translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
250208: Christine König Galerie: Gerhard Rühm - NOW - six decades of art work
Christine König Galerie: Gerhard Rühm – NOW –
Six decades of art work
Suddenly a shadow was weeping
“raped / watch one’s waistline / larger beds will be delivered in the next couple of days”. This is an example of a poem constructed by combining headlines; something created by Gerhard Rühm in a large assemblage in 1972. Rühm calls his headline-amalgamate “poetry”, while the photographs and their subtitles symbolize “truth” to him.
The artist combines his photographs in such a way that they reduce each other to absurdity. Along these lines he mounts a striptease photo that the pin-up is dressing instead of undressing, and amends it with photos that thwart the prurient poses: a man running out of a burning house and an old woman, whose head is being gauged. But at times his work is absolutely poetic, for example when he combines words that he has clipped from newspaper headlines: “weeping / on the narrow handrail / suddenly / weeping / a shadow”. Even after the end of the Wiener Gruppe Rühm continues the use of lower case letters.
Christa König’s Gallery not only displays Rühm’s assemblages, but also his works of music – empty sheets of music on which he scribbled texts with a crooked bold lines: “I am skipping through grey grass stoned by exhaust fumes”.
By placing images, which have been communicated by mass media, next to - as well as against each another, Rühm makes their content obvious to the onlooker. His work attains a significance that goes far beyond the Zeitgeist of these images.
Christine König Galerie
1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 1a, until 01.03.08
250208
Christine König Galerie
1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 1a
Tel: +43-1-585 74 74, Fax: +43-1-585 74 74-24
Email: office@christinekoeniggalerie.at
http://www.christinekoeniggalerie.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 12-18h
Sa 12-16h
Christine König Galerie
1040 Wien, Schleifmühlgasse 1a
Tel: +43-1-585 74 74, Fax: +43-1-585 74 74-24
Email: office@christinekoeniggalerie.at
http://www.christinekoeniggalerie.at
Öffnungszeiten: Di-Fr: 12-18h
Sa 12-16h