Monday, March 18, 2013

Die Anthologie der Kunst / Anthology of Art


Pressemitteilung 21. Oktober 2004

Jochen Gerz. "Anthologie der Kunst"

Ausstellung 18. November 2004 bis 9. Januar 2005, Hanseatenweg 10, Berlin-Tiergarten
Eröffnung Mittwoch, 17.11.2004, 17.30 Uhr
Pressegespräch Dienstag, 16. November 2004, 11.00 Uhr, Ausstellungshallen
Teilnehmer Jochen Gerz, Matthias Flügge (Vize-Präsident der Akademie der Künste)
Die Frage nach der Zukunft hat das zwanzigste Jahrhundert wie keine andere bestimmt. Vor allem die Kunst der Moderne hat sich die Zukunft auf die Fahne geschrieben. Zukunft hieß Aufbruch, Neuheit und Revolution. Wie radikal sich diese Frage in den letzten Jahren verändert, zeigt diese Ausstellung. Die "Anthologie der Kunst" begann als work in progress im September 2001 an der Hochschule für Bildende Künste Braunschweig. Jochen Gerz lud sechs KünstlerInnen und sechs TheoretikerInnen ein, mit einem Bild oder Text auf die Frage zu antworten: Was könnte, angesichts Ihres Bildes der Kunst heute, eine noch unbekannte Kunst sein? Über die eigene Antwort hinaus, die für zwei Wochen im Internet sichtbar war, schlugen die Teilnehmer Nachfolger vor, deren Beiträge den eigenen ablösten. So wurde jeder von ihnen auch Kurator des künstlerischen Prozesses. Im Laufe von vierzehn Monaten entstand die "Anthologie der Kunst": 26 Generationen schufen 312 Beiträge (156 Bilder und 156 Texte).
Der virtuelle Raum des Internets war zugleich der öffentliche Raum. In der Akademie der Künste wird die "Anthologie der Kunst" zur Ausstellung. Die Arbeit schließt an die zahlreichen Autorenprojekte von Jochen Gerz an, die seit den späten sechziger Jahren immer wieder eine Öffentlichkeit zum Autor machen.
Die Frage nach einer zukünftigen Kunst erwies sich nach dem "Tod der Avantgarde" als überraschend und zugleich extrem zeitbezogen, da die Ereignisse des 11. September 2001, die die Welt veränderten, das Denken ebenso unvorbereitet trafen wie die Türme des World Trade Center.
Die KünstlerInnen und TheoretikerInnen kommen aus 37 Ländern und 6 Kontinenten. Ihre Beiträge zur Anthologie der Kunst fordern dazu heraus, Praxis und Theorie in einer globalen Gesellschaft neu zu überdenken. Auch die Akademie der Künste nimmt das Projekt von Jochen Gerz, der seit 1994 Mitglied der Abteilung Bildende Kunst ist, zum Anlass, ihre eigene, öffentliche Mission als Ort der Fragen und der Forschung, zu diskutieren.
Zur Ausstellung erscheint das Buch "Jochen Gerz. Die Anthologie der Kunst", hrsg. von Marion Hohlfeldt, DuMont 2004, 48 € (156 farbige Abbildungen, 384 Seiten).
Weitere Stationen der Ausstellung:
ZKM / Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie: 18. März – 7. August 2005
Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn: Frühjahr 2006
Weitere Informationen unter: www.anthology-of-art.net
THE ANTHOLOGY OF ART
Art and Theory in Dialogue

For over one year, the Anthology of Art has provided an internet-based platform for dialogue between artists and theorists from all over the world. This process focused on current visions of art and the relationship of art to theoretical discourse. The Anthology of Art website now houses the complete archive of 156 images and 156 texts.

Jochen Gerz
The Anthology of Art: Art and Theory in Dialogue

Contemporary art reflects the conditions of its production and promotion. The appropriation of art by art history and theory tends to show that art and the discourse about art are more interconnected then ever before, and that an equal emphasis is placed on theoretical reflection as on the work of art itself.

The Anthology of Art investigated the connection between art production and art theory instead of presuming it. The project also shows how much traditional relationships within the international art world are changing through the medium of the Internet. The yearlong process was an online experiment that provided insight about the contemporary artistic process itself, with artists, theorists, and institutions more and more interacting via the Web.

To launch the project, six artists and six theorists were invited by Jochen Gerz. Each of them made a contributions to the Anthology of Art : www.anthology-of-art.net. Artists chose one of their own images and theorists wrote a short text (one to three pages) in their native language or in English, all answering the question:

"In the context of contemporary art, what is your vision of a yet unknown art?"
Each of the original twelve participants was asked to invite an artist or theorist of their choice to follow suit. Since September 2001, twelve different artists and theorists have made new contributions every other week. The website has been updated each time so that no more than twelve contributions appeared at any given time. Now this process is completed and a total of 312 independent verbal and visual contributions—156 images and 156 texts— have been collected. The Anthology of Art  is a plural artwork whose content and contributors were unpredictable. Do the self-curated process and the diversity of the contributions provide clues about the direction of an emerging form?

Beyond compiling a representative collection of contemporary theory, the intention was to investigate a collaborative process, largely without interference or influence by a traditional author. It may be assumed that today art itself is no longer being questioned. On the contrary, every word about art tends to transform itself into art as well. The Anthology of Art  tested the limits of this tendency: Can a large number of independent authors produce a work of art? Does this form of production reflect a global society better than traditional curated models of art exhibitions?

The objective of this work in progress was to encourage a new dialogue between art and theory, word and image. Members of an international art community are the authors and curators of the Anthology of Art. Existing contacts were nurtured and unexpected relationships initiated.

The claim of an international and interdisciplinary contemporary art has often been taken for granted. It has been questioned by the simultaneous, ephemeral and aleatoric confrontations between authors in different regions of the world connected through the Internet - no longer from privileged centres or isolated peripheries and no longer from naive or informed perspectives.

The Anthology of Art website now houses the complete archive of 156 images and 156 texts. For the first time this ensemble is accessible.

All contributions will be published in a catalogue for the Anthology of Artexhibition at the Gropius-Bau in Berlin from April to August 2004. In conjunction with the exhibition, the Akademie der Künste and the Neuhardenberg Foundation will organize the "Manifest/Symposium". 

In 2002/2003 a research-project about the Anthology of Art, supported by the Culture 2000 Programme of the European Union, was realised by the School of Fine Arts at Braunschweig/ Germany, the University of Rennes2/ France, and the University of Craft and Design at Budapest/ Hungary. The research results have been published under the title "Through the 'Net. Studies in Jochen Gerz' »Anthology of Art«" (ISBN 3-89770-197-9). The publication is available throughSalon-Verlag Cologne (info@vice-versa-vertrieb.de).
 News
In 2002/2003 a research-project about the Anthology of Art, supported by the Culture 2000 Programme of the European Union, was realised by the School of Fine Arts at Braunschweig/ Germany, the University of Rennes2/ France, and the University of Craft and Design at Budapest/ Hungary. The research results have been published under the title "Through the 'Net. Studies in Jochen Gerz' »Anthology of Art«" (ISBN 3-89770-197-9). The publication is available throughSalon-Verlag Cologne (info@vice-versa-vertrieb.de).
From April through August 2004 the Anthology of Art exhibition will take place at the Martin-Gropius-Bau in Berlin. In conjunction with this occasion all 312 contributions will be published in the Anthology of Art  book.

Before the exhibition opening in Berlin, the Neuhardenberg Foundation and the Akademie der Künste will organize the Manifest!Symposium.

Jochen Gerz is currently developing two public art projects for the Millennium Place in the city of Coventry/UK: The Future Monument and The Public Bench. Other public artworks to be produced in Germany during 2003 and 2004: The Competition (Sauerland), The Square of the Fundamental Law (Karlsruhe) andThe Secret Street (Düsseldorf).

The personal exhibition Verkehrte Zeit (Time in reverse) at the Art Museum Liechtenstein focuses on Jochen Gerz' video works, documenting his public interventions and performances between 1969 and 1993. The exhibition runs through March 9th, 2003.

Recent publications include:
Wenn sie alleine waren, Foto / Text Arbeiten und Video 1969 -1982, MUSEUM FOLKWANG ESSEN, 2002, ISBN 3-88243-854-1.
L'Anti-Monument, Les Mots de Paris, Paris Musées / Actes Sud, Paris 2002, ISBN 2-7427-3904-1.
In case we meet, Editions du Centre Pompidou, Paris 2002 (english, français, deutsch), ISBN 2-84426-110-8.
http://www.adk.de/de/aktuell/pressemitteilungen/archiv.htm?we_objectID=680

I, You, We and them - together, meet up to gather around the starting line of a multi-purpose racetrack, looking towards terminal destiny of the final vanishing point.

Perfectly, at exact centre of this cloudless sky ahead, a fuzzy speck arrives, assuming the image of a giant eye.

The cloudless sky swings between dawn and sunset then twilight and dusk, without break. Whenever the cloudless sky is at dawn and sunset, the giant eye sleeps and rests, closed firmly, tight shut, delineated using shadows, stains, burning, soot, cinders, ashes and exhaust fumes; whenever the cloudless sky is at twilight and dusk, the giant eye awakens, gaping wide open and staring, sculpted out of liquid gold, embers and gilding.

The cloudless sky and the giant eye stay switching from one state to the next, each in keeping with the other. From the giant eye, a horizontal city of palaces and temples is founded and goes from strength to strength, while the cloudless sky disappears and the multi-purpose racetrack diminishes and moves into the engulfing horizontal city of palaces and temples. All that is left of multi-purpose racetrack tilts and slants aloft on a sloping incline, until standing straight upright vertically, and inverting as well, so the horizontal city of palaces and temples becomes floor below and ceiling above, when multi-purpose racetrack turns and upends again, horizontal city of palaces and temples is the wall at the side.

Douglas Park
New Haw, Addlestone - UK

© Douglas Park, 2002

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