translated and summarized by: Liz Wollner-Grandville,
English summaries February 24 - Mach 9
Vertikale Galerie in der Verbund-Zentrale
Francesca Woodman – Works from the VERBUND COLLECTION
30.01.2014 – 21.05.2014
By Susanne Rohringer
The Verbund Collection is currently showing the works of the American Francesca Woodman in the Vertical Gallery in its main house on the Am Hof in Vienna. The Verbund Collection has continually bought works by the photographer (who died in 1981) and, with 79 objects, owns the largest collection outside of the artist's own family.
These wide-ranging collecting activities offer the visitor comprehensive insight of Francesca Woodman's oeuvres. Born in 1958 in Denver, Colorado, into a musical, artistic family, Woodman plays piano and studies at the Rhode Island School of Design. She creates her first photographic self-portrait at the age of 13. Her parents own a house in Florence where Woodman spends her summer months. She speaks fluent Italian. A sojourn in Rome follows in 1978 where one of her three individual exhibitions takes place in the Galerie Libreria Maldoro. On her return to America, she moves to New York, where, in her residential studio, she primarily photographs herself in different poses. In the autumn of 1980, her first suicide attempt fails. She gives up her flat and moves back to living with her parents. Shortly thereafter, she publishes an art book. In 1981, aged 22, she throws herself off a skyscraper to her death.
To view her (only) nine years' of work without including her violent death seems almost impossible. The two curators, Gabriele Schor and Elisabeth Bronfen, want to try to do exactly this.
The exhibition tries to portray the great hope for American female photography in the 70's. It's a unique opportunity to study the work methods and arrangements of this artist. But a sad remnant remains in light of the abrupt end of this notably artistic handwriting.
Vertikale Galerie in der Verbund-Zentrale
1010 Vienna, Am Hof 6a
Tel: +43 (0)5 03 13-0
www.verbund.com/sammlung
Opening hours: upon agreement – more info at sammlung.verbund@artphalanx.at or tel. +43-1-524 98 03-5
Mumok Museum moderner Kunst
Musée à vendre pour cause de faillite –
Herbert Foundation and mumok in dialogue
21.02.2014 – 15.05.2014
By Margareta Sandhofer
The actual discrepancy of this exhibition already lies in the combination of title and sub-title. To what is the exhibition tantamount? Is it the intention of realising a representative show of the private collection of Anneke and Anton Herbert with successful supplements from the in-house collections, or should Marcel Broodthaers' citation "Museum for sale due to bankruptcy" (1971) be thematized from a present day perspective?
The former is brilliantly presented here. As a classical representation in a classical framework, the most possibly neutral White Cube, the specific qualities of conceptual art, minimal art and younger positions which critically confront these self-referential tendencies, are exemplified.
Except, where is the relevance of the title that is seeking attention? Citations are taken from a 1971 catalogue in which Marcel Broodthaers presents the "Section Financier" of his fictitious "Musée D’Art Moderne Département Des Aigles", and in the same breath, due to bankruptcy, offers his museum for sale on the Cologne art market. He opened this ideational museum in 1968, and closed it in 1972.
The museum, seen as a system, was basically deconstructed. All parameters, the venue, the exhibits and their layout, respectively their disarray, the cataloguing or the role of the director were, from the point of view of traditional understanding, abstracted and suspended or inverted. Object, absence, presence, sustainability, valences were called into question. The openings were always associated with discussions, the debates were an integral part of the concept.
Broodthaers followed a strategy in which each station of the museum complemented the previous one by methodically infiltrating it so that the project systematically superseded itself. The final consequence was the closing of the museum which, in large part, is only handed down documented as a temporary phenomena.
Single objects from Annick and Anton Herbert's estate, such as two boards or a door of the "Musée D'Art Moderne" which is presented as a painting on the wall, are in the current exhibition in the MUMOK. They are situated around the showcases with documents like invitation cards or the eponymous exhibition catalogue – traces of remembrance.
The idea of Broodhaers’ "Musée D’Art Moderne" is present in these objects, not freshly debated but conserved and wedged into the approved, conventional museum corset. The discourse takes place (as announced in the sub-title) between the exhibits of the Herbert Collection and that of the MUMOK, albeit in an excellent, but hermetically sealed, presentation. As such, it stands contrary to Broodthaers’ intention of demythologization, exactly a process with which he thought to break up this museum structure which he, as self-named director, wanted to unsettle His vision is now historicised, distanced and classified as a singular fossil in exactly the system of categorisation that he wanted to avoid.
The final unapproachable condition in the current presentation creates uneasiness; exactly like the sobering encounter with Franz West's chairs which, on their white plinths, are intangible - contrary to the artist's intention (for conservation reasons), or Bruce Nauman's (for security reasons) decommissioned "Musical Chairs" which are supposed to turn. The museum structure apparently demands this unavoidable loss of authenticity. In this case, the programmatic exhibition title vindicates itself with the museum's declaration of bankruptcy. You don't only read this in the flat pecuniary sense, but rather from a contents point of view, and then the initially coquettish use of Broodthaers' citation gains concrete reality.
Nevertheless, is it truly an unavoidable necessity that Broodthaers' rebellious "Musèe D’Art Moderne", the example of the institution’s critique par excellence, has to be incorporated by the attacked museum structure?
mumok Museum moderner Kunst
1070 Vienna, Museumsquartier, Museumsplatz 1
Tel: +43 1 52 500
Fax: +43 1 52 500 13 00
email: info@mumok.at
www.mumok.at
Opening hours: Daily: 10.00–18.00 hours, Do: 10.00–21.00 hours
Mudam Luxembourg
Lee Bul
05.09.2013 – 09.06.2014
By Stefan Kobel
Korean artists are known to be genial nerds with a philosophical background. Lee Bul is no exception. The artist, born 1964 in South Korea absorbs numerous different sources of early neuroscientific studies ranging from social-utopian architectural phantasies to trashy science fiction and mixes them in her artistic cosmos.
However, in her first comprehensive institutional exhibition in Europe, she at first had to tame the architecture of the Mudam in Luxemburg. After two years of preparation and three weeks of set-up, Bul, with her meticulous precision, constructed hill-like structures and asymmetric wooden planes and installed them in the monumental entrance hall.
More impressive, however, are the sculptures that resemble architectural models that have gotten out of control, and accompany the visitors on their way to the lower floor. Using all kinds of glistening material, Bul created chandelier-like landscapes in which utopian architectural dreams of western architecture avant-garde seem to be sedimented. This offers an idea how modernism - not only in Korea, must have swept across ancient culture as a chaotic storm leaving styles, attitudes and theories as sediments cast in concrete, steel and glass.
The most impressive works are, however, her large walk-in sculptures. Unlike other artists such as Carsten Höller, Olafur Eliasson or Carsten Nicolai, she does not aim at evoking childlike amazement. Visual and auditory irritations emerge while walking through the cave-like structures. The constructions aim at confusing the visitor’s perception.
From the “Studio”, a room conjuring a studio environment, one can gain the following insight: firstly, that Lee Bul is a meticulous as well as talented artist and secondly - not everything that is created in a studio should unconditionally be presented to an audience.
Mudam Luxembourg
1499 Luxembourg, 3 Park Dräi Eechelen
Tel: +352 45 37 85 1
Email: info@mudam.lu
www.mudam.lu
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