031212: Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz

Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz The Naked Man 16.10.2012 – 17.02.2013 Revelation instead of Indignation By Stephan Maier 340 works by more than 200 artists and artist groups, a mega show that spreads across the entire exhibition space, including the trendy accompanying event “Unskimmed Milk – The Beard as a Sign”, plus a large catalogue: one cannot directly claim that size would play no role if the Lentos Museum Linz casts a passing feminist glance upon the naked man. The show took on such an extensive dimension due to the ambitious aspiration of the three curators, as well as simply due to the fact that an overview of the unveiled forms of life and suffering of man already point to the upcoming 10th anniversary of the museum in 2013. Nothing in the “The Naked Man” aims at provocation, indignation or denuding. Instead, it’s a kind of en passant narration of the social-historical story of 20th and 21st century art, buzzword emancipation, and how it can be viewed in context with the diverse physical conditions of male nudity. Against the background of the fundamental Fin-de-Siècle mood in 1900, the dismissal of the male image from his mythological-religious exploitation, his interpreted utilization as a hero or saint, is more or less vividly and plausibly mediated. It was logical to cooperate with the Ludwig Museum in Budapest. Parallel to the base jump into the abysmal depths of male-human self-destruction and soul reading à la Schiele and Co., the split-up of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy took place: dissolution here and there. Although this resulted in a selection of works whose art historical importance can be doubted, at least from a western viewpoint, but it created a comprehensive Best-Of collection at the Lentos. At the same time the show managed to - despite an insufficiently restrained visual offer and the disputable division into 12 parts - point to the, in the past, tabooed eye contact, and immediately making it disappear: not only is the naked man invisible, as the catalogue states, hidden in diverse secret chambers, but that’s what happens to him in the course of the tour: as the bone of contention – he dissolves and disappears. Not like Ovid in the Metamorphoses, but all the same. Yet there are works that per se try to break the overly staunch link to the long-trodden gender problem: for example Anna Jermolaeva's video "ON / OFF". There is the – hardly serious - question of exactly who or what will be switched off when a light switch is manipulated when the male yobbo pushes himself into the picture. Because the game of the sexes had something of the slapstick about it right from the beginning, doesn’t it? Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz 4020 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1 Tel: +43 70 7070 36 00 email: info@lentos.at http://www.lentos.at Opening hours: daily except Mon: 10.00 – 18.00 hours, Thu: 10.00 – 21.00 hours

Mehr Texte von translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville

Gratis aber wertvoll!
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Kunst braucht Kritik!

031212

Lentos Kunstmuseum Linz
4020 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promendade 1
Tel: +43 70 7070 36 00
Email: info@lentos.at
http://www.lentos.at
Öffnungszeiten: täglich außer Mo 10-18 Uhr, Do 10-21 Uhr

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