Kunsthalle Wien Museumsquartier

8/12 2016 — 8/01 2017 Booklet #NeverBreaks www.kunsthallewien.at Strange Magic and is reminiscent of the buildings in which the corporate need for Since the late 1990s, Sarah Morris representation finds contemporary has devoted herself to and expression. film, media she believes are indepen- dent, and yet complementary on a Morris uses the camera to capture contextual level. Her main focus is on the psychology, architecture, architecture and urban development and aesthetics of the urban sphere in as representing social and political her characterisation of a metropolis. systems, as well as today’s semiotic The fascination with power and system, marked as it is by the signa- its modes of representation is a tures of capitalism. recurring theme in her work. Instead of following a clear storyline, her films The intensely coloured geometric present short scenes in rhythmically she creates are derived structured sequences: architectures from the abstractions of classic and landscapes, people engaged in and especially from Piet their activities, interiors and exteriors. Mondrian’s grid compositions, which Morris looks behind the scenes she transfers to a language adapted at the Oscars, the White House, to correspond with the dynamics and the Olympic Games in Beijing. of contemporary urbanism and the She creates highly aesthetic images overall acceleration of perception. accompanied by expressive sound In her filmic works, Sarah Morris collages which reveal the true nature translates these abstract symbols of things and events while appearing into rapid image sequences and to reflect only the surface. Strange thereby transforms the observation Magic, the artist’s most recent film, of seemingly superficial events into is not only a 45-minute insight into the a visual psychograph of the cities imperium of the luxury conglomerate she portrays. LVMH, but also an unconventional portrait of . The exhibition at the Kunsthalle Wien focuses on Morris’ filmic oeuvre The Eiffel Tower marks the beginning: and presents ten city portraits in the a symbol of technological progress, broadest sense: Strange Magic, a film an emblem of emergent globalisation, about Paris as the centre of the luxury a tourist attraction, and an image industry, will be screened for the presented in every book, film, entire duration of the exhibition and or television feature about Paris. supplemented by further film works on The French philosopher Roland five evenings. Barthes described the Eiffel Tower as the “spectacle of a function,” despite Banco Alliança [Rio] from 2013 serves not actually having one. “Its simple, as a striking example of her painting. primary shape confers upon it the The abstract work in radiant gloss vocation of an infinite cipher: in turn colours brings new life to a reduced and according to the appeals of our formal language with its dynamic imagination, the symbol of Paris, Cover design: M/M (Paris), 2016, Photography © Parallax All Images: Sarah Morris, Strange Magic (Filmstill), 2014, Red Code/HD Digital, 45:08 min., © Sarah Morris composition and intense saturation, of modernity, of communication,

1 of science, or the nineteenth century, commissioned for the opening of side of a public event, in this case, the aesthetics of advertising, rocket, stem, derrick, phallus, his private museum, focuses on the opening of the Fondation which is why they do not seem lightning rod, or insect, confronting the building designed by Frank Louis Vuitton in Paris – and entirely affirmative. The seductive the great itineraries of our dreams, Gehry in Bois de Boulogne and on the preparations leading up to images Morris creates cannot truly it is the inevitable sign.”1 perfume production, an important it. The edifice, which is often hide the emptiness behind them. segment of LVMH. Above all, we see emphatically praised as a “glass Moreover, the image-based fantasy Strange Magic starts with impressions the workers behind these products: cloud” or a “steel nave”, not only of a luxurious life undergoes a visual of the Eiffel Tower by night and rose pickers, perfumers, construction serves the purpose of displaying recoupling with a real production gradually approaches the iron and factory workers, architects. Arnault’s expansive art collection, chain which is not necessarily structure until people climbing its Only Frank Gehry, the architect, but also reinforces the city’s reputation glamorous. stairs enter the picture. This was and Bernard Arnault, the head of the as the capital of culture. However, another aspect that fascinated multi-industry company, stand out one can only surmise from Morris’ Sarah Morris is an informed Barthes. Due to its openwork against the anonymous background film that the building comprises observer of contemporary life who construction, he characterised as identifiable personalities. eleven galleries within an exhibition shares her knowledge with the the Eiffel Tower as an “empty and All the others move to the rhythm area of 11,000 square metres: the viewer. By precisely analysing its depthless monument which might of a both efficient and optimised view of the structure is limited to its mechanisms, she places the feeling be said to consist entirely of an production chain. façade. Just before its completion of “must have” with all of its conscious exterior substance.”2 Consequently, – the planning phase lasted seven and unconscious consequences in a visitors glide “along the periphery The manual labour contrasts with years – the building appears as an global context. of its emptiness” without ever being a form of capitalism which is more artful steel and glass construction, encased by it. This lack of an interior, geared towards generating needs which must have been just as much 1. Roland Barthes, The Eiffel Tower and this empty core makes the Eiffel Tower than goods, and defines the core of an engineering challenge as Other Mythologies, trans. Richard a token of modernity par excellence of the luxury industry: items that the Eiffel Tower was at the time. Howard (Oakland: University of – an infinite generator of meaning, promise prestige and a certain From this implicit parallel the actual California Press, 1997), p. 1 a crystalliser of dreams. lifestyle. Morris lets her viewers theme of Strange Magic evolves: take part in this exclusive world the quintessentially French as an 2. ibid, p. 10 The Eiffel Tower as an opening for by providing a glimpse behind the equivocal interplay between elegance a film about Paris complies with scenes. The production of objects and and luxury, and art and power. general expectations, and yet interiors, the development of brands, Sarah Morris in Sarah Morris’ rhythmically the creation of art is juxtaposed with Morris assembles scenes and Strange Magic, 2014 orchestrated montage of different the equally important production of impressions which provide an insight Red Code/HD Digital, 45:08 min. impressions of the city as the immaterial goods, of dreams, needs, into the fabrication of cultural capital © Sarah Morris heart of the luxury industry, this yearning, and desire. Time and again, in the shape of luxury items. The shots landmark acquires an additional very real materials appear – grapes of grapes, flowers, leather, fabrics, Sarah Morris meaning. Strange Magic juxtaposes as the key ingredient of champagne, pigments, glass, and machines Banco Alliança [Rio], 2013 the classic symbol of modernity cinnamon roses pressed to extract appear in a rhythmic montage: roses Household gloss paint on canvas with contemporary variations perfume, bottles and vials, steel and are picked, pressed, and liquefied 152.5 x 152.5 cm whose effective structures radiate glass amalgamating to form as perfume. Film stars present Courtesy of the artist and Air de Paris, openness. These edifices and the almost unreal components of the perfume. A huge filling plant Paris products also function like wishing Gehry’s structure. But in the end, fills countless vials, and seals and machines and invite an array of manual and mechanical labour packages them. interpretations. alike are absorbed by luxury which transcends materiality. The documentation of these very The film, which Bernard Arnault real mechanisms that support the (chairman of the French luxury items As in her other films, the focus in commercial generation of wishes group Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy) Strange Magic is on the hidden and desires is partly inspired by

2 3 4 5 6 7 Films as the Kennedy Center, the J. Edgar The film, shot on 35mm, investigates visibility. Consequently – and this is Hoover Building and the Pentagon. the issue of projection and planning, perhaps why we are made to think of Mon 12/12, 7 pm Together with the daily activities and its potential failures through this conspiracies – the film questions the of the President, and an overall specific instance in history. It exposes authorship of the spectacle, who is Midtown consideration of the city, the film forms a subjective parallel view radically in control, and ultimately, the role of 1998, 16mm/DVD, 9:36 min. a sequence of reflection points for different than the widely received the artist. © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube a revised mapping of power, desire, ideas surrounding the events of urbanism and design. the 1972 Olympics. Midtown was shot in New York during a single day. The film brings together Beijing Mon, 19/12, 7 pm sequences showing the streets of 2008, 35mm/HD, 84:47 min. midtown , combining the Wed 14/12, 7 pm © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube Rio anonymity of the crowded sidewalks 2012, Red Code/HD Digital, 88:33 min. with the power of the buildings that 1972 Beijing focuses on one of the © Sara Morris, Courtesy White Cube frame the everyday movements of the 2008, 35mm/HD, 38:12 min. most intricate and ambiguous city. Almost a catalogue of peripheral © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube international broadcasted events In Rio, Morris depicts the multifarious actions, gestures that take place of past years – the 2008 Olympic and complex layers of this most in nearly every film, it explores the 1972 is an intimate portrait of an Games in Beijing. The film observes contradictory of cities, from its narrative possibilities inherent in individual in the city of Munich. the overwhelmingly perplexing highly orchestrated and eroticised the simplest actions, and the typical Dr. Georg Sieber was the head and contradictory economy and surface image, to the infinite realities activity of the street. The fragmented psychologist of the Olympic Police. authority of China, made all the more of its vast urban sprawl, industrial narrative emphasises the structure of Sieber was present on Connolly Street resonant in current climate of global production and the minutiae of its modern life as well as creating a space on the tragic morning of September crisis. The Olympics – typifying a day-to-day living. Johanna Burton in which the viewer takes an extremely 5th, 1972, when members of the terror sense of historical urgency as well has described Morris’ films as active role. group “Black September” attacked as unconditional trust in the future being characterised by a “pulsing, and took members of the visiting and nationalism – embody a system nervous, chromatic attention” and Capital Israeli Olympic Team hostage. Later that marks the modern confluence in this film, her camera wanders 2000, 16mm/DVD, 18:18 min. that morning he resigned from his of capitalism and mass media by flaneur-like through Rio’s Ipanema © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube position. Sieber was hired by the means of an unprecedented mastery beach, hospitals, iconic modernist International Olympic Committee of technology, the mass migration architecture, football stadiums, Sarah Morris made the film Capital and Munich Police to project possible of people, and a hyper-mediated factories and favelas. Filming in in Washington during the final days scenarios that would jeopardize the event culture. In Beijing, Morris numerous locations including the of the Clinton administration. It is a safety of the Olympic Games and plays with the notion of duality, office of architect just record of now unimaginable access prepare the security training that they coupling the constant presence of before his death, the headquarters to the centers of power. Capital would require. One of the scenarios the spectacle or the event with its of the Mayor of Rio, Eduardo Paes, continues Morris’ investigation of written by Sieber was an almost exact constantly multiple interpretations. the infamous Carnival and its the ways in which we decode and prognosis of what was to fatefully Morris’ film is a surreal portrait of “Winner’s Parade”, the legendary “City therefore begin to understand the play out in reality. In 1972, Morris an authoritarian state of turbo- of God” neighbourhood, as well as built world around us. Capital draws mixes police surveillance footage of capitalism, during a period when the the inside of the Brahma beer factory, a complex and layered city portrait. demonstrators and archival photos International Olympic Committee Rio focuses on the city’s architecture The Mall, the White House Press of the 1972 Summer Olympic Games, effectively took over sovereignty and, in particular, on the way that it Office, the World Bank, is merged with shots of the Munich Olympia- of the capital. Beijing depicts engineers social interaction and plays with shots of uniformed members of park and a candid interview of Sieber a hitherto closed country at a a key role in Brazil’s outward-facing the Secret Service, the Presidential who has a long-standing career as moment of apparent and possible identity. With images that alternate motorcade, the Watergate Complex, a psychologist and is an expert on theatrical openness, a hidden between the micro and macro, and other significant structures such international security matters. culture at a moment of extreme day and night, Morris’ film creates

8 9 a hallucinatory space that explores movie in an abstract sense – as captures the varied layers of a their openness – structures that are the psychology of this city at a well as the relations between the complex metropolis without verbal open vessels where we search for particular moment in its history, studio, producer, director and talent. commentary or narration. It exploits markers of the corporate aesthetic and traces how this is embedded in It also tracks various pre and post- the boundaries of documentary to come and the legal wrangles that behaviour, signs, surfaces and Rio’s production processes thus creating a and fiction, and collides the city’s marked the struggle to complete and complex political history. sweeping non-narrated image of the everyday moments with issues of maintain them. Buildings that require mechanisms of filmmaking and how social power and representation. constant representation and new they relate to the identity of a place. documentation in order to recode Points on a Line and understand what came before Wed 21/12, 7 pm 2010, Red Code/HD Digital, 35:44 min. and what came next. Obtaining © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube complete unrestricted access for Robert Towne Sun 8/1 2017, each location of the film, Morris has 2006, 35mm/DVD, 34:26 min. The Farnsworth House, Plano, woven together art, architecture and © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube 7 pm Illinois and the Glass House, corporate image production with New Canaan, Connecticut. Philip flowers, the behaviour of bees and In Robert Towne the lens shifts from Chicago Johnson and Mies van der Rohe. the patterns of butterflies – window a wide view onto a city to an up-close 2011, Red Code/HD Digital, 68:21 min. Curator and architect. Architect washing, cooking, power-broking and and intimate portrait of the legendary © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube and architect. Points on a Line collecting. Morris filmed at both sites screenwriter and script doctor, documents a shared desire to build over the course of several months, Robert Towne. An interview with the Chicago explores the American structures that might change the among other locations including subject covers topics ranging from his metropolis made all the more way we think about a house, a form The Four Seasons Restaurant, Academy Award-winning screenplay resonant in the wake of President and a context. These two buildings the Seagram Building, Mies van der for Chinatown (1974), the role of Obama’s administration. When were the result of shared ideas Rohe’s infamous Lake Shore Drive, authorship, his relationship with Mies van der Rohe emigrated to and collective desire. But they also and Chicago’s Newberry Library. colleagues such as Robert Evans, America in 1938, with the help of complicate ideas of the copy and Warren Beatty, Pauline Kael, and the , and was established the original, and the chronologies reoccurring themes in his film work as the Head of Architecture at the of Modernism. The two buildings – conspiracy, paranoia, corruption, Illinois Institute of Technology, demonstrate a legacy of focus Program and power. he not only created an image upon detail and surface – inside of America but the reality of the and outside. Capturing the tension Sarah Morris, in addition to her Los Angeles contemporary American society. of ego and authorship in precisely abstract geometric paintings, 2004, 35mm/DVD, 26:12 min. Continuing to play with duality, differing architectural statements. regularly films and produces a © Sarah Morris, Courtesy White Cube Morris’ Chicago is in tandem with By carefully documenting the glimpse behind the scenes of cities Points on a Line, shifting the lens to daily maintenance of these two or special events. In Strange Magic Los Angeles continues Morris’ a panorama of an American city in buildings and lingering over the she montages perspectives and investigation into the psychology, transition. In Chicago, Morris reveals precise placement of the structures impressions together that allow a view architecture and aesthetic of the a new cityscape by tracking its in space and of objects within each of the fabrication of cultural capital in American city. It reveals a new modern architecture, the seemingly structure, we are presented with a the form of luxury goods. cityscape of Los Angeles by tracking dead printed world of publishing clear view of places that have gone its de-centered plan, its complex headquartered there, as well as its beyond their initial modest use. Every Sunday at 3 pm the Kunsthalle architectural environs, and most industrial role. A century after the Morris’ deployment of cinematic Wien art educators introduce visitors importantly its crucial role as a center publication of Upton Sinclair’s The codes in relation to architectural to the work of Sarah Morris and of image production. Los Angeles is, Jungle, the issues shift from food precision produces images that go answer questions on the artist and her in part, a film about contemporary production to consumption and beyond a record of functionality or films. (in German) commercial filmmaking, following a struggling printing, publishing the streamlining of needs. These are the production and direction of a and advertising world. Chicago places that remain elusive despite Free with admission.

10 11 Colophon Stefanie Obermeir Editing: Victoria Grinzinger (Intern) Isabella Drozda Exhibition Vanessa Joan Müller Kunsthalle Wien GmbH Fundraising: Agnieszka Sularz Silvia Keller Director: Design: Nicolaus Schafhausen Event Production: Boy Vereecken Gerhard Prügger Antoine Begon CFO: Sigrid Mittersteiner Dramaturgy: Print: Andrea Hubin REMA LITTERA PRINT Ges.m.b.H. Curator: Vanessa Joan Müller Nicolaus Schafhausen Eleanor Taylor © Kunsthalle Wien, 2016 Kunsthalle Wien GmbH is Vienna´s Exhibition Management: Education: exhibition space for international Juliane Saupe Isabella Drozda contemporary art and discourse. Martin Walkner Construction Management: Educators: Johannes Diboky Wolfgang Brunner Michael Niemetz Daniela Fasching Ursula Leitgeb Technicians: Martin Pfitscher Beni Ardolic Michael Simku Frank Herberg Mathias Kada Assistant CFO: Andrea Cevriz External Technicians: Harald Adrian Finances: Hermann Amon Mira Gasparevic Dietmar Hochhauser Natalie Nachbargauer Alfred Lenz Danilo Pacher Visitor Service: Kevin Manders Art Handling: Christina Zowack Scott Hayes Johann Schoiswohl Design: M/M (Paris) Marketing: Dalia Ahmed Exhibition Booklet David Avazzadeh Katharina Baumgartner Publisher: Adina Hasler Kunsthalle Wien GmbH

Press and Communication: Text: Katharina Murschetz Vanessa Joan Müller

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