The World of Things
Duration: 21.09 - 03.11.2013
Artists: Gino Alberti, John Baldessari, Julia Bornefeld, Giovanni Castell, Fischli & Weiss, et. al.
Curator: Heinrich Schwazer
Classical still lifes displayed splendor and wealth. What mattered was basically the reality status of pictures of everyday objects that also had a symbolic, philosophical meaning. Classical still lifes were followed by Warhol’s Campbell cans – the still life of mass production. They promised: abundance.
Until today, still lifes remain a field of exuberant artistic possibilities. In the face of our present flood of images, the plan of painting a representation of the world that is capable of synthesizing its infinite variety has given way to the disillusioning, but liberating incapability of imagining the world through an image.
We live in a world full of objects, and we are virtually drowning in commodities and sales offers. But can the world of things still represent sense and order, considering its rapid devaluation through ever changing fashions and interchangeability?
The exhibition at Merano arte deals with the complex, but fascinating subject of still lifes by means of artworks that focus on the realistic, accurate representation of our visible reality.
Fetishization, supercharging, the unfamiliarity and cussedness of the inanimate, the overpopulation and the disappearance of things on behalf of digitalization, money as a thing-in-itself, and the last things - those are the intertwined poles of the exhibition.
With works by:
Gino Alberti, John Baldessari, Julia Bornefeld, Giovanni Castell, Fischli & Weiss, Nadia Kammerer, Erich Kofler Fuchsberg, Meghan Gordon, Michael Höllrigl, Christoph Hinterhuber, Johannes Inderst, Ivo Mahlknecht, Matthias Mahlknecht, Matic & Traubeck, Brigitte Niedermair, Sebastian Siechold, Markus Siegele, Lois Steger, Markus Vallazza, Sam Taylor-Wood, Andreas Zingerle.
Foto Installation
