Modus Operandi
November 25, 2004–April 30, 2005 | TBA21, Vienna

Elmgreen & Dragset, Powerless Structures Fig. 82, 1999
Past
Exhibitions

MODUS OPERANDI  (almost always used in the abbreviated form MO) refers to the mode of operation - to the ways things are produced based on the application of characteristic patterns, processes and structures. The exhibition at the TBA21 exhibition space brings together works by ten artists, all represented in the foundation’s collection who engage in a range of processes of spatial construction and perception.

Among other similarities, the works in this exhibition all explore ideas and thought patterns related to the natural sciences, mechanics, and physical models. Artists create apparatuses, devices and installations as models of their ideas and relationships to the world. These are not reproducing realities, not aesthetisizing mechanical inventions, they are not models of simulation, but rather models of dissimulation, difference, and diffusion. As such, these works are utopian moments of ubiquity and individual transformation. They encourage an interaction with the viewer, manifesting the performability of a poetic momentum.

MODUS OPERANDI does not examine critically the nature of scientific statements and concepts, but investigates the way in which larger theories generate physical models, which in return, shape our way of understanding the underlying theories and world-views. A main function of art is to simulate the laws and structures of our world. The experience of reality is determined by the objects and ideas we collectively produce.
duration
November 24, 2004–April 30, 2005
Artists
Doug Aitken, Ricci Albenda, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, Olafur Eliasson, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset, Iran do Espirito Santo, Cerith Wyn Evans, Carsten Höller, Carsten Nicolai, and Matthew Ritchie
location
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
free admission