translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
180411: Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space – Retrospective of an accomplished oeuvre
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
Alberto Giacometti. The Origin of Space – Retrospective of an accomplished oeuvre
27.03.11 – 03.07.11
Thinned out, overstretched and fed up
At the lower end of the elevator leading up to the Museum der Moderne on Salzburg’s Mönchsberg, the highly appreciative vernisage audience hardly left each other enough air to breathe. But at the other end of the elevator, which was full to the bursting point, the space opened up and the objects of art and desire presented themselves in the way the Museum had advertised: presenting Alberto Giacometti’s works at the same time as numerous premieres were taking place in Salzburg was destined to be a blockbuster. Rarely had Austria seen so much of Giacometti in the last 15 years.
Yet the grandiose title “The Origin of Space” only applies to part of the 60 sculptures and 30 paintings and graphics. And it is exactly these figures and shapes, which one would normally consider as having helped an existentialist style into power, the existentially fed up thinning out, eroding, and overstretching, are put into the right perspective of autonomous works in, and with, the space. As microscopically miniaturized the little things present themselves, as oversized and excessive they appear in their almost unrealistically generously patinated aura, only to thereby launch space as an unstable dimension.
In the preceding exhibition in the Kunstraum Wolfsburg emphasis was mainly laid upon the advertising power of the trendy “virtual space”, and Giacometti’s works were even positioned as virtual and existential in the developmental stage of computer generated worlds; this might have been a fashionable folly, and should not be unsettling. In Salzburg, preference is given to a presentation protected by an alarm system, which lets the anamorphic quality of Giacometti’s works appear like something that can be assaulted anytime and anywhere. So please do not enter!
Failure, as an essential part of a dead serious game called existence, is continued one level down in a selection of more recent works. It seems natural to draw on Franz West’s “Formgebungen neurotischer Symptome” (forming techniques of neurotic symptoms) or on Bruce Nauman’s works pushed back and forth in Samuel Beckett’s shunting station. Among the highlights of the exhibition are Fred Sandback’s Minimalist line works made of yarn; he explicitly refers to Giacometti as having been “a major love affair”. With his stationary space installations forming both space and character he gets to the point – which will always be a line.
By Stephan Maier
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 22
Tel: +43 661 80 42 25 41, 23 36
Fax: +43 661 80 42 – 30 74
Email: info@museumdermoderne.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Opening hours: daily from 10 a.m. – 6 p.m. , Wed 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
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180411
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32
Tel: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-403, Fax: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-700
Email: info@mdmsalzburg.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 10-18 h, Mi 10-20 h
Museum der Moderne Salzburg Mönchsberg
5020 Salzburg, Mönchsberg 32
Tel: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-403, Fax: +43 / 662 / 84 22 20-700
Email: info@mdmsalzburg.at
http://www.museumdermoderne.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich 10-18 h, Mi 10-20 h