dorit Julie Ault/Martin Beck, Stan Douglas, Renée Green, Dorit oder Dokumentation) in ihre Arbeit einführten, ließ deroder Fokus Dokumentation) auf die in ihre Arbeit einführten, ließ der Fokus auf die Margreiter, Christian Philipp Müller, Mathias Poledna, FredMargreiter, Wilson Christian etc., Philipp Müller, Mathias Poledna, Fred Wilson etc., ästhetische Form, wie er auf der d 12 durch das Motto einerästhetische „Migration Form, wie er auf der d 12 durch das Motto einer „Migration in Abgrenzung von einem transhistorischen und entpolitisiertenin Abgrenzung Formbe von- einem transhistorischen und entpolitisierten Formbe- der Form“ gegeben war, diese Brechung zuweilen unkenntlichder Form“ werden. gegeben war, diese Brechung zuweilen unkenntlich werden. griff der Postmoderne den blinden Flecken des Modernismusgriff der und Postmoderne seinen den blinden Flecken des Modernismus und seinen Gleichwohl lässt sich in den vergangenen Jahren eine stärkerGleichwohl werdende lässt sich in den vergangenen Jahren eine stärker werdende Erbschaften zugewandt hat. Insofern das Anliegen dieserErbschaften Künstler/innen, zugewandt hat. Insofern das Anliegen dieser Künstler/innen, Affinität zu abstrakten Formsprachen erkennen, die sichAffinität nicht so zu ohne abstrakten Formsprachen erkennen, die sich nicht so ohne wie eingangs angedeutet, eine historische wie ästhetischewie Analyse eingangs der angedeutet, eine historische wie ästhetische Analyse der Weiteres auf „Inhalte“ oder „Diskurse“ herunterbrechenWeiteres lässt und auf die „Inhalte“ sich oder „Diskurse“ herunterbrechen lässt und die sich für den Hegemonieanspruch der europäischen Modernefür konstitutiven den Hegemonieanspruch der europäischen Moderne konstitutiven augenscheinlich (post-)modernen Ästhetiken der Figurationaugenscheinlich und Narra- (post-)modernen Ästhetiken der Figuration und Narra- Wechselbeziehungen zwischen universalistischen und marginalisiertenWechselbeziehungen zwischen universalistischen und marginalisierten tion ebenso widersetzt wie spezifischen Rhetoriken dertion Referenz. ebenso In widersetzt dieser wie spezifischen Rhetoriken der Referenz. In dieser respektive „kolonisierten“ Formsprachen war und zum respektiveTeil nach wie„kolonisierten“ vor Formsprachen war und zum Teil nach wie vor Perspektivierung drängt sich die These auf, dass die kritischePerspektivierung Debatte um drängt sich die These auf, dass die kritische Debatte um ist, ist es sicherlich nicht übertrieben zu behaupten, dassist, Pumhösl ist es sicherlich zu den nicht übertrieben zu behaupten, dass Pumhösl zu den Modernismus und Formalismus der vergangenen vierzigModernismus Jahre zur wieder und Formalismus der vergangenen vierzig Jahre zur wieder Künstler/innen zählt, die einen entscheidenden EinflussKünstler/innen auf die inhaltliche zählt, die einen entscheidenden Einfluss auf die inhaltliche größer gewordenen und sicherlich nicht marktunabhängigengrößer Anziehungs gewordenen- und sicherlich nicht marktunabhängigen Anziehungs- Ausrichtung der documenta 12 hatten. Seine langjährigeAusrichtung Aufmerksamkeit der documenta 12 hatten. Seine langjährige Aufmerksamkeit kraft „abstrakter Kunst“ beigetragen hat. Das heißt jedochkraft nicht, „abstrakter dass ihre Kunst“ beigetragen hat. Das heißt jedoch nicht, dass ihre für die Geschichte abstrakter, vor allem geometrischer Formsprachen,für die Geschichte deren abstrakter, vor allem geometrischer Formsprachen, deren zeitgenössischen Versionen sich auf jene unitär-universalistischezeitgenössischen Program Versionen- sich auf jene unitär-universalistische Program- „Universalismus“ eine Folie seines künstlerischen Projekts„Universalismus“ bildet, wird auch eine Folie seines künstlerischen Projekts bildet, wird auch matik und Erscheinungsweise reduzieren ließen, deren matikhistorische und Erscheinungsweise Vorläufer reduzieren ließen, deren historische Vorläufer an seiner zweiten Einzelausstellung erkennbar, die Endean letzten seiner Jahres zweiten in Einzelausstellung erkennbar, die Ende letzten Jahres in verdächtig sind. Wenn von einem Einheitsprinzip die Redeverdächtig sein kann, sind. dann Wenn von einem Einheitsprinzip die Rede sein kann, dann der Galerie Daniel Buchholz gezeigt wurde und die mander als Galerie eine Art Daniel Spin- Buchholz gezeigt wurde und die man als eine Art Spin- nur in einem Sinne, wie ihn zeitgenössische Markt- undnur Ausstellungslogiken in einem Sinne, wie ihn zeitgenössische Markt- und Ausstellungslogiken Off seines documenta 12-Beitrags „Modernologie (dreieckigesOff seines Atelier)“ documenta 12-Beitrags „Modernologie (dreieckiges Atelier)“ suggerieren – nicht aber in dem Sinn, dass sich der Formalismussuggerieren erster, – nicht d. h. aber in dem Sinn, dass sich der Formalismus erster, d. h. bezeichnen könnte.1 Wie in seinen früheren Werken undbezeichnen Ausstellungen könnte. 1 Wie in seinen früheren Werken und Ausstellungen selbstreferenzieller Ordnung mit einem Formalismus zweiter,selbstreferenzieller d. h. referen -Ordnung mit einem Formalismus zweiter, d. h. referen- haben die Bezüge auf nichtwestliche Modernen hierbeihaben die Funktion, die Bezüge die auf nichtwestliche Modernen hierbei die Funktion, die zieller Ordnung ohne Weiteres gleichsetzen ließe. zieller Ordnung ohne Weiteres gleichsetzen ließe. Vorstellung von europäischer und US-amerikanischer „Moderne“Vorstellung als von einer europäischer und US-amerikanischer „Moderne“ als einer Aufgrund des sich seit einiger Zeit ausdifferenzierendenAufgrund Lagers des des sich seit einiger Zeit ausdifferenzierenden Lagers des soziogeografisch und kulturell kohärenten Entstehungs-soziogeografisch und Entwicklungs und- kulturell kohärenten Entstehungs- und Entwicklungs- sogenannten (Neo-)Formalismus, dem so unterschiedlichesogenannten Künstler/innen (Neo-)Formalismus, dem so unterschiedliche Künstler/innen geschichte aufzubrechen. Insofern beide Ausstellungen geschichtein später dargestell aufzubrechen.- Insofern beide Ausstellungen in später dargestell- wie Tomma Abts, Sergej Jensen, Wade Guyton, Michaelwie Krebber, Tomma Florian Abts, Sergej Jensen, Wade Guyton, Michael Krebber, Florian ter Form den Ort ihrer Präsentation berücksichtigen, trittter –Form sichtbar den vorOrt ihrer Präsentation berücksichtigen, tritt – sichtbar vor Pumhösl, Anselm Reyle und Katja Strunz zugeordnet werden,Pumhösl, scheint Anselm es Reyle und Katja Strunz zugeordnet werden, scheint es allem in „Modernologie“ − die Spannung zwischen Universalismuskritikallem in „Modernologie“ − die Spannung zwischen Universalismuskritik unnötig, dessen Antithese gegen die Vorstellung einer inhärentenunnötig, dessen „Politi Antithese- gegen die Vorstellung einer inhärenten „Politi- und der zeitgenössischen Globalisierung solcher Kritik unddurch der ein zeitgenössischen ubiqui- Globalisierung solcher Kritik durch ein ubiqui- zität“ von Kunst auf das leicht überschaubare Feld der üblichenzität“ von Verdächti Kunst auf- das leicht überschaubare Feld der üblichen Verdächti- täres „kritisches“ Ausstellungs- und Diskurswesen zu Tage.täres „kritisches“ Ausstellungs- und Diskurswesen zu Tage. gen zu projizieren: Auf Issue- und Kontextkunst einerseitsgen und zu projizieren: – in deren Auf Issue- und Kontextkunst einerseits und – in deren Demgegenüber gaben sich der d 12-Beitrag und auch dieDemgegenüber Ausstellung gaben sich der d 12-Beitrag und auch die Ausstellung negativer Verkehrung – auf unpolitischen Formalismus negativerandererseits. Verkehrung Denn – auf unpolitischen Formalismus andererseits. Denn bei Buchholz mit „Criticality“-Beweisen weitgehend zurückhaltend.bei Buchholz Dasmit in„Criticality“-Beweisen weitgehend zurückhaltend. Das in der kleinste Nenner, der die Formalist/innen zusammenschweißt,der kleinste scheintNenner, der die Formalist/innen zusammenschweißt, scheint beiden Fällen äußerst kondensierte Formenvokabular, dasbeiden auch Fällen Pumhösls äußerst kondensierte Formenvokabular, das auch Pumhösls eine (je nach Ausstellungskontext spezifisch vermessene)eine Distanz (je nach gegenüber Ausstellungskontext spezifisch vermessene) Distanz gegenüber aktuellste Ausstellung in der Londoner Lisson Gallery2 auszeichnet,aktuellste Ausstellung scheint in der Londoner Lisson Gallery2 auszeichnet, scheint kanonischen Kunst&Politik-Formeln zu sein, die indes auchkanonischen von denen Kunst&Politik-Formeln in zu sein, die indes auch von denen in seine Zuordnung zum Lager der (Neo-)Formalist/innenseine insofern Zuordnung zu recht zum- Lager der (Neo-)Formalist/innen insofern zu recht- Anspruch genommen wird, die mit ihren Arbeiten ein Anspruch„inhaltliches“ genommen Anlie- wird, die mit ihren Arbeiten ein „inhaltliches“ Anlie- fertigen, als hierin eine im Vergleich mit seinen früheren,fertigen, oftmals als installa hierin -eine im Vergleich mit seinen früheren, oftmals installa- gen verbunden wissen wollen: Denn welche/r Künstler/ingen (undverbunden welche/r wissen wollen: Denn welche/r Künstler/in (und welche/r tiven Werkformen explizite Reduktion auf formal-abstraktetiven Bildhaftigkeit Werkformen explizite Reduktion auf formal-abstrakte Bildhaftigkeit Kritiker/in) wollte sich allen Ernstes den Vorwurf einesKritiker/in) formblinden wollte Kunst sich- allen Ernstes den Vorwurf eines formblinden Kunst- auffiel. Damit wird thematisch, was das eben doch nichtauffiel. gänzlich Damit span wird- thematisch, was das eben doch nicht gänzlich span-

100 100 101 101 nungsbereinigte Verhältnis von formreflektierten Referentialist/innen und Florian Pumhösl, referenzversierten Formalist/innen ausmacht: Nämlich die Frage nach der „OA 1979-3-5-036“, (Politik der) Sichtbarkeit der Differenzen zwischen formal-abstrakter Ästhe- 2007/2008, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, tik als historisch-politischem Objekt einerseits und als selbstreferenziellem Ausstellungsansicht Mittel der Darstellung andererseits. In „Modernologie“ – ein Titel, der ein nungsbereinigte Verhältnis von formreflektierten Referentialist/innennungsbereinigte und Verhältnis von formreflektierten Referentialist/innenFlorian Pumhösl, und Florian Pumhösl, gleichlautendes Werk des japanischen Architekten Kon Wajiro zitiert – war referenzversierten Formalist/innen ausmacht: Nämlichreferenzversierten die Frage nach der Formalist/innen ausmacht: Nämlich„OA 1979-3-5-036“,die Frage nach der „OA 1979-3-5-036“, es genau diese Spannung zwischen einem (modernen) Formalismus erster, 2007/2008, Galerie Daniel 2007/2008, Galerie Daniel (Politik der) Sichtbarkeit der Differenzen zwischen formal-abstrakter(Politik der) Sichtbarkeit Ästhe- der Differenzen zwischen formal-abstrakter Ästhe- selbstreferenzieller und einem (postmodernen) Formalismus zweiter, refe- Buchholz, Köln, Buchholz, Köln, tik als historisch-politischem Objekt einerseits und als selbstreferenziellemtik als historisch-politischem Objekt einerseits und alsAusstellungsansicht selbstreferenziellem renzieller Ordnung, die der Thematik des grafisch inszenierten Bilderzyklus Ausstellungsansicht Mittel der Darstellung andererseits. In „Modernologie“ Mittel– ein Titel,der Darstellung der ein andererseits. In „Modernologie“ – ein Titel, der ein auf methodischer Ebene abzulesen war: Bewusste und unbewusste Korre- gleichlautendes Werk des japanischen Architekten Kon gleichlautendesWajiro zitiert – warWerk des japanischen Architekten Kon Wajiro zitiert – war spondenzen zwischen japanischen, russischen und deutschen Avantgarden es genau diese Spannung zwischen einem (modernen) esFormalismus genau diese erster, Spannung zwischen einem (modernen) Formalismus erster, der zwanziger und dreißiger Jahre in eine an Pumhösls historischen Refe- selbstreferenzieller und einem (postmodernen) Formalismusselbstreferenzieller zweiter, refe -und einem (postmodernen) Formalismus zweiter, referenzen angelehnte Formsprache übertragend, schien „Modernologie“ weni- renzieller Ordnung, die der Thematik des grafisch inszeniertenrenzieller Bilderzyklus Ordnung, die der Thematik des grafisch inszenierten Bilderzyklus ger auf eine dezidiert politische Lesbarkeit historischer Referenzen angelegt auf methodischer Ebene abzulesen war: Bewusste und unbewussteauf methodischer Korre -Ebene abzulesen war: Bewusste und unbewusste Korre- als vielmehr auf eine ästhetisch stringente Aktualisierung der in dieser spondenzen zwischen japanischen, russischen und deutschenspondenzen Avantgarden zwischen japanischen, russischen und deutschen Avantgarden begründeten Präsentationsform. Und genau diese rief die Frage nach den der zwanziger und dreißiger Jahre in eine an Pumhöslsder historischen zwanziger Refe und- dreißiger Jahre in eine an Pumhösls historischen Refe- Unterscheidungsmerkmalen hinsichtlich jener postmodernen Revisionen renzen angelehnte Formsprache übertragend, schien „Modernologie“renzen angelehnte weni Formsprache- übertragend, schien „Modernologie“ weni- der geometrischen Abstraktion auf, die – wie Gerhard Merz in den achtziger ger auf eine dezidiert politische Lesbarkeit historischer gerReferenzen auf eine angelegtdezidiert politische Lesbarkeit historischer Referenzen angelegt Jahren – Lyotards kantianisches Credo des „ästhetisch Sublimen“ auf ihre als vielmehr auf eine ästhetisch stringente Aktualisierungals dervielmehr in dieser auf eine ästhetisch stringente Aktualisierung der in dieser „Modernismen“ übertrugen: Auf Mondrian, Malewitsch, Rodtschenko, begründeten Präsentationsform. Und genau diese rief diebegründeten Frage nach Präsentationsform. den Und genau diese rief die Frage nach den Rothko und Newman. Der Unterschied ist zweifelsohne gewaltig und liegt mediale Methodik des Referenzierens nicht nur nicht ausgeblendet, sondern Unterscheidungsmerkmalen hinsichtlich jener postmodernenUnterscheidungsmerkmalen Revisionen hinsichtlich jener postmodernen Revisionen – auf den ersten Blick – vor allem in der Verweigerung von monumentaler zum Gegenstand seiner Motivwahl wurde.3 Behauptungen historischer der geometrischen Abstraktion auf, die – wie Gerhard Merzder geometrischen in den achtziger Abstraktion auf, die – wie Gerhard Merz in den achtziger Form und visueller Opulenz, etwa in Form einer Reauratisierung von Raum Evidenz als Resultat eines notwendigerweise verzerrenden, weil interpre- Jahren – Lyotards kantianisches Credo des „ästhetisch Sublimen“Jahren – Lyotards auf ihre kantianisches Credo des „ästhetisch Sublimen“ auf ihre und Farbe. So gehören zu Pumhösls bevorzugten Techniken Fotogramme tierenden künstlerischen Übersetzungsprozesses kennzeichnend, vollzog „Modernismen“ übertrugen: Auf Mondrian, Malewitsch,„Modernismen“ Rodtschenko, übertrugen: Auf Mondrian, Malewitsch, Rodtschenko, ebenso wie „Kunstharzlack hinter Glas“, mithin Formsprachen, die eine „Modernologie“ – neben dem vermutlich gegen einschlägige Geschichts- Rothko und Newman. Der Unterschied ist zweifelsohneRothko gewaltig und und Newman. liegt Der Unterschied ist zweifelsohne gewaltig und liegt mediale Methodik des Referenzierens nicht nur nicht ausgeblendet,mediale Methodik sondern des Referenzierens nicht nur nicht ausgeblendet, sondern dezidiert grafische Darstellungsqualität auszeichnet. schreibungen gerichteten Anspruch, (avantgardistischen) Funktionalismus – auf den ersten Blick – vor allem in der Verweigerung –von auf monumentaler den ersten Blick – vor allem in der Verweigerung von monumentaler zum Gegenstand seiner Motivwahl wurde.3 Behauptungenzum historischer Gegenstand seiner Motivwahl wurde.3 Behauptungen historischer Im Kontext der documenta 12 als Inbegriff der zeitgenössischen Kunst- und (modernistische) Ästhetik aufeinander zu beziehen – eine Engfüh- Form und visueller Opulenz, etwa in Form einer ReauratisierungForm und visuellervon Raum Opulenz, etwa in Form einer Reauratisierung von Raum Evidenz als Resultat eines notwendigerweise verzerrenden,Evidenz weil als interpre Resultat- eines notwendigerweise verzerrenden, weil interpre- ausstellung schlechthin, die, wie erwähnt, mit der eigenen künstlerischen rung von „funktionalen“ und „autonomen“ Objektsprachen. So war die an und Farbe. So gehören zu Pumhösls bevorzugten Technikenund Farbe. Fotogramme So gehören zu Pumhösls bevorzugten Techniken Fotogramme tierenden künstlerischen Übersetzungsprozesses kennzeichnend,tierenden künstlerischenvollzog Übersetzungsprozesses kennzeichnend, vollzog Programmatik argumentierte, sah Pumhösls Entscheidung, einige wenige avantgardistische Druckgrafik und Atelierarchitektur angelehnte Ausstel- ebenso wie „Kunstharzlack hinter Glas“, mithin Formsprachen,ebenso wie die „Kunstharzlack eine hinter Glas“, mithin Formsprachen, die eine „Modernologie“ – neben dem vermutlich gegen einschlägige„Modernologie“ Geschichts –- neben dem vermutlich gegen einschlägige Geschichts- kleinformatige, in schwarz, weiß und grau gehaltene Glasbilder in einer lungsgestaltung formal so weitgehend reduziert, dass man sie in einem dezidiert grafische Darstellungsqualität auszeichnet. dezidiert grafische Darstellungsqualität auszeichnet. schreibungen gerichteten Anspruch, (avantgardistischen)schreibungen Funktionalismus gerichteten Anspruch, (avantgardistischen) Funktionalismus räumlichen Installation zu zeigen, die auf das 1926 entworfene „dreieckige emphatischen Sinn weder als funktional noch als autonom bezeichnen Im Kontext der documenta 12 als Inbegriff der zeitgenössischenIm Kontext Kunst der- documenta 12 als Inbegriff der zeitgenössischen Kunst- und (modernistische) Ästhetik aufeinander zu beziehenund – eine (modernistische) Engfüh- Ästhetik aufeinander zu beziehen – eine Engfüh- Atelier“ des Künstlers und Gestalters Murayama Tomoyoshi und die 1914 konnte. Genau das war in „OA 1979-3-5-036“ sichtbar anders, denn auf den ausstellung schlechthin, die, wie erwähnt, mit der eigenenausstellung künstlerischen schlechthin, die, wie erwähnt, mit der eigenen künstlerischen rung von „funktionalen“ und „autonomen“ Objektsprachen.rung vonSo war „funktionalen“ die an und „autonomen“ Objektsprachen. So war die an in Tokio gezeigte Sturm-Ausstellung verwies, nicht nach „großem Auftritt“ Galeriewänden stach der sich zweifelsohne seines Sammlerwerts bewusste Programmatik argumentierte, sah Pumhösls Entscheidung,Programmatik einige wenige argumentierte, sah Pumhösls Entscheidung, einige wenige avantgardistische Druckgrafik und Atelierarchitektur angelehnteavantgardistische Ausstel- Druckgrafik und Atelierarchitektur angelehnte Ausstel- aus. Ich wunderte mich offen gestanden darüber, dass Pumhösl nur so Doppelcharakter der nun in wiederholter Auflage produzierten Glasbilder kleinformatige, in schwarz, weiß und grau gehaltene Glasbilderkleinformatige, in einer in schwarz, weiß und grau gehaltene Glasbilder in einer lungsgestaltung formal so weitgehend reduziert, dass manlungsgestaltung sie in einem formal so weitgehend reduziert, dass man sie in einem „wenig“ zeigte und wie ich im Gespräch erfuhr, ging es anderen Besu - als funktionale und autonome Objekte umso deutlicher hervor. Mit dem räumlichen Installation zu zeigen, die auf das 1926 entworfeneräumlichen „dreieckige Installation zu zeigen, die auf das 1926 entworfene „dreieckige emphatischen Sinn weder als funktional noch als autonomemphatischen bezeichnen Sinn weder als funktional noch als autonom bezeichnen cher/innen, die seine Arbeit mit Interesse verfolgen, ähnlich. Zudem fiel ihnen inhärenten Verweis auf das avantgardistische Unterfangen, Malerei Atelier“ des Künstlers und Gestalters Murayama TomoyoshiAtelier“ und des die Künstlers 1914 und Gestalters Murayama Tomoyoshi und die 1914 konnte. Genau das war in „OA 1979-3-5-036“ sichtbar anders,konnte. denn Genau auf das den war in „OA 1979-3-5-036“ sichtbar anders, denn auf den auf, dass Pumhösls Beitrag nicht die Erwartungen erfüllte (oder vielleicht und Skulptur in ihrer Rolle als hegemoniale Gattungen durch dynamischere in Tokio gezeigte Sturm-Ausstellung verwies, nicht nachin „großem Tokio gezeigte Auftritt“ Sturm-Ausstellung verwies, nicht nach „großem Auftritt“ Galeriewänden stach der sich zweifelsohne seines SammlerwertsGaleriewänden bewusste stach der sich zweifelsohne seines Sammlerwerts bewusste nicht zu erfüllen suchte), die die documenta 12 mit ihren Motti „Ist die – so durch fotografie- und filmbasierte – Medien den Rang abzulaufen, aus. Ich wunderte mich offen gestanden darüber, dass Pumhöslaus. Ich wunderte nur so mich offen gestanden darüber, dass Pumhösl nur so Doppelcharakter der nun in wiederholter Auflage produziertenDoppelcharakter Glasbilder der nun in wiederholter Auflage produzierten Glasbilder Moderne unsere Antike?“ und „Migration der Form“ geschürt hatte. Ob schienen sie zudem dazu angetan, der mangelnder Medienreflexivität und „wenig“ zeigte und wie ich im Gespräch erfuhr, ging es„wenig“ anderen zeigte Besu -und wie ich im Gespräch erfuhr, ging es anderen Besu - als funktionale und autonome Objekte umso deutlicherals hervor. funktionale Mit dem und autonome Objekte umso deutlicher hervor. Mit dem intendiert oder nicht, unterschied sich „Modernologie“ in dieser Hin- ästhetischer Reizlosigkeit verdächtigen Konzeptkunst ein distinktes Medien- cher/innen, die seine Arbeit mit Interesse verfolgen, ähnlich.cher/innen, Zudem die fiel seine Arbeit mit Interesse verfolgen, ähnlich. Zudem fiel ihnen inhärenten Verweis auf das avantgardistische Unterfangen,ihnen inhärenten Malerei Verweis auf das avantgardistische Unterfangen, Malerei sicht etwa von jenen vereindeutigenden Lesarten, die wie James Colemans format entgegenzusetzen. auf, dass Pumhösls Beitrag nicht die Erwartungen erfüllteauf, (oder dass Pumhöslsvielleicht Beitrag nicht die Erwartungen erfüllte (oder vielleicht und Skulptur in ihrer Rolle als hegemoniale Gattungen unddurch Skulptur dynamischere in ihrer Rolle als hegemoniale Gattungen durch dynamischere „Retake with Evidence“ auf geradezu programmatische Weise Referenz mit Die historische Lektion des „medienreferenziellen Funktionalismus“, nicht zu erfüllen suchte), die die documenta 12 mit ihrennicht Motti zu erfüllen„Ist die suchte), die die documenta 12 mit ihren Motti „Ist die – so durch fotografie- und filmbasierte – Medien den Rang– so abzulaufen,durch fotografie- und filmbasierte – Medien den Rang abzulaufen, historischer Evidenz gleichsetzen. Von den solcherart im hohen Kunstton den Modus der Präsentation zum Gegenstand einer sich wechselseitig Moderne unsere Antike?“ und „Migration der Form“ geschürtModerne hatte. unsere Ob Antike?“ und „Migration der Form“ geschürt hatte. Ob schienen sie zudem dazu angetan, der mangelnder Medienreflexivitätschienen sie zudem und dazu angetan, der mangelnder Medienreflexivität und entleerten Melodien eines neoklassischen Formalismus unterschied sich bedingenden Übersetzung von Objekt und räumlicher Umgebung zu intendiert oder nicht, unterschied sich „Modernologie“intendiert in dieser Hinoder- nicht, unterschied sich „Modernologie“ in dieser Hin- ästhetischer Reizlosigkeit verdächtigen Konzeptkunst einästhetischer distinktes ReizlosigkeitMedien- verdächtigen Konzeptkunst ein distinktes Medien- Pumhösls Arbeit schon alleine dadurch, dass in seiner Arbeit die technisch- machen, war dementsprechend auch in „Modernologie“ spürbar, in augen- sicht etwa von jenen vereindeutigenden Lesarten, die wiesicht James etwa Colemans von jenen vereindeutigenden Lesarten, die wie James Colemans format entgegenzusetzen. format entgegenzusetzen. „Retake with Evidence“ auf geradezu programmatische„Retake Weise Referenz with Evidence“ mit auf geradezu programmatische Weise Referenz mit Die historische Lektion des „medienreferenziellen Funktionalismus“,Die historische Lektion des „medienreferenziellen Funktionalismus“, historischer Evidenz gleichsetzen. Von den solcherart imhistorischer hohen Kunstton Evidenz gleichsetzen. Von den solcherart im hohen Kunstton den Modus der Präsentation zum Gegenstand einer sichden wechselseitig Modus der Präsentation zum Gegenstand einer sich wechselseitig entleerten Melodien eines neoklassischen Formalismus entleertenunterschied Melodien sich eines neoklassischen Formalismus unterschied sich bedingenden Übersetzung von Objekt und räumlicher Umgebungbedingenden zu Übersetzung von Objekt und räumlicher Umgebung zu 102Pumhösls Arbeit schon alleine dadurch, dass in seiner ArbeitPumhösls die technisch-Arbeit schon alleine dadurch, dass in seiner Arbeit die technisch- 103machen, war dementsprechend auch in „Modernologie“machen, spürbar, war in augendementsprechend- auch in „Modernologie“ spürbar, in augen-

102 102 103 103 scheinlicher Distanz gegenüber einem Inhalt heischendenscheinlicher Referenzialismus Distanz gegenüber einem Inhalt heischenden Referenzialismus von „Modernologie“ war, ließe sich demnach – zugespitztvon formuliert „Modernologie“ – auf war, ließe sich demnach – zugespitzt formuliert – auf einerseits und einem kontextentleerten Formalismus andererseits.einerseits und Doch einem kontextentleerten Formalismus andererseits. Doch die strukturell spannungsgeladene künstlerische (Selbst-)Verpflichtungdie strukturell spannungsgeladene auf künstlerische (Selbst-)Verpflichtung auf obgleich ein Text mit Werkinformationen zur Verfügungobgleich stand, eröffneteein Text mit Werkinformationen zur Verfügung stand, eröffnete kritischen Diskurs einerseits und auf formatierte Marktinteressenkritischen andererDiskurs- einerseits und auf formatierte Marktinteressen anderer- sich (mir) die Fülle der formalen Bezüge und Differenzensich innerhalb (mir) die des Fülle der formalen Bezüge und Differenzen innerhalb des seits ausweiten. seits ausweiten. angeeigneten Materials und seiner Neudeutung nicht inangeeigneten dem Maße, in Materials dem und seiner Neudeutung nicht in dem Maße, in dem So stellten die Fragen, die sich mir angesichts des SelbstverständnissesSo stellten die Fragen, die sich mir angesichts des Selbstverständnisses sie sich nun in einer nachträglichen Besprechung erarbeitensie sich und nun behaupten in einer nachträglichen Besprechung erarbeiten und behaupten von „Modernologie“ aufgedrängt hatten, eine wesentlichevon Voraussetzung „Modernologie“ aufgedrängt hatten, eine wesentliche Voraussetzung lässt. Das liegt, wie bereits angedeutet, daran, dass „Modernologie“lässt. Das liegt, auf wie das bereits angedeutet, daran, dass „Modernologie“ auf das auch für meine Wahrnehmung seiner Ausstellung bei Buchholzauch für dar.meine Denn Wahrnehmung seiner Ausstellung bei Buchholz dar. Denn verzichtete, was frühere Arbeiten Pumhösls auszeichnete:verzichtete, Eine dezidiert was frühere Arbeiten Pumhösls auszeichnete: Eine dezidiert diese bestand ebenfalls aus einer neuen Serie von Glasbilderndiese bestand– somit ebenfallseinem aus einer neuen Serie von Glasbildern – somit einem „thematische“ Rückführung der zitierten ästhetischen Objektsprache„thematische“ auf Rückführung der zitierten ästhetischen Objektsprache auf dezidiert medienreflexiven Format, das bereits in Pumhöslsdezidiert erster medienreflexiven Einzel- Format, das bereits in Pumhösls erster Einzel- ihre Gebundenheit an spezifische historische Momente ihreund Funktionen.Gebundenheit an spezifische historische Momente und Funktionen. ausstellung bei Buchholz sowie bei Krobath Wimmer4 inausstellung Wien und bei in Buchholzder sowie bei Krobath Wimmer4 in Wien und in der Was an lesbarem „Inhalt“ herausfällt, scheint sich jedochWas auf an methodischer lesbarem „Inhalt“ herausfällt, scheint sich jedoch auf methodischer Kunsthalle St. Gallen zu sehen war und das die MethodeKunsthalle der Übersetzung St. Gallen zu sehen war und das die Methode der Übersetzung Ebene herzustellen: Denn im weiten Feld der zeitgenössischenEbene herzustellen: Formspra- Denn im weiten Feld der zeitgenössischen Formspra- von funktionellen Formsprachen in die Gegenwart seinervon ästhetischen funktionellen (Re-) Formsprachen in die Gegenwart seiner ästhetischen (Re-) che von Modernekritik ist Pumhösl einer der wenigen Künstler/innen,che von Modernekritik der ist Pumhösl einer der wenigen Künstler/innen, der Produktion und Rezeption auch durch die Titelgebung thematisierte.Produktion und Wie Rezeption auch durch die Titelgebung thematisierte. Wie dieses Genre stets mit politisch reflektierter Technologiekritikdieses Genreverbindet stets mit politisch reflektierter Technologiekritik verbindet aus dem Pressetext hervorging, tragen die einzelnen Bilderaus dem„Titel Pressetext aus dem hervorging, tragen die einzelnen Bilder „Titel aus dem – hierfür stehen nicht nur Ausstellungen wie „Humanistische– hierfür und stehen ökolo nicht- nur Ausstellungen wie „Humanistische und ökolo- Druck- und Buchwesen, wie etwa ‚Plakat‘, ‚Seite‘, ‚Aushang‘Druck- oder und ‚Tabloid‘.“ Buchwesen, wie etwa ‚Plakat‘, ‚Seite‘, ‚Aushang‘ oder ‚Tabloid‘.“ gische Republik“ (Secession, Wien, 2000), seine 2003 gezeigtegische Republik“ Ausstellung (Secession, Wien, 2000), seine 2003 gezeigte Ausstellung Weiterhin war zu erfahren, dass „die abgebildeten geometrischenWeiterhin warFormen zu erfahren, dass „die abgebildeten geometrischen Formen im Kölnischen Kunstverein und „Animated Map“ in derim Kunsthalle Kölnischen St. Kunstverein und „Animated Map“ in der Kunsthalle St. […] Reduktionen kompositorischer, strukturierender und[…] den Reduktionen Text inter- kompositorischer, strukturierender und den Text inter- Gallen, sondern auch seine Herausgeberschaft der in WienGallen, erscheinenden sondern auch seine Herausgeberschaft der in Wien erscheinenden pretierender Elemente des modernen Layouts (sind), hierpretierender zumeist von Elemente Text- des modernen Layouts (sind), hier zumeist von Text- Publikationsserie „montage“ beispielhaft für sein unausgesetztesPublikationsserie Interesse „montage“ beispielhaft für sein unausgesetztes Interesse seiten und Pamphleten der Typografie der japanischen Avantgardeseiten und Pamphletender 20er der Typografie der japanischen Avantgarde der 20er an Grafikdesign und Geschichtsschreibung. In der Reihean publizierten Grafikdesign bisher und Geschichtsschreibung. In der Reihe publizierten bisher und 30er Jahre entnommen, deren Flächen allerdings vomund Text 30er und Jahre die entnommen, deren Flächen allerdings vom Text und die er selbst und andere Künstler/innen zu Themen, die wieer Design, selbst und Architek andere- Künstler/innen zu Themen, die wie Design, Architek- abstrahierten strukturierenden Zeichen damit von ihrerabstrahierten kompositorischen/ strukturierenden Zeichen damit von ihrer kompositorischen/ tur und moderne Medienkultur die Wechselbeziehungentur zwischen und moderne (Avant Medienkultur- die Wechselbeziehungen zwischen (Avant- betonenden Funktion befreit sind. Man kann sich diese betonendenBilder als Medien Funktion befreit sind. Man kann sich diese Bilder als Medien garde-)Kunst-Methodiken und Industrietechnologie beleuchten.garde-)Kunst-Methodiken und Industrietechnologie beleuchten. vorstellen, deren visuelle Sprache Schrift und Funktionalitätvorstellen, ausklammert.“ deren visuelle Sprache Schrift und Funktionalität ausklammert.“ Wie die Rezeption von Pumhösls Arbeit durch KunstkritikWie und die AusRezeption- von Pumhösls Arbeit durch Kunstkritik und Aus- Ich zitierte die Ausstellungsinformation auch deswegen Ichzu ausführlich,zitierte die Ausstellungsinformation auch deswegen zu ausführlich, stellungseinladungen zeigt, scheint ihm die Schublade desstellungseinladungen diskurslastigen zeigt, scheint ihm die Schublade des diskurslastigen weil hierin eine Zuspitzung dessen liegt, was auch schonweil in „Modernolohierin eine Zuspitzung- dessen liegt, was auch schon in „Modernolo- und daher schwer verkäuflichen Künstlers weitgehend erspartund daher geblieben schwer zu verkäuflichen Künstlers weitgehend erspart geblieben zu gie“ zur Sprache kam. Denn während die Glasbilder vongie“ der zur(post-)avant Sprache kam.- Denn während die Glasbilder von der (post-)avant- sein. Das mag, wenn man den Katalog der Hamburger „Formalismus“-Aussein. Das mag, wenn- man den Katalog der Hamburger „Formalismus“-Aus- gardistischen Ambition zeugen, klassische kompositorischegardistischen Regeln durch Ambition zeugen, klassische kompositorische Regeln durch stellung als exemplarisch zugrunde legen kann, an kontextbedingten,stellung als exemplarisch d.h. zugrunde legen kann, an kontextbedingten, d.h. Eintritt des Bildes in die Dimension des Raums zu unterminieren,Eintritt des scheint Bildes in die Dimension des Raums zu unterminieren, scheint unter anderem durch gemeinsame Vertretungen in Galerienunter entstehende anderem durch gemeinsame Vertretungen in Galerien entstehende die hier noch weitergetriebene formale Reduktion vielmehrdie hier den noch Modus weitergetriebene formale Reduktion vielmehr den Modus Nachbarschaften mit jenen Künstler/innen liegen, die sicherlichNachbarschaften nicht über mit jenen Künstler/innen liegen, die sicherlich nicht über des Bildlichen in den Vordergrund zu stellen. Insofern diedes Glasbilder Bildlichen bei in den Vordergrund zu stellen. Insofern die Glasbilder bei ein politisches Formalismus-Projekt vermarktet werden,ein doch politisches von diesem Formalismus-Projekt vermarktet werden, doch von diesem Buchholz mit einigem Abstand auf den Galeriewänden präsentiertBuchholz mit wurden, einigem Abstand auf den Galeriewänden präsentiert wurden, dank wohlwollender Kurator/innen und Katalogautor/innendank wohlwollenderprofitieren Kurator/innen und Katalogautor/innen profitieren wurde das Verhältnis von Einzelbild und Serienproduktionwurde ebenso das Verhältnisthema- von Einzelbild und Serienproduktion ebenso thema- können. Vor diesem Hintergrund scheint es sich bei Pumhöslskönnen. aktuellen Vor diesem Hintergrund scheint es sich bei Pumhösls aktuellen tisch wie der Verzicht auf die Gestaltung eines die Beziehungtisch wie von der Objekt Verzicht auf die Gestaltung eines die Beziehung von Objekt Ausstellungen um einen sehr genau überlegten UmgangAusstellungen mit den hier nurum einen sehr genau überlegten Umgang mit den hier nur und Umgebung konstituierenden architektonischen Settings.und Umgebung So ging mit konstituierenden architektonischen Settings. So ging mit skizzierten Positionierungen innerhalb des gegenwärtigenskizzierten Ausstellungs-, Positionierungen innerhalb des gegenwärtigen Ausstellungs-, der Betonung der Bildlichkeit eine Betonung der Galerieder als Betonungshowroom der Bildlichkeit eine Betonung der Galerie als showroom Markt- und Diskursgeschehens zu handeln – ein Umgang,Markt- der dieund kei Diskursgeschehens- zu handeln – ein Umgang, der die kei- einher. Der in Kombination mit den Glasbildern gezeigteeinher. 16mm-Film Der in „OAKombination mit den Glasbildern gezeigte 16mm-Film „OA neswegs über jeden Zweifel erhabenen Begehrlichkeitenneswegs von „Criticality“ über jeden Zweifel erhabenen Begehrlichkeiten von „Criticality“ 1979-3-5-036“ wendete diese Bedingung gegen sich selbst,1979 indem-3-5-036 er “der wendete diese Bedingung gegen sich selbst, indem er der ebenso mitreflektiert wie jene eines auf vermittelbare, verlässlicheebenso mitreflektiert Quali- wie jene eines auf vermittelbare, verlässliche Quali- dem klassischen Format der Kunstware entsprechendendem Präsentation klassischen des Format der Kunstware entsprechenden Präsentation des tätsnachweise pochenden Kunstmarkts. So könnte man tätsnachweisees als eine dop pochenden- Kunstmarkts. So könnte man es als eine dop- gerahmten statischen Bildes die entrahmte Zeitform desgerahmten „abstrakten“ statischen Films Bildes die entrahmte Zeitform des „abstrakten“ Films pelsinnige Entscheidung ansehen, das gemessen am Markterfolgpelsinnige handels Entscheidung- ansehen, das gemessen am Markterfolg handels- entgegensetzte, auf dessen Technik Pumhösl schon in früherenentgegensetzte, Arbeiten auf dessen Technik Pumhösl schon in früheren Arbeiten üblicher Formate gescheiterte Projekt der (Post-)Avantgardenüblicher im FormateRahmen gescheiterte Projekt der (Post-)Avantgarden im Rahmen zurückgegriffen hatte. Dieser Rückgriff implizierte, eingedenkzurückgegriffen der nicht hatte.nur Dieser Rückgriff implizierte, eingedenk der nicht nur einer Großausstellung wie der documenta wieder aufzurufen,einer Großausstellung die allen wie der documenta wieder aufzurufen, die allen formalen, sondern auch werbeästhetischen Implikationenformalen, des abstrakten sondern auch werbeästhetischen Implikationen des abstrakten kuratorischen Selbstaussagen zum Trotz keine prinzipiellekuratorischen Alternative Selbstaussagenzum zum Trotz keine prinzipielle Alternative zum Avantgardefilms, kein nichtkommerzielles Gegenmodell,Avantgardefilms, insofern der Pro kein- nichtkommerzielles Gegenmodell, insofern der Pro- Kunstmarkt darstellte. Die Übersetzung zwischen hegemonialenKunstmarkt und darstellte. loka- Die Übersetzung zwischen hegemonialen und loka- jektionsstrahl direkt auf die Galeriewand in deren Funktionjektionsstrahl als einem direkt der auf die Galeriewand in deren Funktion als einem der len Praktiken der historischen Avantgarden, die das selbstlen erklärte Praktiken Anliegen der historischen Avantgarden, die das selbst erklärte Anliegen wohl wertintensivsten architektonischen Elemente traf: wohlMan schautewertintensivsten also, architektonischen Elemente traf: Man schaute also,

104 104 105 105 während man die projizierten Formen betrachtete, immerwährend auch aufman die die qua projizierten Formen betrachtete, immerFlorian Pumhösl, auch auf die qua Florian Pumhösl, dass hier die strukturalistisch-formalistische Doppelfigur des Sehens und disierter Montageprinzipien übersetzt werden, setzt dabei die dem (avant- medialer Funktionalität ins Licht gesetzte Wand. Die sichmedialer in metrisch-rhyth Funktionalität- ins Licht gesetzte Wand. Die„Seite“ sich in(#2), metrisch-rhyth 2007 - „Seite“ (#2), 2007 Lesens von Formen nahegelegt wurde, so öffnete die um 90 Grad gedrehte gardistischen) Medium inhärente Tendenz hin zur (Selbst-)Aufhebung als mischen Montageabfolgen transformierenden, ornamenthaft-grafischenmischen Montageabfolgen transformierenden, ornamenthaft-grafischen Form noch eine weitere Möglichkeit differenzieller Formrezeption: Denn ein dem Anspruch des Formalismus verwandtes Moment frei, eine eigene, Weiß-auf-Schwarz-Zeichnungen, die, wie der für die Besucher/innenWeiß-auf-Schwarz-Zeichnungen, die, wie der für die Besucher/innen konträr zu der traditionell von links nach rechts weisenden Ordnung der lebendige Realität zu schaffen, emanzipiert von jener schlechten Wirk- ausgelegte Pressetext informierte, auf das im späten 17. ausgelegteJahrhundert Pressetext erschie- informierte, auf das im späten 17. Jahrhundert erschie- Bilderhängung verlief der Film in einer der japanischen Schriftkultur anver- lichkeit, zu deren (Produktions-)Bedingungen sie entstand. Auch in dieser nene japanische Buch „Gozen Hiinagata“ („Dress Patternsnene for japanische Noble Ladies“) Buch „Gozen Hiinagata“ („Dress Patterns for Noble Ladies“) wandten vertikalen Richtung, also von oben nach unten. Diese Gegenbe- Hinsicht scheint Pumhösls Entscheidung, den Film auf die Galeriewand von Take Hiratsugi referierten – ein im Holzschnitt gedrucktervon Take Musterka Hiratsugi- referierten – ein im Holzschnitt gedruckter Musterka- wegung gegen die Beschränkung des Filmbildes auf die viereckige Form zu projizieren, einen mit historischer Bedeutung aufgeladenen Begriff der talog für die Motivgestaltung von Kimonos –, erschienentalog in Kombinationfür die Motivgestaltung von Kimonos –, erschienen in Kombination erinnert an die Montagetechniken der russischen Avantgarden, hierbei vor Rezeption nicht als ein von der Warenform der Kunst abstrahiertes Verhält- mit den Glasbildern wie kryptifizierte Kürzel geometrischermit den Formsprachen. Glasbildern wie kryptifizierte Kürzel geometrischer Formsprachen. allem an jene Sergej Eisensteins, der, wie die Filmwissenschafter Thomas nis von Werk und Betrachter/in zu inszenieren. Es ist kein Screen, der hier Hierin eine Referenz auf Motive traditioneller japanischerHierin Frauenbekleidung eine Referenz auf Motive traditioneller japanischer Frauenbekleidung Elsässer und Malte Hagener schreiben, das Format des bewegten Bildes mit- im Sinne seiner Wortbedeutung eine hinter ihm liegende, materielle Wahr- zu erkennen, wäre ohne Information nicht denkbar gewesen.zu erkennen, Das heißt, wäre ohne Information nicht denkbar gewesen. Das heißt, tels dynamischer „Diagonalen“ und „Parallelen“ zu durchbrechen suchte. In heit durch deren Verdecken entlarvte oder wie auf der documenta 12 durch dass die Wahrnehmung der sozialen Referenzialität abstrakterdass die Ornamentik, Wahrnehmung der sozialen Referenzialität abstrakter Ornamentik, diesem Zusammenhang referierte Eisenstein auf die von ihm so genannte paraventhafte Stellwände in ein Davor und Dahinter unterteilte.6 wie sie hier evoziert wurde, offenbar nicht unabdingbarwie auf sie eine hier Dechif evoziert- wurde, offenbar nicht unabdingbar auf eine Dechif- „japanische Methode“, die im Gegensatz zur Renaissance-Perspektive „aus Die dargestellten Implikationen des 16mm-Films lassen sich auf die frierung seitens der Besucher/innen spekulierte, auch wennfrierung man seitens sich der Besucher/innen spekulierte, auch wenn man sich dem Ganzen (einer Landschaft oder Szene) einen Ausschnitt wählt, mittels Glasbilder insofern rückbeziehen, als in ihnen die in Film und Filmprojek- dies bei konzentrierter Betrachtung zumindest ansatzweisedies hättebei konzentrierter einreden Betrachtung zumindest ansatzweise hätte einreden dessen sich die Kamera die Welt quasi erobert.“ „Eisenstein“, so die Autoren tion thematischen Aspekte – Form/Gestalt, grafische Fläche/Raum, Zeit/ können. So klärte der Pressetext darüber auf, dass die dargestelltenkönnen. So klärteFormen der Pressetext darüber auf, dass die dargestellten Formen weiter, „bezeichnet diese Auswahl des Bildkaders als ‚Herausmeißeln eines Bewegungsbild – von einer künstlerischen Strömung zeugen, die wie Eisen- in „Gozen Hiinagata“ nur als Umrisslinien vorgegeben insind „Gozen und dass Hiinagata“ es nur als Umrisslinien vorgegeben sind und dass es Wirklichkeitsausschnitts mit den Mitteln des Objektivs’ – eine Formulie- stein daran ging, die Tradition der Zentralperspektive durch ein sich durch- sich hierbei um abstrahierte florale, topografische und militärischesich hierbei umMotive abstrahierte florale, topografische und militärische Motive rung, die dem marxistischen Revolutionspathos stärker verpflichtet scheint dringendes Geflecht von Fläche, Raum und Zeit zu verwerfen. Unter dem handelt. Die Information, dass diese Schematisierungenhandelt. „dazu vorgese Die Information,- dass diese Schematisierungen „dazu vorgese- als den Hokkaido-Malern, insofern die Wirklichkeit als modellierbares Aus- Eindruck des durch den Ersten Weltkrieg und die russische Revolution ins hen (waren), vom Käufer einfach wiedergegeben zu werden“,hen (waren), ließ sich vom in Käufer einfach wiedergegeben zu werden“, ließ sich in gangsmaterial konzeptualisiert wird, das nach Belieben umzuformen ist.“5 Wanken geratenen Glaubens an die Ideale der bürgerlichen Kultur trieben einem metaphorischen Sinn auch auf die Ausstellung bezieheneinem metaphorischen – nämlich Sinn auch auf die Ausstellung beziehen – nämlich Diese Problematik eines „linken“ Kolonialismus, wie er sich in den Künstler/innen des Bauhauses jene auf die Erschaffung einer progressiven dahingehend, dass ästhetische Anschauung hier als ein dahingehend,strukturell merkantil dass ästhetische Anschauung hier als ein strukturell merkantil metrische Linien-, Zacken-, Viertelkreis- und Gittermustermetrische entspricht Linien-, jener Zacken-, Viertelkreis-europäischen und Avantgarden Gittermuster niederschlug, entspricht jener scheint Pumhösl in seiner Ver- Massenkultur angelegte Industrialisierung der ästhetischen Sprache voran, und (massen-)kulturell definiertes Verhältnis von Formund und (massen-)kulturell Betrachter/in definiertes Verhältnis von Form und Betrachter/in vom Neoformalismus geforderten Reduktion visueller Informationenvom Neoformalismus – ein gefordertenbindung Reduktion von japanischem visueller Informationen Holzschnitt und– ein avantgardistisch aufgeladenem in der die kolonialistischen Expansionen der Avantgarden des 19. Jahrhun- markiert wurde – ein Verhältnis, das, bedenkt man denmarkiert historischen wurde Kon – -ein Verhältnis, das, bedenkt man den historischen Kon- Unterfangen, das in Abgrenzung zum Anspruch des (Neo-)RealismusUnterfangen, das auf in Abgrenzung16 mm-Filmzum Anspruch „kritisch“ des (Neo-)Realismus zu zitieren, wenn auf er nicht „die“ (gegenständliche) derts nachklingen – eine Massenkultur, die mit Medien wie Büchern und text des Musterbuchs, auf eine Epoche zurückverweist, textin dem des dieMusterbuchs, aufkläre- auf eine Epoche zurückverweist, in dem die aufkläre- lesbare Wirklichkeitsbezüge die Konstruktion, mithin dielesbare Eigenleistung Wirklichkeitsbezüge des dieWirklichkeit Konstruktion, zur mithin Vorlage die nimmt, Eigenleistung sondern desein Musterbuch, das den traditi- Plakaten, Film und Fotografie dezidiert auch auf (klein-)bürgerliche Konsu- rische Philosophie das Subjekt und mit ihm die ästhetischerische Wahrnehmung Philosophie das Subjekt und mit ihm die ästhetische Wahrnehmung Betrachters/der Betrachterin, privilegiert. In diesem SinneBetrachters/der erinnert Pum Betrachterin,- privilegiert.onellen Anspruch In diesem des SinneKimonos erinnert wiederspiegelt, Pum- alles, was unter der Sonne ment/innen als eine neue, am gesellschaftlichen Leben teilhabende Schicht entdeckte, was sich schließlich in den im Geist der Aufklärungentdeckte, geschaf was sich- schließlich in den im Geist der Aufklärung geschaf- hösls Formsprache an die phänomenologische Gestalttheorie,hösls Formsprache der zufolge an die phänomenologischeexistiert, wiederzugeben. Gestalttheorie, Der Eindruck der zufolge einer beliebigen Beziehung von zielte. Das heißt, dass ebenso wie das japanische Musterbuch auch Bauhaus- fenen bürgerlichen Museen niederschlagen sollte. Insofernfenen vermag bürgerlichen der Museen niederschlagen sollte. Insofern vermag der Menschen grundsätzlich dazu neigen, in Formen „Inhalte“Menschen zu erkennen, grundsätzlich dazu neigen,Referenz in und Formen Form, „Inhalte“ der sich zumir erkennen, in Pumhösls Ausstellung offen gestanden künstler/innen wie etwa Annie Albers, auf deren Arbeiten sich Pumhösl Umstand, dass sich der auf der Einladungskarte reproduzierteUmstand, Bibliotheks dass sich- der auf der Einladungskarte reproduzierte Bibliotheks- die ihrem eigenen soziokulturellen Wahrnehmungshorizontdie ihrem entsprechen. eigenen soziokulturellenzuerst Wahrnehmungshorizont einstellte, ist eingedenk entsprechen.der Kritik von Elsässer und Hagener offenbar schon mehrfach bezogen hat, nicht nur einer ungebrochen eurozentrischen stempel von „Gozen Hiinagata“ „OA 1979-3-5-036“ auf stempeldie Ordnungszahl von „Gozen Hiinagata“ „OA 1979-3-5-036“ auf die Ordnungszahl Das heißt aber auch, dass ästhetische Distanz zur Welt dasDas individuell-psy heißt aber auch,- dass ästhetischenicht nur Distanz ein Phänomen zur Welt das „postmodernen individuell-psy Formalismus“,- sondern ebenso und modernistischen, sondern auch einer ungebrochen patrilinearen des im British Museum archivierten Exemplars bezieht,des als imein British Hinweis Museum auf archivierten Exemplars bezieht, als ein Hinweis auf chische wie kollektiv-kulturelle Moment der Mimesis nichtchische aufzuheben wie kollektiv-kulturelle eines Moment des „avantgardistischen der Mimesis nicht aufzuhebenFunktionalismus“. Pumhösl, so mein revi- und bourgeoisen Tradition wie einem heroisierenden Revolutionspathos den von musealen Sammlungen repräsentierten Besitz kulturellerden von musealen Differenz Sammlungen repräsentierten Besitz kultureller Differenz vermag. Pumhösl scheint genau auf diese sich in der (inter-)medialenvermag. Pumhösl scheint genaudiertes auf diese Urteil, sich setzt in der sein (inter-)medialen Material dieser Problematik gezielt aus, um genau widersprechen. verstanden werden – hier eines Musterbuchs für historischeverstanden japanische werden – hier eines Musterbuchs für historische japanische Übersetzung zeigende Form der Differenzialität hinzuweisen,Übersetzung wenn zeigendeer Form derhierin Differenzialität eine weder hinzuweisen, über politische wenn Kritik er noch über ästhetischen Geschmack Was man also Pumhösls Methodik uneingeschränkt zugutehalten kann, Mode. Mit anderen Worten werden auf formal höchst abstrakterMode. Mit Ebene anderen Worten werden auf formal höchst abstrakter Ebene im Handout darüber informiert, dass die der Vorlage entnommenenim Handout darüber und informiert,erhabene dass die Montage der Vorlage von entnommenenReferenzen zu bewerkstelligen,und die – wie im Fall ist ihr Potenzial zu einer historisch elaborierten Verschränkung von Form- signifikante Aspekte der europäischen Aufklärung mit einemsignifikante Zeugnis Aspekte einer der europäischen Aufklärung mit einem Zeugnis einer reproduzierten Formen um 90 Grad gedreht wurden. Diereproduzierten ebenso manuelle Formen um 90 desGrad japanischen gedreht wurden. Holzschnitts Die ebenso und des manuelle russischen Avantgardefilms – unzeit- und Mediendiskurs. Bleibt angesichts solcher Rezeptions- und Deutungs- vergangenen, von der europäischen Moderne exotisiertenvergangenen, (Medien-)Kultur von der europäischen Moderne exotisierten (Medien-)Kultur wie apparative Mechanik, die auf diese Weise thematischwie wird apparative und den Mechanik, die aufgenössische diese Weise Medien thematisch durch einwird „Fremdwerden“ und den der Form in einen Diskurs möglichkeiten die eingangs gestellte Frage, wie die fortschreitende Tendenz verbunden – ein Moment, das die Frage nach dem kulturellenverbunden Code – derein Moment, das die Frage nach dem kulturellen Code der möglichen Eindruck von „sophistication“ unterläuft, lässtmöglichen den Prozess Eindruck der von „sophistication“über die Historizität unterläuft, und lässt Politizität den Prozess ästhetischer der Wahrnehmung übersetzt. zur Reduktion der Form und zur Abstraktion der Referenzen marktstra- Form zugleich als eine Frage ihrer ästhetischen BewertungForm exponiert. zugleich alsSomit eine Frage ihrer ästhetischen Bewertung exponiert. Somit formalen Abstraktion als einen zwangsläufig mimetischenformalen Prozess Abstraktion medien- als einenDass zwangsläufig sich die Mehrdeutigkeit mimetischen Prozess eines solchen medien Rezeptionsangebots- womöglich tegisch zu bewerten ist. Sie könnte als ein entschiedenes Understatement scheint der Anspruch auf ein sich über Kontextwissen erhebendesscheint der KunstAnspruch- auf ein sich über Kontextwissen erhebendes Kunst- immanenter Bedeutungsproduktion in Erscheinung treten:immanenter Auf der einenBedeutungsproduktion bei erster in Erscheinung Anschauung treten: nicht erschließt,Auf der einen erweist sich demnach entgegen gegenüber einem von politisch reflektierten Künstler/innen wie ihm erwar- urteil, mithin der Anspruch, eine „unverständliche“ Formspracheurteil, mithin lesen der zu Anspruch, eine „unverständliche“ Formsprache lesen zu Seite das Medium des Holzschnitts, das den massenkulturellenSeite das Medien Medium des des Holzschnitts,weitverbreiteter das den massenkulturellen Ressentiments gegen Medien die des Methoden des Referenzialismus teten Statement verstanden werden. Doch scheint der somit unterstellte können, sobald sie im Modus der Kunst auftritt, als obsolet.können, Doch sobald damit sie ist im Modus der Kunst auftritt, als obsolet. Doch damit ist 19. Jahrhunderts, der Lithografie und der Fotografie, vorausging19. Jahrhunderts, und das dervon Lithografienicht und als der Kennzeichen Fotografie, vorausgingeiner kommentar- und das oder von diskursbedürftigen moder- Positionswechsel Pumhösls angesichts von Christian Kravagnas Besprechung die Frage nicht vom Tisch, ob sich in einer solchen Argumentationdie Frage nicht auch vom ein Tisch, ob sich in einer solchen Argumentation auch ein damaligen europäischen Künstler/innen in ihrer Affinitätdamaligen für die grafische,europäischen Künstler/innennen Kunst. in Diese ihrer Mehrdeutigkeit Affinität für die ist, grafische, gemäß Pumhösls Projekt, in den wech- seiner vor acht Jahren mit großer Aufmerksamkeit wahrgenommenen „nobler“ Grund für „kryptische“ Formalismen finden lässt„nobler“ – eine Grund Frage, für die „kryptische“ Formalismen finden lässt – eine Frage, die Flächen betonende Bildsprache japanischer Kunst „appropriiert“Flächen betonende wurde, auf Bildsprache selseitigen japanischer kulturellen Kunst „appropriiert“ und medialen wurde, Übersetzungen auf von Form/Abstraktion Ausstellung in der Secession keineswegs zwingend. Der Kunstkritiker gab in direkter Weise auf den Kern des (Neo-)Formalismusin führt. direkter Denn Weise Pum auf- den Kern des (Neo-)Formalismus führt. Denn Pum- der anderen Seite der 16mm-Film, der offenbar in Anlehnungder anderen an die Seite Buch der- 16mm-Film,und derFunktion/Referenz offenbar in Anlehnung zu suchen. an dieDie Buch Methodik,- mit der in „OA 1979-3-5- damals schon zu bedenken, dass „man […] der Ausstellung vorhalten hösls (kinematografische) Übersetzung der historischenhösls Motive (kinematografische) in nichtgeo- Übersetzung der historischen Motive in nichtgeo- vorlage in vier Kapitel unterteilt war. Insofern kann manvorlage daraus in ableiten, vier Kapitel unterteilt036 war.“ die Insofern grafisch kann abstrahierten man daraus Motive ableiten, des Musterkatalogs gemäß standar- (könnte), dass die von ihr hergestellten ästhetischen, historischen und

106 106 107 107 108 109 dass hier die strukturalistisch-formalistische Doppelfigurdass des hier Sehens die strukturalistisch-formalistischeund Doppelfigur des Sehens und disierter Montageprinzipien übersetzt werden, setzt dabeidisierter die dem Montageprinzipien (avant- übersetzt werden, setzt dabei die dem (avant- Lesens von Formen nahegelegt wurde, so öffnete die umLesens 90 Grad von gedrehte Formen nahegelegt wurde, so öffnete die um 90 Grad gedrehte gardistischen) Medium inhärente Tendenz hin zur (Selbst-)Aufhebunggardistischen) Medium als inhärente Tendenz hin zur (Selbst-)Aufhebung als Form noch eine weitere Möglichkeit differenzieller Formrezeption:Form noch eine Denn weitere Möglichkeit differenzieller Formrezeption: Denn ein dem Anspruch des Formalismus verwandtes Momentein frei, dem eine Anspruch eigene, des Formalismus verwandtes Moment frei, eine eigene, konträr zu der traditionell von links nach rechts weisendenkonträr Ordnung zu der der traditionell von links nach rechts weisenden Ordnung der lebendige Realität zu schaffen, emanzipiert von jener schlechtenlebendige Wirk Realität- zu schaffen, emanzipiert von jener schlechten Wirk- Bilderhängung verlief der Film in einer der japanischenBilderhängung Schriftkultur anver verlief- der Film in einer der japanischen Schriftkultur anver- lichkeit, zu deren (Produktions-)Bedingungen sie entstand.lichkeit, Auch zu in deren dieser (Produktions-)Bedingungen sie entstand. Auch in dieser wandten vertikalen Richtung, also von oben nach unten.wandten Diese Gegenbe vertikalen- Richtung, also von oben nach unten. Diese Gegenbe- Hinsicht scheint Pumhösls Entscheidung, den Film auf dieHinsicht Galeriewand scheint Pumhösls Entscheidung, den Film auf die Galeriewand wegung gegen die Beschränkung des Filmbildes auf diewegung viereckige gegen Form die Beschränkung des Filmbildes auf die viereckige Form zu projizieren, einen mit historischer Bedeutung aufgeladenenzu projizieren, Begriff einender mit historischer Bedeutung aufgeladenen Begriff der erinnert an die Montagetechniken der russischen Avantgarden,erinnert hierbei an die Montagetechnikenvor der russischen Avantgarden, hierbei vor Rezeption nicht als ein von der Warenform der Kunst abstrahiertesRezeption nicht Verhält als -ein von der Warenform der Kunst abstrahiertes Verhält- allem an jene Sergej Eisensteins, der, wie die Filmwissenschafterallem an jeneThomas Sergej Eisensteins, der, wie die Filmwissenschafter Thomas nis von Werk und Betrachter/in zu inszenieren. Es ist keinnis Screen,von Werk der und hier Betrachter/in zu inszenieren. Es ist kein Screen, der hier Elsässer und Malte Hagener schreiben, das Format des bewegtenElsässer und Bildes Malte mit Hagener- schreiben, das Format des bewegten Bildes mit- im Sinne seiner Wortbedeutung eine hinter ihm liegende,im materielleSinne seiner Wahr Wortbedeutung- eine hinter ihm liegende, materielle Wahr- tels dynamischer „Diagonalen“ und „Parallelen“ zu durchbrechentels dynamischer suchte. „Diagonalen“ In und „Parallelen“ zu durchbrechen suchte. In heit durch deren Verdecken entlarvte oder wie auf der documentaheit durch deren12 durch Verdecken entlarvte oder wie auf der documenta 12 durch diesem Zusammenhang referierte Eisenstein auf die vondiesem ihm so Zusammenhang genannte referierte Eisenstein auf die von ihm so genannte paraventhafte Stellwände in ein Davor und Dahinter unterteilte.paraventhafte6 Stellwände in ein Davor und Dahinter unterteilte.6 „japanische Methode“, die im Gegensatz zur Renaissance-Perspektive„japanische Methode“, „aus die im Gegensatz zur Renaissance-Perspektive „aus Die dargestellten Implikationen des 16mm-Films lassen Diesich dargestellten auf die Implikationen des 16mm-Films lassen sich auf die dem Ganzen (einer Landschaft oder Szene) einen Ausschnittdem Ganzenwählt, mittels(einer Landschaft oder Szene) einen Ausschnitt wählt, mittels Glasbilder insofern rückbeziehen, als in ihnen die in FilmGlasbilder und Filmprojek insofern- rückbeziehen, als in ihnen die in Film und Filmprojek- dessen sich die Kamera die Welt quasi erobert.“ „Eisenstein“,dessen so sich die die Autoren Kamera die Welt quasi erobert.“ „Eisenstein“, so die Autoren tion thematischen Aspekte – Form/Gestalt, grafische Fläche/Raum,tion thematischen Zeit/ Aspekte – Form/Gestalt, grafische Fläche/Raum, Zeit/ weiter, „bezeichnet diese Auswahl des Bildkaders als ‚Herausmeißelnweiter, „bezeichnet eines diese Auswahl des Bildkaders als ‚Herausmeißeln eines Bewegungsbild – von einer künstlerischen Strömung zeugen,Bewegungsbild die wie Eisen – von- einer künstlerischen Strömung zeugen, die wie Eisen- Wirklichkeitsausschnitts mit den Mitteln des Objektivs’ Wirklichkeitsausschnitts– eine Formulie- mit den Mitteln des Objektivs’ – eine Formulie- stein daran ging, die Tradition der Zentralperspektive durchstein eindaran sich ging, durch die- Tradition der Zentralperspektive durch ein sich durch- rung, die dem marxistischen Revolutionspathos stärker rung,verpflichtet die dem scheint marxistischen Revolutionspathos stärker verpflichtet scheint dringendes Geflecht von Fläche, Raum und Zeit zu verwerfen.dringendes Unter Geflecht dem von Fläche, Raum und Zeit zu verwerfen. Unter dem als den Hokkaido-Malern, insofern die Wirklichkeit als alsmodellierbares den Hokkaido-Malern, Aus- insofern die Wirklichkeit als modellierbares Aus- Eindruck des durch den Ersten Weltkrieg und die russischeEindruck Revolution des durch ins den Ersten Weltkrieg und die russische Revolution ins gangsmaterial konzeptualisiert wird, das nach Belieben gangsmaterialumzuformen ist.“konzeptualisiert5 wird, das nach Belieben umzuformen ist.“5 Wanken geratenen Glaubens an die Ideale der bürgerlichenWanken Kultur geratenen trieben Glaubens an die Ideale der bürgerlichen Kultur trieben Diese Problematik eines „linken“ Kolonialismus, wie erDiese sich inProblematik den eines „linken“ Kolonialismus, wie er sich in den Künstler/innen des Bauhauses jene auf die Erschaffung Künstler/inneneiner progressiven des Bauhauses jene auf die Erschaffung einer progressiven europäischen Avantgarden niederschlug, scheint Pumhösleuropäischen in seiner Ver Avantgarden- niederschlug, scheint Pumhösl in seiner Ver- Massenkultur angelegte Industrialisierung der ästhetischenMassenkultur Sprache voran, angelegte Industrialisierung der ästhetischen Sprache voran, bindung von japanischem Holzschnitt und avantgardistischbindung aufgeladenem von japanischem Holzschnitt und avantgardistisch aufgeladenem in der die kolonialistischen Expansionen der Avantgardenin derdes die19. Jahrhunkolonialistischen- Expansionen der Avantgarden des 19. Jahrhun- 16mm-Film „kritisch“ zu zitieren, wenn er nicht „die“ 16(gegenständliche)mm-Film „kritisch“ zu zitieren, wenn er nicht „die“ (gegenständliche) derts nachklingen – eine Massenkultur, die mit Medienderts wie Büchernnachklingen und – eine Massenkultur, die mit Medien wie Büchern und Wirklichkeit zur Vorlage nimmt, sondern ein Musterbuch,Wirklichkeit das den traditi zur Vorlage- nimmt, sondern ein Musterbuch, das den traditi- Plakaten, Film und Fotografie dezidiert auch auf (klein-)bürgerlichePlakaten, Film Konsu und -Fotografie dezidiert auch auf (klein-)bürgerliche Konsu- onellen Anspruch des Kimonos wiederspiegelt, alles, wasonellen unter Anspruchder Sonne des Kimonos wiederspiegelt, alles, was unter der Sonne ment/innen als eine neue, am gesellschaftlichen Leben ment/innenteilhabende Schichtals eine neue, am gesellschaftlichen Leben teilhabende Schicht existiert, wiederzugeben. Der Eindruck einer beliebigenexistiert, Beziehung wiederzugeben. von Der Eindruck einer beliebigen Beziehung von zielte. Das heißt, dass ebenso wie das japanische Musterbuchzielte. auch Das heißt,Bauhaus dass- ebenso wie das japanische Musterbuch auch Bauhaus- Referenz und Form, der sich mir in Pumhösls AusstellungReferenz offen gestandenund Form, der sich mir in Pumhösls Ausstellung offen gestanden künstler/innen wie etwa Annie Albers, auf deren Arbeitenkünstler/innen sich Pumhösl wie etwa Annie Albers, auf deren Arbeiten sich Pumhösl zuerst einstellte, ist eingedenk der Kritik von Elsässer undzuerst Hagener einstellte, offenbar ist eingedenk der Kritik von Elsässer und Hagener offenbar schon mehrfach bezogen hat, nicht nur einer ungebrochenschon eurozentrischen mehrfach bezogen hat, nicht nur einer ungebrochen eurozentrischen nicht nur ein Phänomen „postmodernen Formalismus“,nicht sondern nur ebensoein Phänomen „postmodernen Formalismus“, sondern ebenso und modernistischen, sondern auch einer ungebrochenund patrilinearen modernistischen, sondern auch einer ungebrochen patrilinearen eines des „avantgardistischen Funktionalismus“. Pumhösl,eines so desmein „avantgardistischen revi- Funktionalismus“. Pumhösl, so mein revi- und bourgeoisen Tradition wie einem heroisierenden Revolutionspathosund bourgeoisen Tradition wie einem heroisierenden Revolutionspathos diertes Urteil, setzt sein Material dieser Problematik gezieltdiertes aus, Urteil, um genau setzt sein Material dieser Problematik gezielt aus, um genau widersprechen. widersprechen. hierin eine weder über politische Kritik noch über ästhetischenhierin eine Geschmack weder über politische Kritik noch über ästhetischen Geschmack Was man also Pumhösls Methodik uneingeschränkt zugutehaltenWas man alsokann, Pumhösls Methodik uneingeschränkt zugutehalten kann, erhabene Montage von Referenzen zu bewerkstelligen, dieerhabene – wie imMontage Fall von Referenzen zu bewerkstelligen, die – wie im Fall ist ihr Potenzial zu einer historisch elaborierten Verschränkungist ihr Potenzial von Form- zu einer historisch elaborierten Verschränkung von Form- des japanischen Holzschnitts und des russischen Avantgardefilmsdes japanischen – unzeit Holzschnitts- und des russischen Avantgardefilms – unzeit- und Mediendiskurs. Bleibt angesichts solcher Rezeptions-und und Mediendiskurs. Deutungs- Bleibt angesichts solcher Rezeptions- und Deutungs- genössische Medien durch ein „Fremdwerden“ der Formgenössische in einen Diskurs Medien durch ein „Fremdwerden“ der Form in einen Diskurs möglichkeiten die eingangs gestellte Frage, wie die fortschreitendemöglichkeiten Tendenz die eingangs gestellte Frage, wie die fortschreitende Tendenz über die Historizität und Politizität ästhetischer Wahrnehmungüber die übersetzt.Historizität und Politizität ästhetischer Wahrnehmung übersetzt. zur Reduktion der Form und zur Abstraktion der Referenzenzur Reduktion marktstra der- Form und zur Abstraktion der Referenzen marktstra- Dass sich die Mehrdeutigkeit eines solchen RezeptionsangebotsDass sich womöglich die Mehrdeutigkeit eines solchen Rezeptionsangebots womöglich tegisch zu bewerten ist. Sie könnte als ein entschiedenestegisch Understatement zu bewerten ist. Sie könnte als ein entschiedenes Understatement bei erster Anschauung nicht erschließt, erweist sich demnachbei erster entgegen Anschauung nicht erschließt, erweist sich demnach entgegen gegenüber einem von politisch reflektierten Künstler/innengegenüber wie ihm einem erwar von- politisch reflektierten Künstler/innen wie ihm erwar- weitverbreiteter Ressentiments gegen die Methoden desweitverbreiteter Referenzialismus Ressentiments gegen die Methoden des Referenzialismus teten Statement verstanden werden. Doch scheint der somitteten unterstellte Statement verstanden werden. Doch scheint der somit unterstellte nicht als Kennzeichen einer kommentar- oder diskursbedürftigennicht als Kennzeichen moder- einer kommentar- oder diskursbedürftigen moder- Positionswechsel Pumhösls angesichts von Christian KravagnasPositionswechsel Besprechung Pumhösls angesichts von Christian Kravagnas Besprechung nen Kunst. Diese Mehrdeutigkeit ist, gemäß Pumhösls Projekt,nen Kunst. in den Diese wech Mehrdeutigkeit- ist, gemäß Pumhösls Projekt, in den wech- seiner vor acht Jahren mit großer Aufmerksamkeit wahrgenommenenseiner vor acht Jahren mit großer Aufmerksamkeit wahrgenommenen selseitigen kulturellen und medialen Übersetzungen vonselseitigen Form/Abstraktion kulturellen und medialen Übersetzungen von Form/Abstraktion Ausstellung in der Secession keineswegs zwingend. Der AusstellungKunstkritiker in gabder Secession keineswegs zwingend. Der Kunstkritiker gab und Funktion/Referenz zu suchen. Die Methodik, mit derund in Funktion/Referenz „OA 1979-3-5- zu suchen. Die Methodik, mit der in „OA 1979-3-5- damals schon zu bedenken, dass „man […] der Ausstellungdamals vorhalten schon zu bedenken, dass „man […] der Ausstellung vorhalten 036“ die grafisch abstrahierten Motive des Musterkatalogs036 gemäß“ die grafisch standar -abstrahierten Motive des Musterkatalogs gemäß standar- (könnte), dass die von ihr hergestellten ästhetischen, historischen(könnte), dass und die von ihr hergestellten ästhetischen, historischen und

108 108 109 109 Florian Pumhösl, ger „Formalismus“-Ausstellung wiederabgedruckt ist, erklärt: „Ich frage „OA 1979-3-5-036“, 2007/2008, mich, ob ich überhaupt etwas erzeugen kann, das einen abstrakten Charak- Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, ter hat.“9 So ließe sich abschließend sagen, dass Pumhösls Abstraktionsbe- Ausstellungsansicht griff im deutlichen Unterschied zu postmoderner Erhabenheitsrhetorik der Florian Pumhösl, ger „Formalismus“-Ausstellung wiederabgedruckt ist, erklärt: „Ich frage Florian Pumhösl, ger „Formalismus“-Ausstellung wiederabgedruckt ist, erklärt: „Ich frage „OA 1979-3-5-036“, 2007/2008, achtziger Jahre nicht auf eine angenommene Essenz der Kunst zielt, sondern „OA 1979-3-5-036“, 2007/2008, mich, ob ich überhaupt etwas erzeugen kann, das einenmich, abstrakten ob ich Charak überhaupt- etwas erzeugen kann, das einen abstrakten Charak- Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, 9 auf das, was eine solche aufspaltet und in immer wieder neue Bezüge stellt: Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, ter hat.“ So ließe sich abschließend sagen, dass Pumhösls Abstraktionsbe9 - Ausstellungsansicht ter hat.“ So ließe sich abschließend sagen, dass Pumhösls Abstraktionsbe- Ausstellungsansicht In „OA 1979-3-5-036“ etwa durch die formale Analogie von Musterkatalogen griff im deutlichen Unterschied zu postmoderner Erhabenheitsrhetorik der griff im deutlichen Unterschiedund Filmmontage,zu postmoderner die Erhabenheitsrhetorikauf den ersten Blick nicht der zusammenzupassen schei- achtziger Jahre nicht auf eine angenommene Essenz der Kunst zielt, sondern achtziger Jahre nicht auf einenen. angenommene Doch gerade Essenz weil deren der Kunst Verbindung zielt, sondern als eine arbiträre erscheint, tritt auf das, was eine solche aufspaltet und in immer wieder neue Bezüge stellt: auf das, was eine solche aufspaltethierin eineund in„Methodenkritik“ immer wieder neue in eigener Bezüge Sache stellt: zutage, in dem Sinne, dass In „OA 1979-3-5-036“ etwa durch die formale Analogie von Musterkatalogen In „OA 1979-3-5-036“ etwa durchdie hier die meines formale Erachtens Analogie zitierte von Musterkatalogen „japanische Methode“ selbst zum Gegen- und Filmmontage, die auf den ersten Blick nicht zusammenzupassen schei- und Filmmontage, die auf denstand ersten der Blickmedialen nicht Darstellungs- zusammenzupassen und Präsentationsform schei- wird. Das Ver- nen. Doch gerade weil deren Verbindung als eine arbiträre erscheint, tritt nen. Doch gerade weil derenhältnis Verbindung von abstrakter als eine arbiträreForm und erscheint, Referenz trittbleibt damit, wie auch in seinen hierin eine „Methodenkritik“ in eigener Sache zutage, in dem Sinne, dass hierin eine „Methodenkritik“früheren in eigener Arbeiten, Sache einzutage, gespaltenes, in dem Sinne, auch oderdass gerade weil es den Anschein die hier meines Erachtens zitierte „japanische Methode“ selbst zum Gegen- die hier meines Erachtens zitiertemacht, „japanische dass diese SpaltungMethode“ in selbst den neuerenzum Gegen Arbeiten- ihr Außen stärker zu stand der medialen Darstellungs- und Präsentationsform wird. Das Ver- stand der medialen Darstellungs-einer undFrage Präsentationsform der (ästhetischen wird.und institutionellen) Das Ver- Immanenz macht. hältnis von abstrakter Form und Referenz bleibt damit,hältnis wie auch von in abstrakter seinen Form und Referenz bleibt damit, wie auch in seinen früheren Arbeiten, ein gespaltenes, auch oder gerade weilfrüheren es den Arbeiten, Anschein ein gespaltenes,Anmerkungen auch oder gerade weil es den Anschein macht, dass diese Spaltung in den neueren Arbeiten ihrmacht, Außen dass stärker diese zu Spaltung in1 denFlorian neueren Pumhösl, Arbeiten „OA 1979 ihr-3-5 -Außen036“, Galerie stärker Daniel zu Buchholz, Köln, 30. November 2007 einer Frage der (ästhetischen und institutionellen) Immanenz macht. bis 19. Januar 2008. gesellschaftlichen Bezüge hinter der Objektebene allzu schwer lesbar (wür- einer Frage der (ästhetischen2 undFlorian institutionellen) Pumhösl, Lisson Gallery,Immanenz London, macht. 6. Februar bis 15. März 2008. den). Dies hieße aber“, so Kravagna weiter, „zu übersehen,Anmerkungen dass es Pumhösl 3 Die Bedeutung, die die Frage der Methodik in Pumhösls Arbeit einnimmt, lässt sich bei- Anmerkungen spielhaft an seiner Publikation „Animated Map“, erschienen im Rahmen seiner gleichna- wesentlich um die Frage geht, wie sich Ideen und Konzepte1 Florian räumlich Pumhösl, „OA und 1979 -3-5-036“, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln,1 Florian 30. November Pumhösl, 2007 „OA 1979-3-5-036“, Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Köln, 30. November 2007 19 2008. migen Ausstellung in Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen (2005), ablesen. medial manifestieren, eine Frage, der seine Arbeiten inbis mimetischen . Januar Tech- bis 19. Januar 2008. gesellschaftlichen Bezüge hinter der Objektebene allzu schwer lesbar (wür- 2 Florian Pumhösl, Lisson Gallery, London, 6. Februar bis 15. März 2008. 4 Siehe Tanja Widmann, „Glanz auf der Nase. Über Florian Pumhösl in der Galerie Krobath gesellschaftlichen Bezüge hinterniken der (nachgingen).“ Objektebene7 allzu Dass schwerPumhösl, lesbar wie (würich im- Zusammenhang mit des- 2 Florian Pumhösl, Lisson Gallery, London,Wimmer, 6. FebruarWien“, in:bis Texte15. März zur Kunst 2008, Jg.. 16, Heft 61, März 2006, S. 184–187. den). Dies hieße aber“, so Kravagna weiter, „zu übersehen, dass es Pumhösl 3 Die Bedeutung, die die Frage der Methodik in Pumhösls Arbeit einnimmt,3 Die Bedeutung, lässt sich diebei -die Frage der Methodik in Pumhösls Arbeit einnimmt, lässt sich beiden). Dies hieße aber“, so Kravagnasen Zuordnung weiter, zu„zu den übersehen, (Neo-)Formalist/innen dass es Pumhösl bereits erwähnte,spielhaft an seiner zunächst Publikation „Animated Map“, erschienen im Rahmen seiner gleichna- 5 Thomas Elsässer/Malte Hagener, Filmtheorie zur Einführung, Dresden 2007, S. 35. wesentlich um die Frage geht, wie sich Ideen und Konzepte räumlich und spielhaft an seiner Publikation „Animated6 Vgl. ebd., Map“, S. 53 .erschienen im Rahmen seiner gleichna- wesentlich um die Frage geht,einer wie Gruppierung sich Ideen und von Konzepte Künstler/innen räumlich angehörte, und die anmigen einer Ausstellung „kritischen in Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen (2005), ablesen. migen Ausstellung in Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen (2005), ablesen. medial manifestieren, eine Frage, der seine Arbeiten in mimetischen Tech- 7 Christian Kravagna, „Historische Praxis“, in: Springerin. Hefte zur Gegenwartskunst, Nr. 3, medial manifestieren, eine Frage, der seine Arbeiten in mimetischen Tech- 8 4 Siehe Tanja Widmann, „Glanz auf der Nase. Über Florian Pumhösl4 inSiehe der GalerieTanja Widmann, Krobath „Glanz auf der Nase. Über Florian Pumhösl in der Galerie Krobath 7 Rekonstruktion von Modernisierungsprozessen“ arbeite, stellte Kravagna 2000, S. 44f. niken (nachgingen).“ Dass Pumhösl, wie ich im Zusammenhangniken (nachgingen).“ mit des- 7 Dass Pumhösl, wie ich im Zusammenhang mit des- Wimmer, Wien“, in: Texte zur Kunst, Jg. 16, Heft 61, März 2006, S. 184–Wimmer,187. Wien“, in: Texte zur Kunst, Jg. 16, Heft 61, März 2006, S. 184–187. bereits in einem zwei Jahre zuvor verfassten Text fest.5 WasThomas Pumhösls Elsässer/Malte neuere Hagener, Filmtheorie zur Einführung, Dresden 2007, S. 35. 8 Christian Kravagna, „Die Moderne sehen“, in: Christian Meyer/Mathias Poledna (Hg.), Sha- sen Zuordnung zu den (Neo-)Formalist/innen bereits erwähnte,sen Zuordnung zunächst zu den (Neo-)Formalist/innen bereits erwähnte, zunächst 5 Thomas Elsässer/Malte Hagener, Filmtheorierawadgi, Ausstellungskatalog zur Einführung, Dresden Felsenvilla 2007 Baden, S. 35 .Baden, Köln 1999, S. 240–265, hier: S. 246. Arbeiten indes zu Recht deutlich machen, ist, dass der6 Vgl. Anspruch ebd., S. 53auf. eine 6 Vgl. ebd., S. 53. einer Gruppierung von Künstler/innen angehörte, die aneiner einer Gruppierung „kritischen von Künstler/innen angehörte, die an einer „kritischen 7 Christian Kravagna, „Historische Praxis“, in: Springerin. Hefte zur Gegenwartskunst, Nr. 3, 9 Zitiert nach dem Gespräch mit Florian Pumhösl, in: „Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute“, 8 historisch-kritische Rekonstruktion seinerseits in hohem Grade projektiv 7 Christian Kravagna, „Historische Praxis“, in: Springerin. Hefte zur Gegenwartskunst, Nr. 3, Rekonstruktion von Modernisierungsprozessen“ arbeite, stellte Kravagna 8 2000, S. 44f. Ausstellungskatalog Kunstverein Hamburg, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, S. 143–149, hier: S. 143 Rekonstruktion von Modernisierungsprozessen“ist, sprich: eine Frage arbeite,der Konstruktion stellte Kravagna und unvermeidlich ideologisch 2000, S. 44f. (Auszug aus „Vielleicht eine Phase der Neuorientierung… Ein Gespräch zwischen Florian bereits in einem zwei Jahre zuvor verfassten Text fest. Was Pumhösls neuere 8 Christian Kravagna, „Die Moderne sehen“, in: Christian Meyer/Mathias8 Christian Poledna Kravagna, (Hg.), Sha „Die- Moderne sehen“, in: Christian Meyer/Mathias Poledna (Hg.), Sha- bereits in einem zwei Jahre aufgeladenerzuvor verfassten Methodik. Text fest. Insofern Was Pumhösls scheint derneuere formale Reduktionismus, der Pumhösl und Juliane Rebentisch“, in: „Florian Pumhösl, Wachstum und Entwicklung“, Arbeiten indes zu Recht deutlich machen, ist, dass der Anspruch auf eine rawadgi, Ausstellungskatalog Felsenvilla Baden Baden, Köln 1999, S. rawadgi,240–265, Ausstellungskataloghier: S. 246. Felsenvilla Baden Baden, Köln 1999, S. 240–265, hier: S. 246. Arbeiten indes zu Recht deutlichseine machen,neueren Arbeitenist, dass der kennzeichnet, Anspruch auf äußerst eine gut überlegt,9 Zitiert auchnach demwenn Gespräch eben mit Florian Pumhösl, in: „Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute“, Ausstellungskatalog Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck 2004, S. 19 –30). historisch-kritische Rekonstruktion seinerseits in hohem Grade projektiv 9 Zitiert nach dem Gespräch mit Florian Pumhösl, in: „Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute“, historisch-kritische Rekonstruktionnicht zwingend seinerseits lesbar. in hohem Wären Grade da nicht projektiv Bildtitel und AusstellungsinformaAusstellungskatalog Kunstverein- Hamburg, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, S. 143Ausstellungskatalog–149, hier: S. 143 Kunstverein Hamburg, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, S. 143–149, hier: S. 143 ist, sprich: eine Frage der Konstruktion und unvermeidlich ideologisch (Auszug aus „Vielleicht eine Phase der Neuorientierung… Ein Gespräch zwischen Florian ist, sprich: eine Frage der Konstruktiontionen, die einer/einemund unvermeidlich auf die ideologischSprünge helfen, könnte man glauben, dass (Auszug aus „Vielleicht eine Phase der Neuorientierung… Ein Gespräch zwischen Florian aufgeladener Methodik. Insofern scheint der formale Reduktionismus, der Pumhösl und Juliane Rebentisch“, in: „Florian Pumhösl, Wachstum Pumhöslund Entwicklung“, und Juliane Rebentisch“, in: „Florian Pumhösl, Wachstum und Entwicklung“, aufgeladener Methodik. InsofernHermetik scheint und der Kryptik formale hier Reduktionismus, als Nebenwiderspruch der einesAusstellungskatalog bekämpften Haupt Galerie- im Taxispalais, Innsbruck 2004, S. 19 –30). seine neueren Arbeiten kennzeichnet, äußerst gut überlegt, auch wenn eben Ausstellungskatalog Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck 2004, S. 19 –30). seine neueren Arbeiten kennzeichnet,widerspruchs äußerst – die gut Abstraktion überlegt, auchder Referenz wenn eben von der Form der Methode nicht zwingend lesbar. Wären da nicht Bildtitel und Ausstellungsinforma- nicht zwingend lesbar. Wären– billigend da nicht inBildtitel Kauf genommenund Ausstellungsinforma würden. Doch- eben diese Hermetik und tionen, die einer/einem auf die Sprünge helfen, könnte man glauben, dass tionen, die einer/einem auf Kryptikdie Sprünge sind helfen,ihrerseits könnte Bestandteile man glauben, eines Versuchs, dass die Spannungen zwi- Hermetik und Kryptik hier als Nebenwiderspruch eines bekämpften Haupt- Hermetik und Kryptik hier alsschen Nebenwiderspruch Formalismus und eines Funktionalismus bekämpften Hauptdurch- die unvermeidliche Logik widerspruchs – die Abstraktion der Referenz von der Form der Methode widerspruchs – die Abstraktiondes Mimetischender Referenz vonhindurchzulotsen der Form der Methode– eine Logik, der manche Versuche der – billigend in Kauf genommen würden. Doch eben diese Hermetik und – billigend in Kauf genommenModernismuskritik würden. Doch eben im uneingestandenen diese Hermetik und Wissen um ihre eigene projektive Kryptik sind ihrerseits Bestandteile eines Versuchs, die Spannungen zwi- Kryptik sind ihrerseits BestandteileAktivität eines verhaftet Versuchs, zu bleiben die Spannungen scheinen. zwischen Formalismus und Funktionalismus durch die unvermeidliche Logik schen Formalismus und FunktionalismusFlorian Pumhösl durch dieweiß unvermeidliche offenbar um dieses Logik Dilemma, wenn er in einem des Mimetischen hindurchzulotsen – eine Logik, der manche Versuche der des Mimetischen hindurchzulotsenGespräch – miteine Juliane Logik, Rebentisch,der manche dasVersuche in Auszügen der im Katalog der Hambur- Modernismuskritik im uneingestandenen Wissen um ihreModernismuskritik eigene projektive im uneingestandenen Wissen um ihre eigene projektive Aktivität verhaftet zu bleiben scheinen. Aktivität verhaftet zu bleiben scheinen. Florian Pumhösl weiß offenbar um dieses Dilemma, wennFlorian er inPumhösl einem weiß offenbar um dieses Dilemma, wenn er in einem Gespräch mit Juliane Rebentisch, das in Auszügen im Katalog der Hambur- Gespräch110 mit Juliane Rebentisch, das in Auszügen im Katalog der Hambur- 111

110 111 110 111 SABETH BUCHMANN the avant-gardes as an emancipatory project, had ciated with the latter into their work by means of depends on the exhibition context) from canoni- ABSTRACT CHARACTERS? lost — the new argument went — its legitimacy references encoded in their thematic substance cal formulae of art-and-politics; yet such distance Reference and Formalism in the Works of due to its conscious or unavowed complicity with (as signs, textual information, or documentation), is claimed also by those who wish to have their Florian Pumhösl the ideology of progress promulgated by capi- the focus on aesthetic form established in the case works seen as associated with a “substantial” talist forms of domination. In a counter-move- of d 12 by the catchphrase “migration of form” cause: for which artist (and which critic) would ment, then, post- and neo-avant-gardist schools at times obscured this refraction. Nonetheless, a seriously want to incur the charge of a formally successively revived expressive forms of figuration growing affinity for abstract formal languages has blind conception of art? As Documenta 12’s most and narration that had been banished by “high become recognizable over the past few years that recent attempt — although less sharply defined modernism”. As is well known, this engage- cannot simply be reduced to “themes” or “dis- than that of the exhibition “Formalism. Modern ment, pursued by artists as well as historians, courses” and that ostensibly resists (post)modern Art, Today”, shown at Hamburg’s Kunstverein with modernism and the varieties of abstract aesthetic modes of figuration and narration as in 2004–05 — to address formalism itself as an formalism associated with it left its mark also on much as specific modes of a rhetoric of reference. art-critical and socially critical project demon- the curatorial programs of the two most recent From this vantage on the matter, the hypothesis strated, the positions subsumed under this label Documentas: in the case of Documenta 11, in its suggests itself that the past forty years of criti- do intersect with aesthetic modes that bear politi- ambition to understand the formal canon of mod- cal debate over modernism and formalism has cal connotations; for even the latter rarely define Leaving out “old masters” such as Robert Ryman and ernism as a heterogeneous collection of local as contributed to the attractiveness, recently on the themselves without an unfounded reference to a Ellsworth Kelly, which have presented late-modernist well as global phenomena, and hence to relativize rise and surely not independent of the market, of (presumably) uncritical formalism. exercises in self-referential pictorial abstraction still the sole authorship of Western Europe. Docu- “abstract art”. This is not to say, however, that the Florian Pumhösl is one of a loosely associ- at the 2007 Venice Biennial, the field of contemporary menta 12, by contrast, undertook a rehabilitating contemporary versions of the latter are reducible ated group of artists, including Fareed Armaly, “non-figurative” art shows a tendency of both abando- ning traditional media formats — or at least questio- revision of modernism, distinguishing between to the unitary-universalist programmatic aims Julie Ault/ Martin Beck, Stan Douglas, Renée ning their integrity and historical validity — as well as its progressive and emancipatory currents on the and manner of presentation of which one suspects Green, Dorit Margreiter, Christian Philipp Müller, addressing the socio-economic processes encoded in one hand and reactionary and structurally violent its historic predecessors. If one can here speak Mathias Poledna and Fred Wilson, that emerged formalist sign systems. Accordingly, under the influ- currents on the other, thus seeking to open the of a unitary principle, then only in the sort of in the late 1980s and 1990s under the influence of ence of conceptualism and institutional critique, the conception of the historical phase in question sense suggested by the contemporary logics of the contextual art and institutional criticism. Distanc- focus shifts towards the aim of interrogating the alle- for the correspondences the curators discerned market and the exhibition business — but not in ing themselves from post-modernism’s trans- ged universal validity of an abstract “world language” of art, as postulated in modernism, with respect to their between high-modernist and pre-modern and the sense that would without further ado identify historical and depoliticized conception of form, ideological implications. non-European formal languages. Yet in their sub- first-order, that is, self-referential formalism with they turned their attention to the blind spots of In this context, the more recent works of the Aus- stance, both exhibitions barely touched on what second-order, that is, referential formalism. modernism and its heritages. To the extent that trian artist Florian Pumhösl actuated a dialectics of has for a considerable period of time been a pre- Given the internal differentiations within the cause pursued by these artists was and in part references to specific episodes from the history of cisely delineated object of artistic projects toward the camp of so-called (neo)formalism, which is continues to be, as suggested above, a histori- modernism and a conscious visual reduction of for- a critique of modernism: site-, context-, and said to include artists as different as Tomma Abts, cal and aesthetic analysis of the interrelations, mal means — endeavoring to formulate a methodical critique of the practices both of (neo)formalism and of institution-specific investigations of the incon- Sergej Jensen, Wade Guyton, Michael Krebber, constitutive of European modernism’s claim to referentialism. gruences, tensions, and ruptures within abstract Florian Pumhösl, Anselm Reyle and Katja Strunz, hegemony, between universalist and marginal- formal languages between the modernist claim it seems to be unnecessary to project the antago- ized or “colonialized” formal language, it is What the traditional history of art considers an to autonomy and their systematic industrializa- nism of this camp against the idea of an inher- certainly no exaggeration to claim that Pumhösl achievement of European modernism, the global tion and popularization, as conducted especially ent “politicalness” of art onto the structurally was one of the artists to exert a decisive influ- dissemination of abstract formal languages, has by a globalized museum, exhibition, and media simple field of the usual suspects: of issue art and ence on fundamental thematic choices that led to been an object of critical discourse from the culture. In contrast with artists who, within the contextual art here and — in their negative inver- Documenta 12. His long-standing attention to the 1960s on, especially in light of the anti-colonial framework of their engagement of the histori- sion — apolitical formalism there. For the lowest history of abstract, and in particular of geometri- and minority movements of the post-war era. The cal, cultural, social, and ideological premises of common denominator that unites these formal- cal formal languages, whose “universalism” forms historical project of abstraction, undertaken by formal abstraction, introduced the aesthetics asso- ists seems to be distance (whose specific measure part of the background of his artistic project, is

162 163 SABETH BUCHMANN the avant-gardes as an emancipatory project, had ciated with the latter into their work by means of depends on the exhibition context) from canoni- ABSTRACT CHARACTERS? lost — the new argument went — its legitimacy references encoded in their thematic substance cal formulae of art-and-politics; yet such distance Reference and Formalism in the Works of due to its conscious or unavowed complicity with (as signs, textual information, or documentation), is claimed also by those who wish to have their Florian Pumhösl the ideology of progress promulgated by capi- the focus on aesthetic form established in the case works seen as associated with a “substantial” talist forms of domination. In a counter-move- of d 12 by the catchphrase “migration of form” cause: for which artist (and which critic) would ment, then, post- and neo-avant-gardist schools at times obscured this refraction. Nonetheless, a seriously want to incur the charge of a formally successively revived expressive forms of figuration growing affinity for abstract formal languages has blind conception of art? As Documenta 12’s most and narration that had been banished by “high become recognizable over the past few years that recent attempt — although less sharply defined modernism”. As is well known, this engage- cannot simply be reduced to “themes” or “dis- than that of the exhibition “Formalism. Modern ment, pursued by artists as well as historians, courses” and that ostensibly resists (post)modern Art, Today”, shown at Hamburg’s Kunstverein with modernism and the varieties of abstract aesthetic modes of figuration and narration as in 2004–05 — to address formalism itself as an formalism associated with it left its mark also on much as specific modes of a rhetoric of reference. art-critical and socially critical project demon- the curatorial programs of the two most recent From this vantage on the matter, the hypothesis strated, the positions subsumed under this label Documentas: in the case of Documenta 11, in its suggests itself that the past forty years of criti- do intersect with aesthetic modes that bear politi- ambition to understand the formal canon of mod- cal debate over modernism and formalism has cal connotations; for even the latter rarely define Leaving out “old masters” such as Robert Ryman and ernism as a heterogeneous collection of local as contributed to the attractiveness, recently on the themselves without an unfounded reference to a Ellsworth Kelly, which have presented late-modernist well as global phenomena, and hence to relativize rise and surely not independent of the market, of (presumably) uncritical formalism. exercises in self-referential pictorial abstraction still the sole authorship of Western Europe. Docu- “abstract art”. This is not to say, however, that the Florian Pumhösl is one of a loosely associ- at the 2007 Venice Biennial, the field of contemporary menta 12, by contrast, undertook a rehabilitating contemporary versions of the latter are reducible ated group of artists, including Fareed Armaly, “non-figurative” art shows a tendency of both abando- ning traditional media formats — or at least questio- revision of modernism, distinguishing between to the unitary-universalist programmatic aims Julie Ault/ Martin Beck, Stan Douglas, Renée ning their integrity and historical validity — as well as its progressive and emancipatory currents on the and manner of presentation of which one suspects Green, Dorit Margreiter, Christian Philipp Müller, addressing the socio-economic processes encoded in one hand and reactionary and structurally violent its historic predecessors. If one can here speak Mathias Poledna and Fred Wilson, that emerged formalist sign systems. Accordingly, under the influ- currents on the other, thus seeking to open the of a unitary principle, then only in the sort of in the late 1980s and 1990s under the influence of ence of conceptualism and institutional critique, the conception of the historical phase in question sense suggested by the contemporary logics of the contextual art and institutional criticism. Distanc- focus shifts towards the aim of interrogating the alle- for the correspondences the curators discerned market and the exhibition business — but not in ing themselves from post-modernism’s trans- ged universal validity of an abstract “world language” of art, as postulated in modernism, with respect to their between high-modernist and pre-modern and the sense that would without further ado identify historical and depoliticized conception of form, ideological implications. non-European formal languages. Yet in their sub- first-order, that is, self-referential formalism with they turned their attention to the blind spots of In this context, the more recent works of the Aus- stance, both exhibitions barely touched on what second-order, that is, referential formalism. modernism and its heritages. To the extent that trian artist Florian Pumhösl actuated a dialectics of has for a considerable period of time been a pre- Given the internal differentiations within the cause pursued by these artists was and in part references to specific episodes from the history of cisely delineated object of artistic projects toward the camp of so-called (neo)formalism, which is continues to be, as suggested above, a histori- modernism and a conscious visual reduction of for- a critique of modernism: site-, context-, and said to include artists as different as Tomma Abts, cal and aesthetic analysis of the interrelations, mal means — endeavoring to formulate a methodical critique of the practices both of (neo)formalism and of institution-specific investigations of the incon- Sergej Jensen, Wade Guyton, Michael Krebber, constitutive of European modernism’s claim to referentialism. gruences, tensions, and ruptures within abstract Florian Pumhösl, Anselm Reyle and Katja Strunz, hegemony, between universalist and marginal- formal languages between the modernist claim it seems to be unnecessary to project the antago- ized or “colonialized” formal language, it is What the traditional history of art considers an to autonomy and their systematic industrializa- nism of this camp against the idea of an inher- certainly no exaggeration to claim that Pumhösl achievement of European modernism, the global tion and popularization, as conducted especially ent “politicalness” of art onto the structurally was one of the artists to exert a decisive influ- dissemination of abstract formal languages, has by a globalized museum, exhibition, and media simple field of the usual suspects: of issue art and ence on fundamental thematic choices that led to been an object of critical discourse from the culture. In contrast with artists who, within the contextual art here and — in their negative inver- Documenta 12. His long-standing attention to the 1960s on, especially in light of the anti-colonial framework of their engagement of the histori- sion — apolitical formalism there. For the lowest history of abstract, and in particular of geometri- and minority movements of the post-war era. The cal, cultural, social, and ideological premises of common denominator that unites these formal- cal formal languages, whose “universalism” forms historical project of abstraction, undertaken by formal abstraction, introduced the aesthetics asso- ists seems to be distance (whose specific measure part of the background of his artistic project, is

162 163 similarly tangible in his second solo exhibition, second-order formalism was legible in the themes same. Pumhösl’s contribution moreover conspicu- media and of aesthetic charm, a distinctly media- which was shown late last year at Galerie Daniel of the graphically staged cycle of images on the ously failed (or perhaps, did not strive) to meet conscious format. Buchholz, a show one might call a sort of spin-off level of its method: translating conscious and the expectations Documenta 12 had raised with its Correspondingly, the historical lesson of from his contribution to Documenta 12, entitled unconscious correspondences between Japanese, mottoes “Is Modernism Our Classical Antiquity?” “media-referential functionalism”, making the “Modernology (Triangular Studio)”.1 Here as in Russian, and German avant-gardes of the 1920s and “Migration of Form”. Whether intentionally mode of presentation the object of a mutually his earlier works and exhibitions, the references and 1930s into a formal language loosely based on or not, “Modernology” differed in this respect interdependent translation of object and spatial to non-Western modernities function in order Pumhösl’s historical references, “Modernology” e.g. from those disambiguating readings that, environment, was tangible in “Modernology” as to break open the conception of European and seemed designed to establish not so much a decid- like James Coleman’s “Retake with Evidence”, well, in its ostensible distance from a referential- US-American “modernity” as a socio-geographi- edly political legibility of its historical references almost programmatically identified reference ism grasping for substantial content on the one cally and culturally coherent history of genesis as an aesthetically stringent actualization of the with evident historical quality. Pumhösl’s work hand, and from a contextually empty formalism and development. Both exhibitions, and especially form of presentation implicit in actualization. And was already distinguished from such vacuous on the other hand. Yet even though a text with “Modernology”, by taking into account (in the this very form raised the question as to the crite- melodies sung by a neo-classical formalism in information on his work was available, the wealth form in which they were later shown) the site ria of distinction that separate its own Pumhösl’s the tone of high art by the simple fact that his of formal references and differences within the of their presentation, reveal the tension between work from those post-modernist revisions of work not only did not mask the technical and materials he appropriated and reinterpreted did a critique of universalism and the contempo- geometric abstraction that — like Gerhard Merz media-based method of referencing but made not disclose itself (to me) to the same degree that rary globalization of such critique by virtue of in the 1980s — transposed Lyotard’s Kantian it the object of his choice of motif.3 By mark- a retrospective discussion can now develop and a ubiquitous “critical” exhibition and discourse credo of the “aesthetic sublime” to their “mod- ing claims to historical evidence, as the result of state. This is because, as I have already suggested, business. ernisms”: to Mondrian, Malevich, Rodtchenko, an interpretive and hence inevitably distorting his “Modernology” renounced a characteristic By contrast, the contribution to d12 and Rothko, and Newman. The difference is vast, no artistic process of translation, “Modernology” of earlier works by Pumhösl, which decidedly even the exhibition at Buchholz demonstrated doubt; it resides — at first glance — primarily in enacted — besides the ambition, presumably and “thematically” traced the quoted aesthetic a reticence to offer proofs of “criticality”. The the refusal of monumental form and visual opu- directed against the pertinent his to riography, object language back to its involvement in specific highly condensed formal vocabulary both shows lence, of, e. g., a re-auratization of space and color. of relating (avant-gardist) functionalism and historical moments and functions. Yet what is share with Pumhösl’s most recent exhibition, at Pumhösl’s preferred techniques thus include the (modernist) aesthetics — an close dovetailing of thus lost in terms of legible “content” seems to London’s Lisson Gallery2, seems to justify placing photogram as well as “synthetic resin lacquer “functional” and “autonomous” object languages. emerge on the methodological level: for in the him in the camp of (neo)formalism to the extent behind glass”, formal languages, that is, that are For instance, the exhibition design, loosely based wide field that is the contemporary formal lan- that its formal means were conspicuously and marked by a decidedly graphical presentational on avant-gardist prints and studio architecture, guage of the critique of modernism, Pumhösl is explicitly reduced, in comparison with Pumhösl’s quality. was formally reduced to such an extent that one one of the few artists who always fuses the genre earlier works, in many cases installations, to for- In the context of Documenta 12, the epitome could not emphatically call it either functional with a politically reflected critique of technology mal-abstract imagery. This renders thematic what of the contemporary art exhibition and one that, or autonomous. “OA 1979-3-5-036” was differ- — as represented not only by exhibitions such as constitutes the relationship, one in which not all as I have mentioned above, advanced its own ent in precisely this respect: for on the walls “Humanistic and Ecological Republic” (Seces- tensions have been resolved after all, between artistic program as an argument, Pumhösl’s deci- of a gallery, the double character of the glass sion, Vienna, 200), his 2003 show at the Cologne formally reflected referentialists and reference- sion to show a few small-format glass paintings paintings, functional and autonomous objects Kunstverein, and “Animated Map” at Kunsthalle savvy formalists: that is, the question of the dominated by black, white, and grey in a spatial now produced in a numbered edition and surely St. Gallen, but also his editorship of “montage”, (politics of) visibility of the differences between installation that referenced the “triangular stu- conscious of their collector value, was only the a series published in Vienna, which exempli- formal-abstract aesthetics as, on the one hand, a dio” designed by artist and designer Murayama more conspicuous. With their inherent reference fies his ongoing interest in graphic design and historical-political object and, on the other hand, Tomoyoshi in 1926 and the Sturm exhibition to the avant-gardist enterprise of wresting the role historiography. To date, “montage” has published a self-referential means of presentation. In “Mod- shown in Tokyo in 1914, didn’t look like a “grand of hegemonic genres from painting and sculp- writings by Pumhösl and other artists on subjects ernology” — the title quotes an eponymous work appearance”. To be frank, I was astonished that ture to more dynamic media — such as media such as design, architecture, and modern media by Japanese architect Kon Wajiro — this very Pumhösl showed so “little”, and, as I learned in based on photography and film — they moreover culture, that shed light on the interplay between tension between a (modern) self-referential first- conversations, other visitors to the exhibition seemed capable of positing, against a conceptual (avant-garde) art methodologies and industrial order formalism and a (post-modern) referential who were following his work attentively felt the art rendered suspect by its lack of reflection on its technology.

164 165 similarly tangible in his second solo exhibition, second-order formalism was legible in the themes same. Pumhösl’s contribution moreover conspicu- media and of aesthetic charm, a distinctly media- which was shown late last year at Galerie Daniel of the graphically staged cycle of images on the ously failed (or perhaps, did not strive) to meet conscious format. Buchholz, a show one might call a sort of spin-off level of its method: translating conscious and the expectations Documenta 12 had raised with its Correspondingly, the historical lesson of from his contribution to Documenta 12, entitled unconscious correspondences between Japanese, mottoes “Is Modernism Our Classical Antiquity?” “media-referential functionalism”, making the “Modernology (Triangular Studio)”.1 Here as in Russian, and German avant-gardes of the 1920s and “Migration of Form”. Whether intentionally mode of presentation the object of a mutually his earlier works and exhibitions, the references and 1930s into a formal language loosely based on or not, “Modernology” differed in this respect interdependent translation of object and spatial to non-Western modernities function in order Pumhösl’s historical references, “Modernology” e.g. from those disambiguating readings that, environment, was tangible in “Modernology” as to break open the conception of European and seemed designed to establish not so much a decid- like James Coleman’s “Retake with Evidence”, well, in its ostensible distance from a referential- US-American “modernity” as a socio-geographi- edly political legibility of its historical references almost programmatically identified reference ism grasping for substantial content on the one cally and culturally coherent history of genesis as an aesthetically stringent actualization of the with evident historical quality. Pumhösl’s work hand, and from a contextually empty formalism and development. Both exhibitions, and especially form of presentation implicit in actualization. And was already distinguished from such vacuous on the other hand. Yet even though a text with “Modernology”, by taking into account (in the this very form raised the question as to the crite- melodies sung by a neo-classical formalism in information on his work was available, the wealth form in which they were later shown) the site ria of distinction that separate its own Pumhösl’s the tone of high art by the simple fact that his of formal references and differences within the of their presentation, reveal the tension between work from those post-modernist revisions of work not only did not mask the technical and materials he appropriated and reinterpreted did a critique of universalism and the contempo- geometric abstraction that — like Gerhard Merz media-based method of referencing but made not disclose itself (to me) to the same degree that rary globalization of such critique by virtue of in the 1980s — transposed Lyotard’s Kantian it the object of his choice of motif.3 By mark- a retrospective discussion can now develop and a ubiquitous “critical” exhibition and discourse credo of the “aesthetic sublime” to their “mod- ing claims to historical evidence, as the result of state. This is because, as I have already suggested, business. ernisms”: to Mondrian, Malevich, Rodtchenko, an interpretive and hence inevitably distorting his “Modernology” renounced a characteristic By contrast, the contribution to d12 and Rothko, and Newman. The difference is vast, no artistic process of translation, “Modernology” of earlier works by Pumhösl, which decidedly even the exhibition at Buchholz demonstrated doubt; it resides — at first glance — primarily in enacted — besides the ambition, presumably and “thematically” traced the quoted aesthetic a reticence to offer proofs of “criticality”. The the refusal of monumental form and visual opu- directed against the pertinent his to riography, object language back to its involvement in specific highly condensed formal vocabulary both shows lence, of, e. g., a re-auratization of space and color. of relating (avant-gardist) functionalism and historical moments and functions. Yet what is share with Pumhösl’s most recent exhibition, at Pumhösl’s preferred techniques thus include the (modernist) aesthetics — an close dovetailing of thus lost in terms of legible “content” seems to London’s Lisson Gallery2, seems to justify placing photogram as well as “synthetic resin lacquer “functional” and “autonomous” object languages. emerge on the methodological level: for in the him in the camp of (neo)formalism to the extent behind glass”, formal languages, that is, that are For instance, the exhibition design, loosely based wide field that is the contemporary formal lan- that its formal means were conspicuously and marked by a decidedly graphical presentational on avant-gardist prints and studio architecture, guage of the critique of modernism, Pumhösl is explicitly reduced, in comparison with Pumhösl’s quality. was formally reduced to such an extent that one one of the few artists who always fuses the genre earlier works, in many cases installations, to for- In the context of Documenta 12, the epitome could not emphatically call it either functional with a politically reflected critique of technology mal-abstract imagery. This renders thematic what of the contemporary art exhibition and one that, or autonomous. “OA 1979-3-5-036” was differ- — as represented not only by exhibitions such as constitutes the relationship, one in which not all as I have mentioned above, advanced its own ent in precisely this respect: for on the walls “Humanistic and Ecological Republic” (Seces- tensions have been resolved after all, between artistic program as an argument, Pumhösl’s deci- of a gallery, the double character of the glass sion, Vienna, 200), his 2003 show at the Cologne formally reflected referentialists and reference- sion to show a few small-format glass paintings paintings, functional and autonomous objects Kunstverein, and “Animated Map” at Kunsthalle savvy formalists: that is, the question of the dominated by black, white, and grey in a spatial now produced in a numbered edition and surely St. Gallen, but also his editorship of “montage”, (politics of) visibility of the differences between installation that referenced the “triangular stu- conscious of their collector value, was only the a series published in Vienna, which exempli- formal-abstract aesthetics as, on the one hand, a dio” designed by artist and designer Murayama more conspicuous. With their inherent reference fies his ongoing interest in graphic design and historical-political object and, on the other hand, Tomoyoshi in 1926 and the Sturm exhibition to the avant-gardist enterprise of wresting the role historiography. To date, “montage” has published a self-referential means of presentation. In “Mod- shown in Tokyo in 1914, didn’t look like a “grand of hegemonic genres from painting and sculp- writings by Pumhösl and other artists on subjects ernology” — the title quotes an eponymous work appearance”. To be frank, I was astonished that ture to more dynamic media — such as media such as design, architecture, and modern media by Japanese architect Kon Wajiro — this very Pumhösl showed so “little”, and, as I learned in based on photography and film — they moreover culture, that shed light on the interplay between tension between a (modern) self-referential first- conversations, other visitors to the exhibition seemed capable of positing, against a conceptual (avant-garde) art methodologies and industrial order formalism and a (post-modern) referential who were following his work attentively felt the art rendered suspect by its lack of reflection on its technology.

164 165 As demonstrated by the reception of Pum- of itself thus formed a central precondition for my tionship between the object and its environment. the outlines of the shapes presented here, and that hösl’s work by art critics and the invitations he perception of his exhibition at Buchholz as well. The emphasis on visual imagery thus went hand the latter are abstractions of floral, topographi- has received to exhibit, he seems to have been For the latter similarly consisted of a new series in hand with one on the gallery as a showroom. cal, and military motifs. The statement that these spared the label of the discourse-heavy and hence of glass paintings — a decidedly media-reflec- The 16-millimeter film “OA 1979-3-5-036”, which schematized shapes were “intended for simple hard-to-sell artist. This may be due, if one may tive format, that is to say, that had already been was shown in combination with the glass paint- reproduction by the buyer” can be metaphorically base an argument on the example of the cata- on view in Pumhösl’s first solo show at Buchholz ings, turned this condition against itself by posit- applied to the exhibition as well — as an indica- logue of the “Formalism” show in Hamburg, to as well as Krobath Wimmer4 in Vienna and at ing, against the presentation of the framed static tion, that is to say, that aesthetic contemplation contextually conditioned proximities — that is, Kunsthalle St. Gallen; a format that thematized the image, one that accords with the classical format was here marked as a relationship between shape proximities resulting from, among other things, method of translating functional formal languages of the art commodity, the frameless temporal and observer defined by mercantile structures and representation by the same galleries — to artists into the present of its aesthetic (re)production and form of “abstract” film, a technique Pumhösl had (mass) culture: a relationship that refers back, who, while certainly not being marketed via a reception also in the choice of titles. As the press already resorted to in earlier works. Given the fact once one considers the historical context of the project of political formalism, can nonetheless release noted, the individual paintings bear “titles that abstract avant-garde film implies not only book of patterns, to an era when the philosophy profit from the latter thanks to benevolent cura- from the realm of printing and book manufac- a formal aesthetic but also that of advertising, of the enlightenment discovered the subject and tors and catalogue authors. Against this backdrop, ture such as ‘poster’, ‘page’, ‘flyer,’ or ‘tabloid’”. It this recourse did not imply a non-commercial aesthetic perception with it, a discovery that Pumhösl’s recent exhibitions would seem to further informed the visitor that “the geometrical counter-model, as the projection’s rays directly hit ultimately left its mark on the bourgeois museum, constitute a very carefully crafted engagement of shapes depicted […] [are] reductions of compo- the gallery wall, functioning as probably one of an institution created in the spirit of the enlight- the positions I have only sketched here within sitional elements of modern layout that structure the most valuable architectonic elements: while enment. The fact that the library stamp “OA 1979- processes in the world of today’s exhibitions, and interpret the text, in this case mostly taken observing the projected forms, the viewer was 3-5-036”, reproduced on the invitation to the the market, and contemporary discourses — an from pages of text and pamphlets in the typogra- thus always also looking at a wall shown in the show, refers to the call number of the copy of the engagement that also reflects both on the desires phy of Japanese 1920s and 1930s avant-garde; their light of the functionality of a medium. In combi- book held by the archives of the British Museum for “criticality”, desires surely not immune to surfaces, however, have been freed from the text, nation with the glass paintings, these ornamental- can thus be understood as an indication toward all suspicion, and on those of an art market that the abstracted structuring signs, from their com- graphical white-on-black drawings, undergoing the possession of cultural difference represented insists on communicable and reliable indicators of positional/emphatic function. One can conceive transformations in metrical-rhythmical sequences by museum collections — the possession, in this quality. In this context, one might discern ambiv- of these images as media whose visual language of montage — as the press release made available case, of a book of patterns of historical Japanese alence in the decision to return to the project of brackets writing and functionality”. to the visitors noted, they referred to the late 17th fashion. In other words, significant aspects of the (post)avant-gardes, a failure when measured I quote the exhibition information leaflet at century Japanese book “Gozen Hiinagata” (“Dress the European enlightenment are fused, at a very against the market success of established trade length also because it contains a more sharply Patterns for Noble Ladies”) by Take Hiratsugi, high level of formal abstraction, with a witness formats, within the framework of a large-scale delineated version of something that had already a woodcut-printed catalogue of patterns for the to a (media) culture of the past that has been exhibition such as Documenta that was, all been brought up in “Modernology”. For whereas motivic design of kimonos — seemed like inten- exoticized by European modernity — a moment curatorial self-interpretation notwithstanding, not the glass paintings attest to the (post)avant-gardist tionally cryptic abbreviations from geometrical that exposes the question regarding the cultural in its principles an alternative to the art market. ambition to undermine classical rules of composi- formal languages. Recognizing in them a refer- code of form as being at the same time also one To put it strongly, then, one might expand the tion by inducing the image into the dimension ence to motifs on traditional Japanese women’s regarding the aesthetic evaluation of this form. translation between hegemonic and local practices of space, a formal reduction that has here been dresses would have been impossible without the The ambition to artistic judgment that rises above of the historical avant-gardes, thus the declared driven even further seems to foreground instead supplied information. This means that the percep- contextual knowledge — the ambition, that is, enterprise of “Modernology”, to include the the mode of imagery. Insofar as the Buchholz tion of the social reference of abstract ornament to be able to read an “unintelligible” formal lan- structural tensions inherent in the (self-imposed) show presented the glass paintings mounted, at evoked here obviously did not necessarily rely on guage once it appears in the mode of art — would artistic obligation to match the demands of criti- some distance, on the gallery’s walls, the relation- the expectation that the viewers would decipher thus appear to be obsolete. Yet this does not do cal discourse on the one hand, and the formats of ship between the individual image and serial it, even though the focused observer might have away with the question whether this line of argu- the market’s interests on the other hand. production become thematic, as did the fact that persuaded herself otherwise at least to some ment might offer also a “noble” basis for “cryp- The questions I had thus inevitably come to Pumhösl refrained from designing an architec- degree. The press release thus further informed tic” formalisms — a question that leads directly ask myself regarding “Modernology”’s conception tural setting that would have constituted the rela- the visitor that “Gozen Hiinagata” defined only to the core of (neo)formalism. For Pumhösl’s

166 167 As demonstrated by the reception of Pum- of itself thus formed a central precondition for my tionship between the object and its environment. the outlines of the shapes presented here, and that hösl’s work by art critics and the invitations he perception of his exhibition at Buchholz as well. The emphasis on visual imagery thus went hand the latter are abstractions of floral, topographi- has received to exhibit, he seems to have been For the latter similarly consisted of a new series in hand with one on the gallery as a showroom. cal, and military motifs. The statement that these spared the label of the discourse-heavy and hence of glass paintings — a decidedly media-reflec- The 16-millimeter film “OA 1979-3-5-036”, which schematized shapes were “intended for simple hard-to-sell artist. This may be due, if one may tive format, that is to say, that had already been was shown in combination with the glass paint- reproduction by the buyer” can be metaphorically base an argument on the example of the cata- on view in Pumhösl’s first solo show at Buchholz ings, turned this condition against itself by posit- applied to the exhibition as well — as an indica- logue of the “Formalism” show in Hamburg, to as well as Krobath Wimmer4 in Vienna and at ing, against the presentation of the framed static tion, that is to say, that aesthetic contemplation contextually conditioned proximities — that is, Kunsthalle St. Gallen; a format that thematized the image, one that accords with the classical format was here marked as a relationship between shape proximities resulting from, among other things, method of translating functional formal languages of the art commodity, the frameless temporal and observer defined by mercantile structures and representation by the same galleries — to artists into the present of its aesthetic (re)production and form of “abstract” film, a technique Pumhösl had (mass) culture: a relationship that refers back, who, while certainly not being marketed via a reception also in the choice of titles. As the press already resorted to in earlier works. Given the fact once one considers the historical context of the project of political formalism, can nonetheless release noted, the individual paintings bear “titles that abstract avant-garde film implies not only book of patterns, to an era when the philosophy profit from the latter thanks to benevolent cura- from the realm of printing and book manufac- a formal aesthetic but also that of advertising, of the enlightenment discovered the subject and tors and catalogue authors. Against this backdrop, ture such as ‘poster’, ‘page’, ‘flyer,’ or ‘tabloid’”. It this recourse did not imply a non-commercial aesthetic perception with it, a discovery that Pumhösl’s recent exhibitions would seem to further informed the visitor that “the geometrical counter-model, as the projection’s rays directly hit ultimately left its mark on the bourgeois museum, constitute a very carefully crafted engagement of shapes depicted […] [are] reductions of compo- the gallery wall, functioning as probably one of an institution created in the spirit of the enlight- the positions I have only sketched here within sitional elements of modern layout that structure the most valuable architectonic elements: while enment. The fact that the library stamp “OA 1979- processes in the world of today’s exhibitions, and interpret the text, in this case mostly taken observing the projected forms, the viewer was 3-5-036”, reproduced on the invitation to the the market, and contemporary discourses — an from pages of text and pamphlets in the typogra- thus always also looking at a wall shown in the show, refers to the call number of the copy of the engagement that also reflects both on the desires phy of Japanese 1920s and 1930s avant-garde; their light of the functionality of a medium. In combi- book held by the archives of the British Museum for “criticality”, desires surely not immune to surfaces, however, have been freed from the text, nation with the glass paintings, these ornamental- can thus be understood as an indication toward all suspicion, and on those of an art market that the abstracted structuring signs, from their com- graphical white-on-black drawings, undergoing the possession of cultural difference represented insists on communicable and reliable indicators of positional/emphatic function. One can conceive transformations in metrical-rhythmical sequences by museum collections — the possession, in this quality. In this context, one might discern ambiv- of these images as media whose visual language of montage — as the press release made available case, of a book of patterns of historical Japanese alence in the decision to return to the project of brackets writing and functionality”. to the visitors noted, they referred to the late 17th fashion. In other words, significant aspects of the (post)avant-gardes, a failure when measured I quote the exhibition information leaflet at century Japanese book “Gozen Hiinagata” (“Dress the European enlightenment are fused, at a very against the market success of established trade length also because it contains a more sharply Patterns for Noble Ladies”) by Take Hiratsugi, high level of formal abstraction, with a witness formats, within the framework of a large-scale delineated version of something that had already a woodcut-printed catalogue of patterns for the to a (media) culture of the past that has been exhibition such as Documenta that was, all been brought up in “Modernology”. For whereas motivic design of kimonos — seemed like inten- exoticized by European modernity — a moment curatorial self-interpretation notwithstanding, not the glass paintings attest to the (post)avant-gardist tionally cryptic abbreviations from geometrical that exposes the question regarding the cultural in its principles an alternative to the art market. ambition to undermine classical rules of composi- formal languages. Recognizing in them a refer- code of form as being at the same time also one To put it strongly, then, one might expand the tion by inducing the image into the dimension ence to motifs on traditional Japanese women’s regarding the aesthetic evaluation of this form. translation between hegemonic and local practices of space, a formal reduction that has here been dresses would have been impossible without the The ambition to artistic judgment that rises above of the historical avant-gardes, thus the declared driven even further seems to foreground instead supplied information. This means that the percep- contextual knowledge — the ambition, that is, enterprise of “Modernology”, to include the the mode of imagery. Insofar as the Buchholz tion of the social reference of abstract ornament to be able to read an “unintelligible” formal lan- structural tensions inherent in the (self-imposed) show presented the glass paintings mounted, at evoked here obviously did not necessarily rely on guage once it appears in the mode of art — would artistic obligation to match the demands of criti- some distance, on the gallery’s walls, the relation- the expectation that the viewers would decipher thus appear to be obsolete. Yet this does not do cal discourse on the one hand, and the formats of ship between the individual image and serial it, even though the focused observer might have away with the question whether this line of argu- the market’s interests on the other hand. production become thematic, as did the fact that persuaded herself otherwise at least to some ment might offer also a “noble” basis for “cryp- The questions I had thus inevitably come to Pumhösl refrained from designing an architec- degree. The press release thus further informed tic” formalisms — a question that leads directly ask myself regarding “Modernology”’s conception tural setting that would have constituted the rela- the visitor that “Gozen Hiinagata” defined only to the core of (neo)formalism. For Pumhösl’s

166 167 (cinematographic) translation of historical motifs mounted, left to right, the film ran in a verti- that is immune neither to a political critique nor Eisenstein, undertook to discard the tradition of into non-geometric patterns of straight and jag- cal direction akin to that of Japanese writing to aesthetic taste, a montage that — as in the case central perspective in favor of an interpenetrating ged lines, quarter-circles, and grids meets the culture, that is, downward. This counter-move of Japanese wood-cuts and Russian avant-garde fabric of surface, space, and time. In view of the neoformalist demand for a reduction of visual against the limitation of the filmic image to its film — translates non-contemporary media, growing disbelief, propelled by World War II and information — an enterprise that, in distancing square outline is reminiscent of the techniques of through a “becoming-alien” of form, into a the Russian Revolution, in the ideals of bourgeois itself from the (neo)realist ambition to legible montage developed by the Russian avant-gardes, discourse about the historicity and politicalness of culture, artists at the Bauhaus promoted an indus- references to reality, privileges the construction, and here especially by Sergei Eisenstein, who, as aesthetic perception. That the polyvalence of the trialized aesthetic language that resonated with and with it the beholder’s genuine performative film theorists Thomas Elsässer and Malte Hagener offer thus made to the recipients may not reveal the echoes of the colonialist expansions of the contribution. Pumhösl’s formal language is in this write, sought to break through the format of the itself to them upon first inspection, then, turns 19th-century avant-gardes, an aesthetic language sense reminiscent of phenomenological Gestalt moving picture by means of dynamic “diagonals” out, contrary to the widespread prejudice about that aimed to create a progressive mass culture theory, according to which humans fundamen- and “parallels”. Eisenstein referred in this context the methods of referentialism, not to be the mark — one which, with media such as books and tally tend to recognize in shapes “contents” that to what he called the “Japanese method”, which, of a modern art that is in need of commentary or posters, film and photography resolutely targeted correspond to their own socio-cultural horizon in contrast with Renaissance perspective “selects discursive mediation. This polyvalence must be also (petit-)bourgeois consumers, as a new social of perception. Yet this means also that aesthetic from the whole (of a scenery or scene) a detail thought, according to Pumhösl’s project, in the stratum and participant in the life of society. This distance from the world is incapable of sublating through which the camera conquers, as it were, interplay of cultural and inter-media translations means that Bauhaus artists such as Anni Albers, to either the individual-psychological or the collec- the world”. “Eisenstein”, the authors continue, between form/ abstraction and function/ refer- whose works Pumhösl has made reference more tive-cultural components of mimesis. Pumhösl “calls this selection of the square detail shown in ence. The methods “OA 1979-3-5-036” employs than once, no less than the Japanese book of pat- seems to indicate precisely this form of differen- the picture the ‘chiseling-out of a detail of reality to translate the graphically abstract motifs of the terns establish objections not only to an unbroken tiality manifest in (inter)media translation when with the means of the objective’ — a phrase that pattern catalogue in accordance with standardized Euro-centrist and modernist but also to an unbro- he informs the visitor, in the handout, that the seems indebted primarily to the Marxist pathos of principles of montage here releases the tendency, ken patrilinear and bourgeois tradition as well as shapes taken from the source and reproduced here the revolution, not to the painters of Hokkaido, inherent to the (avant-gardist) medium, toward a heroicizing revolutionary pathos. have been rotated by 90 degrees. The mechanics, conceptualizing reality as a source material to be (self-)abrogation as an aspect akin to formalism’s One thing for which Pumhösl’s methods at once manual and performed by an apparatus, modeled, to be freely transformed”.5 ambition to create an autonomous living reality, deserve unqualified credit, then, is their abil- that is thus rendered thematic and undermines In fusing Japanese wood-cuts and 16-millime- one emancipated from that bad real world under ity to effect a historically elaborate interweav- the possible impression of sophistication, reveals ter film with its strong avant-garde connotations, whose conditions (of production) it was created. ing of the discourses of form and media. The the process of formal abstraction as an inevitably Pumhösl seems to be “critically” quoting this set In this respect, too, Pumhösl’s decision to project question I asked at the beginning remains: what mimetic process of medium-immanent mean- of problems incurred by a “leftist” colonialism, the film onto the gallery wall seems to stage a to make of the progressive tendency toward ing-production: on the one hand, the medium of as it left its mark on the European avant-gardes, historically charged concept of reception, and reduced forms and more abstract references in the wood-cut, which preceded the mass-cultural by taking for his model not (objective) reality stage it not as a relationship between work and terms of market strategy. It might be understood media of the 19th century, lithography and pho- “as such” but rather a book of patterns that, as beholder abstracted from art’s submission to the as a determined understatement, offered against tography, and was at the time “appropriated” by the artist once explained to me, wooed potential commodity form. There is here no screen which, the sort of statement expected from a politically European artists who felt an affinity for the graph- buyers with the kimono’s traditional ambition of in the literal sense of the word, would unmask, reflective artist such as he is. Yet it would seem ical language of Japanese art, with its emphasis on representing “anything under the sun”. My initial by concealing it, a material truth located behind that the imputation that Pumhösl changed posi- surfaces; on the other hand, a 16-millimeter film impression of Pumhösl’s exhibition was, I admit, it, or would divide such a material truth into a tions is by no means compelling, given Christian subdivided, obviously to some extent based the that of an arbitrary relationship between reference façade and a behind-the-façade, as paravent-like Kravagna’s review of Pumhösl’s widely noted book that served as its source, into four chapters. and form; with a view to Elsässer and Hagener’s movable walls did at Documenta 12.6 exhibition at the Secession eight years ago. Even If one can conclude from this premise that this critique, it is obviously not only a phenomenon The implications of 16-millimeter film then, Kravagna, an art historian, called to atten- suggested the structuralist-formalist double figure of “post-modern formalism” but equally one discussed here can be related back to the glass tion that “one might level the reproach against of seeing and reading forms, the form rotated of “avant-gardist functionalism”. Pumhösl, this paintings insofar as aspects thematic in film this exhibition that the aesthetic, historical, and by 90 degrees opened up yet another avenue of would then be my revised judgment, purposely and film projection — form/Gestalt, graphical social references it establishes are rendered virtu- differential reception of forms: for against the exposes his materials to this set of problems pre- surface/space, time/motion picture — attest in ally illegible behind the objective plane. Yet this traditional order in which the paintings had been cisely in order to effect a montage of references these paintings to an artistic current that, like would mean”, Kravagna continued, “to overlook

168 169 (cinematographic) translation of historical motifs mounted, left to right, the film ran in a verti- that is immune neither to a political critique nor Eisenstein, undertook to discard the tradition of into non-geometric patterns of straight and jag- cal direction akin to that of Japanese writing to aesthetic taste, a montage that — as in the case central perspective in favor of an interpenetrating ged lines, quarter-circles, and grids meets the culture, that is, downward. This counter-move of Japanese wood-cuts and Russian avant-garde fabric of surface, space, and time. In view of the neoformalist demand for a reduction of visual against the limitation of the filmic image to its film — translates non-contemporary media, growing disbelief, propelled by World War II and information — an enterprise that, in distancing square outline is reminiscent of the techniques of through a “becoming-alien” of form, into a the Russian Revolution, in the ideals of bourgeois itself from the (neo)realist ambition to legible montage developed by the Russian avant-gardes, discourse about the historicity and politicalness of culture, artists at the Bauhaus promoted an indus- references to reality, privileges the construction, and here especially by Sergei Eisenstein, who, as aesthetic perception. That the polyvalence of the trialized aesthetic language that resonated with and with it the beholder’s genuine performative film theorists Thomas Elsässer and Malte Hagener offer thus made to the recipients may not reveal the echoes of the colonialist expansions of the contribution. Pumhösl’s formal language is in this write, sought to break through the format of the itself to them upon first inspection, then, turns 19th-century avant-gardes, an aesthetic language sense reminiscent of phenomenological Gestalt moving picture by means of dynamic “diagonals” out, contrary to the widespread prejudice about that aimed to create a progressive mass culture theory, according to which humans fundamen- and “parallels”. Eisenstein referred in this context the methods of referentialism, not to be the mark — one which, with media such as books and tally tend to recognize in shapes “contents” that to what he called the “Japanese method”, which, of a modern art that is in need of commentary or posters, film and photography resolutely targeted correspond to their own socio-cultural horizon in contrast with Renaissance perspective “selects discursive mediation. This polyvalence must be also (petit-)bourgeois consumers, as a new social of perception. Yet this means also that aesthetic from the whole (of a scenery or scene) a detail thought, according to Pumhösl’s project, in the stratum and participant in the life of society. This distance from the world is incapable of sublating through which the camera conquers, as it were, interplay of cultural and inter-media translations means that Bauhaus artists such as Anni Albers, to either the individual-psychological or the collec- the world”. “Eisenstein”, the authors continue, between form/ abstraction and function/ refer- whose works Pumhösl has made reference more tive-cultural components of mimesis. Pumhösl “calls this selection of the square detail shown in ence. The methods “OA 1979-3-5-036” employs than once, no less than the Japanese book of pat- seems to indicate precisely this form of differen- the picture the ‘chiseling-out of a detail of reality to translate the graphically abstract motifs of the terns establish objections not only to an unbroken tiality manifest in (inter)media translation when with the means of the objective’ — a phrase that pattern catalogue in accordance with standardized Euro-centrist and modernist but also to an unbro- he informs the visitor, in the handout, that the seems indebted primarily to the Marxist pathos of principles of montage here releases the tendency, ken patrilinear and bourgeois tradition as well as shapes taken from the source and reproduced here the revolution, not to the painters of Hokkaido, inherent to the (avant-gardist) medium, toward a heroicizing revolutionary pathos. have been rotated by 90 degrees. The mechanics, conceptualizing reality as a source material to be (self-)abrogation as an aspect akin to formalism’s One thing for which Pumhösl’s methods at once manual and performed by an apparatus, modeled, to be freely transformed”.5 ambition to create an autonomous living reality, deserve unqualified credit, then, is their abil- that is thus rendered thematic and undermines In fusing Japanese wood-cuts and 16-millime- one emancipated from that bad real world under ity to effect a historically elaborate interweav- the possible impression of sophistication, reveals ter film with its strong avant-garde connotations, whose conditions (of production) it was created. ing of the discourses of form and media. The the process of formal abstraction as an inevitably Pumhösl seems to be “critically” quoting this set In this respect, too, Pumhösl’s decision to project question I asked at the beginning remains: what mimetic process of medium-immanent mean- of problems incurred by a “leftist” colonialism, the film onto the gallery wall seems to stage a to make of the progressive tendency toward ing-production: on the one hand, the medium of as it left its mark on the European avant-gardes, historically charged concept of reception, and reduced forms and more abstract references in the wood-cut, which preceded the mass-cultural by taking for his model not (objective) reality stage it not as a relationship between work and terms of market strategy. It might be understood media of the 19th century, lithography and pho- “as such” but rather a book of patterns that, as beholder abstracted from art’s submission to the as a determined understatement, offered against tography, and was at the time “appropriated” by the artist once explained to me, wooed potential commodity form. There is here no screen which, the sort of statement expected from a politically European artists who felt an affinity for the graph- buyers with the kimono’s traditional ambition of in the literal sense of the word, would unmask, reflective artist such as he is. Yet it would seem ical language of Japanese art, with its emphasis on representing “anything under the sun”. My initial by concealing it, a material truth located behind that the imputation that Pumhösl changed posi- surfaces; on the other hand, a 16-millimeter film impression of Pumhösl’s exhibition was, I admit, it, or would divide such a material truth into a tions is by no means compelling, given Christian subdivided, obviously to some extent based the that of an arbitrary relationship between reference façade and a behind-the-façade, as paravent-like Kravagna’s review of Pumhösl’s widely noted book that served as its source, into four chapters. and form; with a view to Elsässer and Hagener’s movable walls did at Documenta 12.6 exhibition at the Secession eight years ago. Even If one can conclude from this premise that this critique, it is obviously not only a phenomenon The implications of 16-millimeter film then, Kravagna, an art historian, called to atten- suggested the structuralist-formalist double figure of “post-modern formalism” but equally one discussed here can be related back to the glass tion that “one might level the reproach against of seeing and reading forms, the form rotated of “avant-gardist functionalism”. Pumhösl, this paintings insofar as aspects thematic in film this exhibition that the aesthetic, historical, and by 90 degrees opened up yet another avenue of would then be my revised judgment, purposely and film projection — form/Gestalt, graphical social references it establishes are rendered virtu- differential reception of forms: for against the exposes his materials to this set of problems pre- surface/space, time/motion picture — attest in ally illegible behind the objective plane. Yet this traditional order in which the paintings had been cisely in order to effect a montage of references these paintings to an artistic current that, like would mean”, Kravagna continued, “to overlook

168 169 the fact that Pumhösl is centrally concerned with 3-5-036”, for instance, by virtue of the formal INA BLOM paper debate. These days, apparently, more and the question how ideas and concepts become analogy between the pattern catalogue and filmic THE LOGIC OF THE TRAILER more authors and publishing houses are posting manifest in space and media, a question his works montage, two things that do not at first glance Abstraction, Style and Sociality in so-called book trailers on YouTube: movie-style Contemporary Art pursue with mimetic techniques”.7 That Pumhösl, seem a good match. Yet precisely because their clips that visualize the key elements of a book’s as I remarked above in the context of his classifi- fusion appears to be arbitrary, it reveals a “cri- narrative through a fast-paced mix of still and cation as a (neo)formalist, was initially a member tique” of method pro domo in the sense that the moving images set to booming music and voice- of a group of artists who worked on a “critical “Japanese method” that is, if I am not mistaken, overs. In fact, the only thing to tell the viewer reconstruction of processes of modernization”8, being quoted here becomes itself the object of the that this is a book trailer and not the trailer for a is similarly something Kravagna already noted media-conditioned form of (re)presentation. The film or a television mini-series is the tendency to two years earlier. Yet what Pumhösl’s more recent relationship between abstract form and reference, here and there show glimpses of printed pages, work rightly points out is that that the ambition then, remains as split as it had been in Pumhösl’s illustrations and cover designs. Authors are easily to perform a historical-critical reconstruction earlier work, even though or precisely because it confused with actors: in the trailer for “The Shirt is itself highly projective, that is to say, a matter seems as though this split presents, in the more Deal”, a perky Stephen J. Cannell walks through of construction and of a methodology inevita- recent work, its outside more forcefully as a ques- the fictional “set” of his mystery novel as he bly charged with ideology. If we didn’t have the tion of (aesthetic and institutional) immanence. recounts its plot, his “author look” no doubt part works’ titles and exhibition information leaflets If Modernism still sought to postulate a notion of of the set design program. to get us started, we might come to think that (Translation: Gerrit Jacksson) abstraction that was meant to be based on the idea of As far back in media time as 2004, an exhibi- hermetiticism and crypticism are here accepted as aesthetic self-reference, abstraction under the condition project by Liam Gillick apprehended this Notes tions of post-Fordism and of immaterial production can the secondary contradiction inevitably entailed in deft merge of previously separate media realms. 1 Florian Pumhösl, “OA 1979-3-5-036”, Galerie Daniel Buch- be conceived of as a category involved in all areas of holz, Köln, 11/30/2007-1/19/2008 attacking the main contradiction — the abstrac- society. Influenced by the paradigm of information in Expanses of dirt brown carpeting, molded into 2 Florian Pumhösl, Lisson Gallery, London, 2/6-3/15/2008. tion of reference from the form of the method. the post-war era, abstraction was increasingly recoded heaps and folds, created a sort of landscape in the 3 Exemplary evidence of the importance of the question of as design – as the manipulation of technologically Yet this very hermetic-cryptic presentation is methodology to Pumhösl’s work can be found in his “Ani- Micheline Szwajcer gallery in Antwerp, but this a component in its own right of the attempt to mated Map”, published on the occasion of the exhibition of produced surface phenomena, which correspond with just seemed to be the setting for the key event. At navigate the tensions between formalism and the same title at Neue Kunst Halle St. Gallen, 2005. the deterritorialization of capital under the banner of the far end of this carpet-landscape a 7-minute globalization and with a biopolitical logic that aims at functionalism through the inevitable logic of the 4 See Tanja Widmann, “Glanz auf der Nase. Über Florian trailer for the updated version of French sociolo- Pumhösl in der Galerie Krobath Wimmer, Wien”, in: Texte the productivity of an aesthetically stylized life. mimetic — a logic which some attempts at a cri- zur Kunst 16 no. 61, March 2006, pp. 184–187. Artists such as Liam Gillick and Tobias Rehber- gist Gabriel Tarde’s 1896 science fiction novel tique of modernism, disavowing their awareness 5 Thomas Elsässer/Malte Hagener, Filmtheorie zur Einfüh- ger no longer address abstraction as the principle for “Underground (Fragment of Future Histories)” of the projective nature of their own activity, do rung, Dresden 2007, p. 35. the creation of distinct minimalist objects, but rather was displayed on a 1969 Brionvega Cuboglass not escape. 6 Cf. ibid., p. 53. try to create through design spaces for open social television set.1 7 Christian Kravagna, “Historische Praxis”, in: Springerin. interaction, whose actual use is to be constantly rede- Florian Pumhösl is obviously conscious of Hefte zur Gegenwartskunst 3 (2000), pp. 44–45. At first glance it seemed like a straightforward fined within the situation of the exhibition – without this dilemma when he explains, in a conversation 8 Christian Kravagna, “Die Moderne sehen”, in: Christian promotional event: a book had been published; necessarily producing relational-aesthetic models of Meyer/Mathias Poledna (eds.), Sharawadgi, Ausstellungs- with Juliane Rebentisch reprinted, in part, in the community. Considering a notion of abstraction thusly now the sales apparatus was activated. But this catalogue for the Hamburg “Formalism” exhibi- katalog Felsenvilla Baden Baden, Cologne 1999, p. 246. event was also a work of art. In fact, it was a work 9 Quoted from the conversation with Florian Pumhösl in: reformulated, would a redescription of that which is tion: “I ask myself whether I can create anything “Formalismus. Moderne Kunst, heute”, exh. cat. Kunst- commonly subsumed under the term “social art” be whose penchant for obliqueness or hermeticism at all that is abstract in character.”9 verein Hamburg, Ostfildern-Ruit 2004, p. 143 (extract appropriate? And what can “abstract” art under the opened a dialogue with the question of abstrac- One might say in conclusion, then, that from “Vielleicht eine Phase der Neuorientierung … Ein current conditions of electronic media networks and tion in art as well as with the notion of the Gespräch zwischen Florian Pumhösl und Juliane Reben- design actually mean? Pumhösl’s concept of abstraction, in marked tisch”, in: “Florian Pumhösl, Wachstum und Entwick- increasing abstraction of social relations under difference from the post-modern rhetoric of the lung”, exh. cat., Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck 2004, late capitalism (according to Theodor Adorno, sublime of the 1980s, aims not at a presumptive pp. 19 –30). the reality to which abstract art responds). The essence of art but at what divides such an essence, It is January 2008, and the latest trend in the objects of Adorno’s analysis were quite literally placing it in ever new contexts: in “OA 1979- world of publishing is the subject of some news- all present: on the one hand a literary text — an

170 171 Andrea Viliani, “Florian Pumhösl,” Mousse, No. 12, January 2008, pp. 62-63

Brigitte Huck, “Florian Pumhösl,” Reviews, Artforum, March 2006, pp. 307-308

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Florian Pumhösl GALERIE KROBATH WIMMER

What does Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet, 1916, have to do with the navigation of warships? Florian Pumhösl has explored this unexpected question in a new group of works. Pumhösl, an artist of great precision, is interested in the relationship between bodies and space, and he studies this relationship by way of superflat surfaces that he ultimately brings into relation with a superexact spatial balance: With just four works, Pumhösl succeeds in lending the small exhibition space of this Vienna gallery an air of REVIEWS breadth and elegance. Pumhösl’s footnotes to modernism seem austere, almost monastic. His examination of the rules and MARCH 2006 vocabulary of the modernist image-language takes place on a substrate more often associated with rural amateurs than with the crowning achievement of avant-garde art: Pumhösl paints on glass, or better, New York paints behind it. And yet the verre églomisé technique from which Pumhösl’s is adapted was used by Jeffrey Kastner on Charlie Josef Albers, among others. The avant-garde filmmaker Oskar Fischinger was a practitioner of the White genre, as was the German artist, graphic designer, and leader of the Jena Kunstverein, Walter Dexel. Nell McClister on Merlin The technique is intimately connected with the aspiration to modernize traditional crafts in the age of James industrial production. Jan Avgikos on Polly Apfelbaum Pumhösl’s finely differentiated and exactingly contoured personal method entails a very close look at Lisa Pasquariello on abstract and reductionist traditions of modernism while at the same time referring to representation. He Stanley Brouwn allows himself a positively romantic impulse with the use of old glass plates, complete with air pockets, Suzanne Hudson on Nicola to somewhat counter the tendency to be all too picture-perfect. Lines on monochromatic—black, white, Tyson or gray—backgrounds can be associated with Schlemmer’s stereometric bodies, whereas in the painting Frances Richard on titled Battle of Manila Bay (Turning Maneuvers) (all works 2005) the overlapping curves represent the Joseph Grigely movement of an American battleship. Michael Wilson on Kim Levin With a suggestion of unity that is also taken up in the office space of the gallery, Pumhösl continues his Johanna Burton on Sharon aesthetic evaluation of modernism in Element, a thoughtful study of the material associations triggered Hayes by abstract paintings and of the way extreme formal reductivism can produce powerful content. Pumhösl Brian Sholis on Michael rigorously concentrates his work down to the founding grammatical principles of the modern image François vocabulary and works unwaveringly to connect exemplary moments of the avant-garde—in architecture, Brian Sholis on Felix design, or experimental film—along their lines of fracture and contradiction. Schramm Claire Barliant on Bruno “Modernity and renewal,” wrote the late curator Igor Zabel in his catalogue essay “Individual Systems” Peinado for the 50th Venice Biennale in 2003, “by their nature are connected to ideas of a rational and ordered Donald Kuspit on Miki mode of thought, of a planned and effective kind of production, with ideas of a thoughtful use of space Carmi and resources, with ideas of a well-organized and equitable society.” Pumhösl, too, has in mind Martha Schwendener on historical situations, political realities, and concrete social structures when he executes his model Mary Mattingly studies on the relationship of space and bodies. He carefully combines exacting research into both Emily Hall on Shinique aesthetic and social formations, translating them into an almost painfully clear language that asserts Smith itself precisely in once-ambiguous areas. When Pumhösl packs his insights into one of his works, it is free from speculation, liberated from every convention; it is poetic and touching, it hits a nerve. Chicago James Yood on Larry Bell —Brigitte Huck Michelle Grabner on Ashley Macomber Translated from German by Sara Ogger.

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Issue 65 March 2002 Under Construction About this article movement (then in its infancy) to ideas relating to military Advertise with frieze First published in technology and spaceAbout travel. this article ARTUnder Construction Issue 65, March 2002 by Jan Verwoert Florian Pumhosl At the beginningFirst of the published 1970s the in oil crisis, the Cold War and the Issue 65, March 2002 ART space race brought about a general awareness that the world’s resources were limited,by Jan Verwoertand that the future of mankind itself was Florian Pumhosl in doubt. In the face of such dire prognostications a variety of Print this article innovative schemes were devised that flew in the face of the global capitalist economy, and these formed the focus of Pumhösl’s 1996 exhibition. ManyShare of thePrint this design this article: article ideas were based on the concept of the individual as a form of nomad, a traveller and survivor using his resources wisely to lead a free and flexible life with the help of multifunctional OthermodularShare thisArticles equipment. article: in ArtHowever, View all this philosophy also implied an Redmonduncritical Entwistle belief in expansionism:Issue 149 Pumhösl made it clear that the testing-ground for each of the ‘alternative’ designs DamienOther HirstArticles Issue 00in Art View all was to be somewhereA New beyond Internationalism the Western Issue world: 00 outer space, the Redmond Entwistle Issue 149 deep sea or the Third World. In other words, they embraced the Christian Boltanski Issue 00 Throughout the history of the avant-garde it was a widely held same cruel logicDamien of military Hirst and Issue colonialist 00 conquest. Visible Energy Issue 00 belief that the architect’s job, given their alleged ability to think in A New Internationalism Issue 00 Body Politics Issue 147 universal terms, was to find practical solutions to the world’s Christian Boltanski Issue 00 Throughout the history of the avant-garde it was a widely held No Ordinary Cats Issue 146 problems during a time of crisis. Pumhösl exploredVisible the disturbingEnergy Issue link 00 between the aesthetics of belief that the architect’s job, given their alleged ability to think in Abstract Art Issue 146 Modernism andBody the politics Politics ofIssue colonialism 147 in more detail in his This,universal at least, terms, is the was Modernist to find practical ethos explored solutions by to Florian the world’s Pumhösl. Radical Bleak Issue 144 exhibition ‘HumanistNo Ordinary and Ecological Cats Issue Republic’, 146 held at the Vienna Pumhöslproblems traces during the a timeorigins, of crisis. contexts and consequences of the Secession buildingChris in Dercon:2000. In Interview the main Issue hall 144 he presented an Abstract Art Issue 146 peculiar blend of idealism and pragmatism behind the image of installation entitled When He Returned to Power in 1998, the This, at least, is the Modernist ethos explored by Florian Pumhösl. Radical Bleak Issue 144 the Modern architect as a Renaissance man in a society of Former Marxist President of Madagascar, Didier Ratsiraka - Pumhösl traces the origins, contexts and consequences of the OtherChris Dercon: Articles Interview by Jan Issue Verwoert 144 technocrats - a generalist who can create designs that not only Having Meanwhile Been Converted to the Market Economy - peculiar blend of idealism and pragmatism behind the image of solve specific problems, but that work for everybody everywhere, Announced thatShow He Would Me What Turn You’ve Madagascar Got Issue into159 the First the Modern architect as a Renaissance man in a society of and improve every aspect of life. ‘Humanist and EcologicalPictureOther Piece: Articles Republic Frescoes by in inJan the the World.Verwoert Palazzo In the broad, technocrats - a generalist who can create designs that not only Schifanoia, Ferrara Issue 153 airy exhibition spaceShow aMe selection What You’ve of prefabricated Got Issue 159 architectural solve specific problems, but that work for everybody everywhere, In Focus: Ruth Buchanan Issue 152 elements were displayedPicture Piece: like Frescoesautonomous in the Modernist Palazzo sculptures. Inand his improve exhibition every ‘On aspect or Off of Earth life. - Design für die echten Coming to Life Issue 147 These included variousSchifanoia, concrete Ferrara structures Issue 153 or glass membranes, Bedürfnisse und die Rhetorik der Alternativbewegung’ (Design for Top Secrets Issue 144 four concrete pipesIn Focus: cut lengthwise Ruth Buchanan for use Issue as roof152 components and the Real Needs and the Rhetoric of the Alternative Movement) at Heaven & Earth Issue 135 In his exhibition ‘On or Off Earth - Design für die echten - on a white boardComing supported to Life by Issue a black 147 steel frame - a small the Grazer Kunstverein in 1996, Pumhösl examined the ways in Mouth to Mouth Issue 129 Bedürfnisse und die Rhetorik der Alternativbewegung’ (Design for model for a buildingTop Secrets made ofIssue cement. 144 The design of the house was which this type of Modernist thinking resurfaced in the aesthetics Friends and Foes Issue 129 the Real Needs and the Rhetoric of the Alternative Movement) at based on a type Heavenof urban & dwellingEarth Issue found 135 in Madagascar, designed and politics of early 1970s utopian design. He rebuilt pieces of the Grazer Kunstverein in 1996, Pumhösl examined the ways in to provide shelterSecret against Society cyclones Issue 124 and itself based on a French Functionalist furniture from the book Nomadic Furniture 1, by Mouth to Mouth Issue 129 which this type of Modernist thinking resurfaced in the aesthetics design. Among theseLife Work exhibits Issue stood 121 a bronze of a crouching Viktor Papanek and James Hennessey, published in 1974: a Friends and Foes Issue 129 and politics of early 1970s utopian design. He rebuilt pieces of female figure byThe Henry Life Moore,Aquatic onComment loan from the sculpture garden dwelling consisting of a cubic frame of wooden slats, between Secret Society Issue 124 Functionalist furniture from the book Nomadic Furniture 1, by of Vienna’s Museum(86 Total). Moderner View allKunst. » which sheets of cloth are stretched out as makeshift walls; square Life Work Issue 121 Viktor Papanek and James Hennessey, published in 1974: a wooden boards with notches that allow them to be assembled as The Life Aquatic Comment dwelling consisting of a cubic frame of wooden slats, between chairs, tables etc.; and an ensemble of crystalline forms derived The exhibition spaceRSS(86 Total). wasFeeds intended View all » to reveal a global architectural which sheets of cloth are stretched out as makeshift walls; square from the shape of fat cells. This organic construction provided the grammar, based on a modular assembly system. Yet Pumhösl was wooden boards with notches that allow them to be assembled as Get the Universal feed, or the Magazine basis for the design of a variety of objects ranging from oil tanks not only offeringIssues an analysis feed to beof theupdated Modernist of new stylearticles of the 1950s; chairs, tables etc.; and an ensemble of crystalline forms derived RSS Feeds and space stations to children’s toys. The exhibits were he was also confrontingin this section. the viewer with the physical experience of from the shape of fat cells. This organic construction provided the complemented by documentation of other ideas that were wandering throughGet thethis Universal colony of feed, cold or concrete the Magazine structures basis for the design of a variety of objects ranging from oil tanks Issues feed to be updated of new articles particularly influential on the alternative design of the time. These designed to impose a new order onto the world. You could sense and space stations to children’s toys. The exhibits were in this section. ranged from economic theories to ideas borrowed from the Green the intimate relationship that exists between the beauty of perfect complemented by documentation of other ideas that were movement (then in its infancy) to ideas relating to military rationalism and a totalitarian, regimented view of life. Advertise with frieze particularly influential on the alternative design of the time. These technology and space travel. ranged from economic theories to ideas borrowed from the Green The links between modern industrial architecture and colonial At the beginning of the 1970s the oil crisis, the Cold War and the history were explored further in the video installation Lac space race brought about a general awareness that the world’s Mantasoa (2000), shown in the graphic art section of the resources were limited, and that the future of mankind itself was Secession building. The video, also filmed in Madagascar, charts in doubt. In the face of such dire prognostications a variety of Pumhösl’s exploration of the ruins of a factory complex built in innovative schemes were devised that flew in the face of the global the 19th century by the French industrialist Jean-Baptiste capitalist economy, and these formed the focus of Pumhösl’s 1996 Laborde near the capital, Antananarivo. The factory was the first exhibition. Many of the design ideas were based on the concept of part of what was planned to be an industrial town modelled on the individual as a form of nomad, a traveller and survivor using European cities. After Laborde was expelled from the country, the his resources wisely to lead a free and flexible life with the help of forced labourers who had built the complex tore some of it down. multifunctional modular equipment. However, this philosophy Other parts were flooded when the French created a huge also implied an uncritical belief in expansionism: Pumhösl made reservoir in 1936-7. A folder accompanying the exhibition it clear that the testing-ground for each of the ‘alternative’ designs documents the story, while the video presents only silent images, was to be somewhere beyond the Western world: outer space, the showing what is left of the building interspersed with views of the deep sea or the Third World. In other words, they embraced the same cruel logic of military and colonialist conquest.

Pumhösl explored the disturbing link between the aesthetics of Modernism and the politics of colonialism in more detail in his exhibition ‘Humanist and Ecological Republic’, held at the Vienna Secession building in 2000. In the main hall he presented an installation entitled When He Returned to Power in 1998, the Former Marxist President of Madagascar, Didier Ratsiraka - Having Meanwhile Been Converted to the Market Economy - Announced that He Would Turn Madagascar into the First ‘Humanist and Ecological Republic in the World. In the broad, airy exhibition space a selection of prefabricated architectural elements were displayed like autonomous Modernist sculptures. These included various concrete structures or glass membranes, four concrete pipes cut lengthwise for use as roof components and - on a white board supported by a black steel frame - a small model for a building made of cement. The design of the house was based on a type of urban dwelling found in Madagascar, designed to provide shelter against cyclones and itself based on a French design. Among these exhibits stood a bronze of a crouching female figure by Henry Moore, on loan from the sculpture garden of Vienna’s Museum Moderner Kunst.

The exhibition space was intended to reveal a global architectural grammar, based on a modular assembly system. Yet Pumhösl was not only offering an analysis of the Modernist style of the 1950s; he was also confronting the viewer with the physical experience of wandering through this colony of cold concrete structures designed to impose a new order onto the world. You could sense the intimate relationship that exists between the beauty of perfect rationalism and a totalitarian, regimented view of life.

The links between modern industrial architecture and colonial history were explored further in the video installation Lac Mantasoa (2000), shown in the graphic art section of the Secession building. The video, also filmed in Madagascar, charts Pumhösl’s exploration of the ruins of a factory complex built in the 19th century by the French industrialist Jean-Baptiste Laborde near the capital, Antananarivo. The factory was the first part of what was planned to be an industrial town modelled on European cities. After Laborde was expelled from the country, the forced labourers who had built the complex tore some of it down. Other parts were flooded when the French created a huge reservoir in 1936-7. A folder accompanying the exhibition documents the story, while the video presents only silent images, showing what is left of the building interspersed with views of the movement (then in its infancy) to ideas relating to military Advertise with frieze technology and space travel.

At the beginning of the 1970s the oil crisis, the Cold War and the space race brought about a general awareness that the world’s resources were limited, and that the future of mankind itself was in doubt. In the face of such dire prognostications a variety of innovative schemes were devised that flew in the face of the global capitalist economy, and these formed the focus of Pumhösl’s 1996 exhibition. Many of the design ideas were based on the concept of the individual as a form of nomad, a traveller and survivor using his resources wisely to lead a free and flexible life with the help of multifunctional modular equipment. However, this philosophy also implied an uncritical belief in expansionism: Pumhösl made it clear that the testing-ground for each of the ‘alternative’ designs was to be somewhere beyond the Western world: outer space, the deep sea or the Third World. In other words, they embraced the same cruel logic of military and colonialist conquest.

The links between modern industrial architecture and colonial history were explored further in the video installation Lac Mantasoa (2000), shown in the graphic art section of the Secession building. The video, also filmed in Madagascar, charts Pumhösl’s exploration of the ruins of a factory complex built in the 19th century by the French industrialist Jean-Baptiste Laborde near the capital, Antananarivo. The factory was the first part of what was planned to be an industrial town modelled on European cities. After Laborde was expelled from the country, the forced labourers who had built the complex tore some of it down. Other parts were flooded when the French created a huge reservoir in 1936-7. A folder accompanying the exhibition documents the story, while the video presents only silent images, showing what is left of the building interspersed with views of the interior and some of its vast empty rooms. Some of the submerged parts of the building, filmed with an underwater camera, appear as a ghostly presence among tree stumps in the murky green water. The history of the factory complex reads like a palimpsest, a story constantly overwritten by the (self-)destructive forces of Modernity: industrialization, colonization and social unrest.

In his recent exhibition at Galerie Krobath Wimmer in Vienna, Pumhösl subjected the formal language of Modernism to a more poetic critique. Many Modernist designers have sought to derive universal forms with scientific accuracy directly from nature - Papanek and Hennessey’s use of fat cells is just one example. Pumhösl drew on this aspiration to objectivity in his use of the technique of photogrammetry. By simply laying objects such as perforated boards or pages of a book directly onto photosensitive paper he reproduced their outlines. The resulting untitled images are perfectly objective renderings of beautifully empty structures. The exhibition also included several lumps of artificial rock, and the video You Have Several Times Been Paralleling or Anticipating Some (As Yet Not Fully Appreciated) Recent Developments in Exact Science - of Which You May Not Be Fully Aware (Few Are) (2001). The video shows black and white images of stick insects, almost indistinguishable from the twigs on which they scurry around; the bugs constitute a living critique of modern universalism’s attempts to find the ultimate law of form in nature and suggest - like Pumhösl’s photograms - that the highest form of objectivity may be pure contingency. These projects undermine the Modernist ambition to create the best of all possible worlds: the most rational solution for the planet, they seem to argue, is not to order nature but to leave it to its own devices.

Jan Verwoert

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Frieze 1 Montclare Street, London E2 7EU, UK, +44 (0) 20 3372 6111 Site by Erskine Design | Back to Top Renée Green, “Marode Moderne,” Texte zur Kunst, Issue 39, September 2000, pp. 148-153

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