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Georg Kargl Fine Arts: Markus Schinwald | Arthur K�pcke - 19 June 2009 to 14 Aug 2009 Current Exhibition |
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Markus Schinwald
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Markus Schinwald Georg Kargl Fine Arts Exhibition dates: June 19 � August 14, 2009 Markus Schinwald dedicated his 2009 exhibition in Kunsthaus Bregenz to the sitcom, a pop culture format that, at least in its reception, is positioned rather low in the cultural hierarchy. For his exhibition at Georg Kargl Fine Arts, Schinwald has taken another step down the ladder and produced mascots in the form of moving exhibition walls. Though the visual appearance seems contrary to Markus Schinwald�s works to date and looks like a radical break in style, he is true to his established framework. Here we also find a confrontation with the human body and its sensibilities, with the architecture and display traditions of the visual arts. And not to be overlooked � the mode of appropriation. In contrast to most of his previous works, the material he uses does not presently have a place in the canon of the visual arts, rather it is an insignia of pop culture. Originally, the mascot was a 19th century creation that developed into a comic representation of individual craft guilds, a kind of lucky talisman. Today, it seldom has a good luck charm function; instead, it serves as a marketing form or as entertainment for children. Schinwald�s mascots are neither part of a marketing strategy, nor are they intended for children, rather they are more to be understood as a reflection on pop culture as it appears in front of an art (or highbrow) background. In the foremost room of the gallery, Schinwald has arranged an ensemble of fragmented skies, excluding the landscape itself from a number of landscape paintings of varying ages, and concentrating solely on the atmosphere. The sky is the place where, at least visually, nothing changes � a blue nothing. This collection is accompanied by manipulated pieces of furniture. Schinwald has broken down Chippendale-style tables, only to fit them together again in a new, incorrect form. Here, they are arranged elegantly on a pedestal, while below, the sculptures hang in canvas sacks on the wall, partly obscuring their form, distending and stretching the cloth like ill-fitted garments. In the highest Victorian period, the legs of table and chairs were often disguised with cloth garments that imitated pantaloon underwear, as the furniture legs were considered to be too suggestive of their human counterparts. Here, the anthropomorphic quality of Schinwald�s sculptures is accentuated, rather than disguised, by the enveloping fabric. Arthur K�pcke Georg Kargl BOX Exhibtion date: June 19 � August 14, 2009 �fill: with own imagination and �&C; (and continue)� These two basic principles run through all works of the artist Arthur K�pcke, which still today challenge the beholder to face everyday life in an inventive fashion. With both humorous as well as serious intentions, they present us with a challenge: �Use your own imagination in an infinite process.� The life of Arthur K�pcke, born in 1928, was marked by the questioning of his very existence and surroundings, as conditioned by his biography. Traumatic experiences at the end of World War II left K�pcke with the sensation of living in a permanent state of emergency. A self-taught artist, his work included literature, painting, object art, conceptual art, and action art. When he failed to make a living from his art in the 1950s, he decided to make the best of his situation in Denmark: K�pcke discovered likeminded individuals in the international Fluxus movement, which had the fusion of art and life as its goal. An issue was no longer creating works to be sold, but making art that fed on everyday life. The focus was on the customary, not the exotic, the event and not the pose, the process and not the artwork. K�pcke seemed to direct his entire attention towards the media image and the consumer articles of his time, in so doing developing a new respect for things otherwise only perceived in passing. K�pcke ironically and humorously reflected upon massproduced items, affordable, quickly used up, and then often carelessly discarded, in his collages and montages, developing them into something else by integrating written elements into his images, later having his texts read, and then releasing recordings of readings, he emphasized the importance of the relationship of text to image: characteristic for his visual language was the alternating use of empty spaces and textual or visual signs. With textual and visual questions and instructions (�Fill: With Your Own Imagination�) he tried to remove the beholder from a passive attitude. In late 1957, together with his wife, K�pcke opened Galerie K�pcke in Copenhagen, originally to secure his Danish visa. With his roots in futurism, Dadaism, and surrealism, the focus of the gallery lied in Fluxus and Nouveau r�alisme, and for the following five years of its existence the gallery became a center of avant-garde art in Denmark. K�pcke thus became a key figure in bringing Fluxus to Denmark and ultimately to all of Scandinavia. Not only did he move among the media with ease, but among roles as well�as an artist, gallerist, and art educator. As an organizer and participant of many Fluxus events, K�pcke developed to an independent figure of the scene. In his spectacles with actionistic character, artists such as Piero Manzoni, who exhibited his Merda d�artista in his galleries, Niki de Saint Phalle, Daniel Spoerri, and many others took part. K�pcke�s Piece No. 1, Music While You Work, performed during the first Fluxus concert at Nikolaj Church (K�pcke�s new gallery location as of 1962) is a very complex fusion of music, poetry, and visual art. This piece represents what is very characteristic for the two legendary Fluxus events Fluxus Fluxorum (1963) and Festival of Misfits (1962): the destruction of barriers between music, poetry, and visual arts�or any other discipline. Between 1963 and 1965, the key work reading/work-pieces-manuscript emerged, a simple collection of 127 (resp. 129) pieces that marked a turning point in K�pcke�s oeuvre. While up until this point the artist had taken up impulses from outside, from now on he began creating his own unforgettable style that transported the thematic core of Fluxus (but without adopting its typical layout). The exhibition at Georg Kargl BOX shows a selection of twelve works by the Fluxus artist. The collage from 1973/1974 Time (&) [plus] yours. combines many of the elements mentioned: on the K�pcke advertising board are bits of paper plates, paper, porcelain tiles, and ribbon, in part painted. The elements form in their light and playful character a contrast to the rough material aesthetic of the beer keg cover. The hourglass placed on the lower part of the picture, together with the text, implies a reflection on the general and subjective cycle of time and fugacity. The work Treatment of a Canvas, + You: Play Chess with Money: Each Team Its Side of the Coins from 1965 with framed by two wooden rods on both sides, reminiscent of a map, challenges the beholder to a game of chess; coins replaced the various chess figures, depending on their nominal value. K�pcke inspired Danish art with his own actions and by promoting new currents. In his famous quotation (�I think every night about Addi K�pcke, Joseph�) Joseph Beuys expressed his respect for Arthur K�pcke as a person and an artist, underscoring the importance of the artist, who died in 1977 at the young age of 49. |
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