Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph | March 6–October 26, 2008 | Kunsthaus Graz
Los Carpinteros – Cama, 2007
Carsten Höller – Y, 2003
Installation view : Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Sammlung als Aleph, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria 2008
Photo : Jen Fong
Carsten Höller – Y, 2003
Installation view : Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Sammlung als Aleph, Kunsthaus Graz, Austria 2008
Photo : Jen Fong
Past
Exhibitions
A comparative reading of the complex literary œuvre of the Argentinian writer, Jorge Luis Borges lies at the point of departure for this exhibition. Borges’s oeuvre and its conceptual as well as narrative landscape is used as a methodology to build up a sequence of potential narratives (and fictions), continued (as if) en abîme in a collective archive of visual imaginary, based upon the collection. Within this labyrinthine context, the collection takes on a mode of one of the most enigmatic Borges’s symbols, Aleph – the point that includes all the times and all the spaces of the universe, an abstract and at the same time concrete sphere where they are contained. It cannot be grasped through “normal” perception because it encloses infinity but anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe from every angle simultaneously, without distortion, overlapping or confusion. As such, the collection is a Model, a primary Structure, unfolded into infinity, in a circular choreography of fiction and reality.
The exhibition Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph consists of three narrative chapters – themselves subdivided in multiple re-arrangements – staged in a sequence of approximately two month’s duration each, and dramatized within an architectural setting developed by Vienna-based architectural office, the nextENTERprise (Marie-Therese Harnoncourt and Ernst J. Fuchs). Such concept aims at generating a dynamic of the entire show, introducing a flux and changeability into a narrative structure and guaranteeing its performative and theatrical potential. Thematically, the exhibition is organized within the sequence of potential structures and possible fictions: from the issues concerned with the principles of identity and meanders of authorship through paradoxes of language and space-time confluences down to conjunctions of universe and utopia, reality and fiction, mirror and encyclopaedia… As such, the show emphasizes the processual reading of the act of collecting as practice(s), in which combinations and permutations of arrangements create ever new meanings, contexts and relationships between artworks.
Furthermore, the exhibition considers Borges’s favourite stylistic trope, structure en abîme as a spatial metaphor and rhizomatic device: here, the structural (and symbolic) endlessness of Kunsthaus Graz’s architecture connects with an attempt to (mentally) navigate through temporal and spatial layers of T-B A21’s collection. Structure en abîmebelonged to the writer’s preferred visual arrangements of images: as a narrative structure, a trope and a spatial model, it poses a philosophical question about infinity or infinite periodic repetitions and by means of a baroque organization of space, it establishes an order that is in itself a visual paradox. According to a principle of endless inclusion, it modifies our belief in the truth of our perceptions and sets up a tension between what can be conceived logically and what can be concretely, materially or sensorily perceived. Like a well-drawn labyrinth, it is endless and, like a labyrinth, it sets up against the order of the world, which is impossible to discern, the conceptual order of the trope that corrects the imperfect notions that “realistic” thought has fostered. The notion of endless circularity is present in labyrinths as well as in mirrors and in dreams that include other dreams or the dreamer.
The exhibition Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph consists of three narrative chapters – themselves subdivided in multiple re-arrangements – staged in a sequence of approximately two month’s duration each, and dramatized within an architectural setting developed by Vienna-based architectural office, the nextENTERprise (Marie-Therese Harnoncourt and Ernst J. Fuchs). Such concept aims at generating a dynamic of the entire show, introducing a flux and changeability into a narrative structure and guaranteeing its performative and theatrical potential. Thematically, the exhibition is organized within the sequence of potential structures and possible fictions: from the issues concerned with the principles of identity and meanders of authorship through paradoxes of language and space-time confluences down to conjunctions of universe and utopia, reality and fiction, mirror and encyclopaedia… As such, the show emphasizes the processual reading of the act of collecting as practice(s), in which combinations and permutations of arrangements create ever new meanings, contexts and relationships between artworks.
Furthermore, the exhibition considers Borges’s favourite stylistic trope, structure en abîme as a spatial metaphor and rhizomatic device: here, the structural (and symbolic) endlessness of Kunsthaus Graz’s architecture connects with an attempt to (mentally) navigate through temporal and spatial layers of T-B A21’s collection. Structure en abîmebelonged to the writer’s preferred visual arrangements of images: as a narrative structure, a trope and a spatial model, it poses a philosophical question about infinity or infinite periodic repetitions and by means of a baroque organization of space, it establishes an order that is in itself a visual paradox. According to a principle of endless inclusion, it modifies our belief in the truth of our perceptions and sets up a tension between what can be conceived logically and what can be concretely, materially or sensorily perceived. Like a well-drawn labyrinth, it is endless and, like a labyrinth, it sets up against the order of the world, which is impossible to discern, the conceptual order of the trope that corrects the imperfect notions that “realistic” thought has fostered. The notion of endless circularity is present in labyrinths as well as in mirrors and in dreams that include other dreams or the dreamer.
duration
March 6 - October 26, 2008
location
Kunsthaus Graz
artists
Phase 1: March thru April
Haluk Akakçe, Fiona Banner, Olafur Eliasson, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon, Florian Hecker, Carsten Höller, Jim Lambie, Los Carpinteros, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, Jason Rhoades, Catherine Sullivan, Heimo Zobernig
Phase 2: May thru August
Darren Almond, Fiona Banner, Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Iran do Espírito Santo, Isa Genzken, Jim Lambie, Jón Laxdal, Los Carpinteros, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães, Olaf Nicolai, Thomas Struth, Do-Ho Suh
Phase 3: September thru October
Kutlug Ataman, Monica Bonvicini, Janet Cardiff, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Florian Hecker, Mathilde ter Heijne, Roger Hiorns, Jim Lambie, Sarah Lucas, Ján Mančuška, Sarah Morris, Olaf Nicolai, Raqs Media Collective, Matthew Ritchie, Thomas Ruff, Hans Schabus, Salla Tykkä
Haluk Akakçe, Fiona Banner, Olafur Eliasson, Tracey Emin, Douglas Gordon, Florian Hecker, Carsten Höller, Jim Lambie, Los Carpinteros, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, Jason Rhoades, Catherine Sullivan, Heimo Zobernig
Phase 2: May thru August
Darren Almond, Fiona Banner, Tiago Carneiro da Cunha, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Iran do Espírito Santo, Isa Genzken, Jim Lambie, Jón Laxdal, Los Carpinteros, Sarah Lucas, Paul McCarthy, Ernesto Neto, Rivane Neuenschwander, Rivane Neuenschwander & Cao Guimarães, Olaf Nicolai, Thomas Struth, Do-Ho Suh
Phase 3: September thru October
Kutlug Ataman, Monica Bonvicini, Janet Cardiff, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Cerith Wyn Evans, Florian Hecker, Mathilde ter Heijne, Roger Hiorns, Jim Lambie, Sarah Lucas, Ján Mančuška, Sarah Morris, Olaf Nicolai, Raqs Media Collective, Matthew Ritchie, Thomas Ruff, Hans Schabus, Salla Tykkä
programm
Tue, April 15/7pm, Space04/Film screening Jorge Luis Borges
Performance (1970, dir. by Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell)
Profile of a Writer, Vol. 7: Jorge Luis Borges (1983)
May 16-18/Space04/Symposium Jorge Luis Borges: Aleph
Tue, Jun 3/7pm, Space04/Film screening Jorge Luis Borges
Cuentos de Borges I (1991, dir. by Héctor Olivera, Gerardo Vera) Los libros y las noches (1999, dir. by Tristán Bauer)
Sep. 5-6/Space04/Symposium: Collection as Aleph
Performance (1970, dir. by Nicolas Roeg, Donald Cammell)
Profile of a Writer, Vol. 7: Jorge Luis Borges (1983)
May 16-18/Space04/Symposium Jorge Luis Borges: Aleph
Tue, Jun 3/7pm, Space04/Film screening Jorge Luis Borges
Cuentos de Borges I (1991, dir. by Héctor Olivera, Gerardo Vera) Los libros y las noches (1999, dir. by Tristán Bauer)
Sep. 5-6/Space04/Symposium: Collection as Aleph
Supported by
Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein
Related works in the collection
Stanze di Raffaello II (Rome), 1990
Cama, 2007
NOTFORYOU, 2006
Heimo Zobernig
Untitled, 2006
Untitled, 2006
Heimo Zobernig
Untitled, 2006
Untitled, 2006
Portaaviones, 2005
Casa con Piscina, 2005
Frío Estudio del Desastre, 2005
All the World's Fighter Planes, 2004
Heimo Zobernig
Untitled, 2004
Untitled, 2004
Eu desejo o seu desejo, 2003
If I Had You, 2003
Inside / Powerless Structures, Fig. 334, 2003
Olafur Elisson
Your welcome reflected, 2003
Your welcome reflected, 2003
The Four Seasons of Veronica Read, 2002
Esqueleto Glóbulos, 2001
Humanóides, 2001
The Family Farm, 2001
Fivefold tunnel, 2000
Heimo Zobernig
Untitled, 2000
Untitled, 2000
Powerless Structures, Fig. 82, 1999
Bunny Gets Snookered #3, 1997
Polaroid Bunny #1-4, 1997
Illusion of the First Time, 2002
Gold Standard (hysteric, melancholic, degraded, refined)
I Dream of Sleep, 2002
Gate
Untitled (Porta I), 2000
Untitled, 2000
Black Box, 2003
Mi Saga, U Saga (Emmanuelle Saga), 2005
The KD Vyas Correspondence, Vol. 1, 2006
Empire Vampire III - 19, 2004
Predictable Incident in Unfamiliar Surroundings Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 1995
Globos, 2003
Pools-Fountainbleu (Miami), 2002
Sarah Morris
Wolf [Origami]
Based on the crease pattern
Wolf [Origami]
Based on the crease pattern
Piccadilly Circus, 2003
Crown, 2003
Pages from my Diary 7, 1996
Jim Lambie
Zobop Gold, 2000
Zobop Gold, 2000
Status Quo, 2006
Killer Without a Cause, 2006
Reißbrett Nr(s). 73, 74, 75, 77, 81, 82, 84
Hans Schabus
Versuch über die Schwerkraft, 2004
Versuch über die Schwerkraft, 2004
Hans Schabus
val canale, 2005
val canale, 2005
Artists
Tracey Emin
Thomas Struth
Thomas Ruff
Sarah Lucas
Rivane Neuenschwander
Paul McCarthy
Olafur Eliasson
Los Carpinteros
Jón Laxdal
Jim Lambie
Jason Rhoades
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Janet Cardiff
Isa Genzken
Iran do Espirito Santo
Heimo Zobernig
Hans Schabus
Haluk Akakçe
Florian Hecker
Fiona Banner
Ernesto Neto
Elmgreen & Dragset
Douglas Gordon
Do Ho Suh
Darren Almond
Cerith Wyn Evans
Catherine Sullivan
Carsten Höller
Roger Hiorns
RELATED TAGS
Haluk Akakçe
Fiona Banner
Olafur Eliasson
Tracey Emin
Douglas Gordon
Florian Hecker
Carsten Höller
Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller
Isa Genzken
Iran do Espirito Santo
Jim Lambie
Jón Laxdal
Los Carpinteros
Sarah Lucas
Paul McCarthy
Jason Rhoades
Catherine Sullivan
Heimo Zobernig
Darren Almond
Elmgreen & Dragset
Ernesto Neto
Rivane Neuenschwander
Thomas Struth
Do Ho Suh
Kutluğ Ataman
Monica Bonvicini
Janet Cardiff
Cerith Wyn Evans
Ján Mančuška
Raqs Media Collective
Matthew Ritchie
Hans Schabus