Opening June 5, 2009, 7 pm Tuesday – Sunday Curator Duration of exhibition 10 am–6 pm Diedrich Diederichsen June 6 – August 30, 2009 Kunsthaus Graz Artists Saâdane Afif (FR) Rock – Paper – Scissors Cory Arcangel (US) Art & Language with Pop Music as Subject of The Red Krayola (UK/US) Sam Durant (US) Visual Art Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether (US/DE) Renée Green (US) Pop music counts as a low, popular form of art, while visual art Stefan Hablützel (CH) Mike Kelley (US) ranks among the high arts. That relationship has changed pro- Klara Lidén (SE) foundly in the last 50 years. Pop music is a hybrid originally Lucy McKenzie (UK) spawned by the parallelism of sound and image found in TV Dave Muller (US) programmes, fanzines and record covers. The hyper-inclusive Albert Oehlen (DE) Katrin Plavcak (AT) attraction-logic of pop music is different from normal music. At Mathias Poledna (AT) its heart is a feeling of direct involvement with people rather Uwe Schinn (DE) than musical values. These can function as sex objects or the Nico Vascellari (IT) embodiment of new lifestyles. For art, this form of expression is as much a subject as a rival event. Rock – Paper – Scissors brings together artists whose methods and formulations use pop music’s body politics, knowledge industry and relationship with the world for their own purposes. Kunsthaus Graz am [email protected] Landesmuseum Joanneum www.kunsthausgraz.at Lenkai 1, A–8020 Graz T: +43 316/8017-9200 English program constantly scans the Internet for A second, landscape-format picture shows Albert Oehlen Foyer illegally distributed and purchased music, a brain that McKenzie puts, again almost * 1954 in Krefeld (DE) and on detection, prosecutes. The seven life-size, in an almost identical position on lives in Cologne (DE) and La Palma (ES) Uwe Schinn chrome-plated bowling balls of stainless the stepladder, though the hair and shoes In his new large-format triptych done *1971 Frankfurt am Main (D) steel – all the same size and weight and are darker. The background is likewise specially for the exhibition, Albert Oehlen lives and works in Cologne (D) distributed around the room – display sky-blue, and bits of wall can be recog- quotes the early Frank Zappa’s Help, I’m quotations, two of them from John Ken- nised, showing the framed section is The Message is the best-known piece of a Rock. All his life as a painter, Oehlen nedy, president of the International Fede- attached to a wall. It is not hastily airbrus- has been involved with music, as a musi- an early hip-hop group called Grandmas- ration of the Phonographic Industry, which hed on but done from a template with a ter Flash & the Furious Five. Except that cian, producer of records and related represents the interests of the recording fine pen, as with a modern fresco. Lucy objects, and a label operator. However, his Grandmaster Flash (Joseph Saddler off industry in protecting copyright. As a McKenzie’s work makes much of allusions stage) had nothing, absolutely nothing to perspective differs from that of many result of the digital dissemination of to past eras in art, particularly Socialist other artists who cross-refer to music. do with the recording. Flash is a DJ, and music, the Internet is visibly ousting – Realism or Scottish Art Nouveau artists record company Sugar Hill, the very first Whereas for the latter, art is often a place legally or illegally – traditional audio media around 1900 (the Glasgow Four), for of peace and quiet, offering the detach- hip hop label of them all, could not tole- such as vinyl, tape or CDs. Music titles are whom art had a particular social rele- rate music for raps coming from other ment to look at the tumult of pop music, often downloaded singly, so that the com- vance. Oehlen is obviously also interested in brin- records already produced, and so hired in plexity, intimacy and identity of albums a studio band to accompany the raps of ging the tumult itself into the pictures. In you can hold in your hand and put on the an interview with Max Dax, editor of Spex, the Furious Five. Grandmaster Flash can shelf become less important. Does Schinn Ohne Titel / Untitled, 2002 only be heard at all on just one of the Synthetic polymer and oil on canvas; 200 × 300 cm the magazine for popular culture, Albert consider the bowling balls, which are Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fund for the many discs appearing under his name Oehlen thought recently that he always scratched like special editions of signed Twenty-First Century wanted to do “large colourful things that around this time. The fact that “The Mes- discs, the optimum three-dimensional sage” is an evergreen that became one of Ohne Titel / Untitled, 2002 speak directly to you,” in a rather pop medium? Synthetic polymer and oil on canvas; 300 × 200 cm the most important pieces in hip-hop musical way. That is why in recent times Museum of Modern Art, New York. Fund for the he has often integrated obtrusive trashy history must be a sore point for him. It Twenty-First Century was not only the first socially critical rap, The Message, 2009 advertising motifs into his paintings in for which Furious Five member Melle Mel Plywood, steel, car paint, Fender amplifier, desk, order to generate an “edgy mood”. Yet he plastic, microphone set-up; c. 7 × 7m is not suggesting contemporary rock aest- was largely responsible. It was also the Courtesy Galerie Kai Hoelzner first piece of pop music to effectively hetics should be adopted, hence the cry tackle the devastating social policies of Notice-and-take-down, 2009 for Help. On the 50th anniversary of the 7 chrome-platedbowling balls; stainless steel; the Reagan era. Uwe Schinn explores the first Elvis single, Oehlen said a few years diam. 27 cm ago: “Rock means to me Radiohead, way the DJ, who co-invented the revoluti- Courtesy Galerie Kai Hoelzner onary technique of scratching, ultimately Smashing Pumpkins, Nickelback, Tote ran aground on the (still calamitous) state Hosen and the Stones. The Melvins can’t of copyright law. In addition, the large- undo the damage. The bottom line is, it scale installation evokes two further ele- would have been better if rock had never ments – fire escapes in US cities and existed.” Thus for Oehlen Elvis survives loudspeaker towers at major pop con- only via a diversion through Andy Warhol. certs. Balconies are applied to them that range from shabbiest at the bottom to Rock, 2009 glossiest at the top. An unmistakable fea- Oil on canvas; 3-part, 2 parts @ 280 × 230 cm and ture at the heart of the work is the noise 1 part @ 105 × 350 cm broadcast round the room via Amp Gizmo Owned by the artist and Fender amplifiers, constituting a refe- Untitled, 2006 rence to the now rather outworn tech- Oil and print on cotton; 221.5 × 221.5 cm nique of scratching. Owned by the artist Notice-and-take-down attacks the music Text: Diedrich Diederichsen, Monika Holzer-Kernbichler industry’s Internet procedure whereby a Translation: Paul Aston calibrated to: pictures of those who are which its founder, influential American What do you expect from an artist, a like me or like I want to be, pictures of the producer Rick Rubin, can himself be Space02 performance, or a sound respectively? Is community (Tonight At The Pleasure heard. This knowledge is so special and there a boundary between the supposedly Dome); pictures of what I admire, stars beautiful that it justifies the often despised Kim Gordon, Jutta Koether private (as on YouTube), a public perfor- and sex objects (She’s So Hot She Makes expertise of nerds: Rick Rubin, one of the mance and restaging in an art venue? Me Sexist); and finally pictures of places two most influential hip-hop producers Kim Gordon Who, what and where is the public for of yearning, locations and scenarios I and the man responsible for Johnny * 1953 in Rochester (US), each of these? fantasize about (Revolution of the Ento- Cash’s late work, did a Mondrian-inspired lives in New York (US) and mopter). In each case, Plavcak complexi- cover in his art-punk youth! Northampton (US) fies these calibrations without ruining Sacred Body Practice, 2009 Jutta Koether Installation consisting of 3 acoustic booths (Auralex them – or indeed rescuing them. Max Wall 1141VB The Complete Solution), 3 videos Letter to Richard (One-Four), 2008 * 1958 in Cologne (DE) (colour, sound); dimensions variable Ink on paper; 27.94 × 34.29 cm lives in New York (US) Complete Solution 1, Purple: Julie Cafritz. Basement. Courtesy of the artist and Blum and Poe, Los Angeles Round Hill Rd., Northampton, MA, February 2009; Tonight At The Pleasure Dome, 2009 Three acoustic booths obtainable in the Oil on cotton; 180 × 300 cm camera: Phillip Virus Courtesy Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna trade as “complete solutions” in the three Complete Solution 2, Charcoal Gray: Noise Nomads. colours used here form the spatial ele- VFW Hall Western, MA, 2-28-08 She’s So Hot She Makes Me Sexist, 2009 Lucy McKenzie Complete Solution 3, Burgundy: Twodeadsluts One- Oil on cotton; 200 × 200 cm ment of an installation that suggests her- goodfuck. Somewhere at a farm barn in Oregon, Courtesy Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna *1977 Glasgow (UK) metically sealed, intimate studio situa- October 2006 lives and works in Glasgow (UK) tions. In each booth, a brief video runs Editing of DVDs: Andrew Kesin Revolution of the Entomopter, 2009 Courtesy of the artists Oil on cotton; 250 × 300 cm The artist writes Brain in large letters in that shows the artists in apparently pri- Courtesy Galerie Mezzanin, Vienna the sky.