Exhibition & Catalogue
PROJECTION.
CHAN, EXPORT, FISCHLI/WEISS, GANDER, GILLICK, GRAHAM, KNOEBEL, PARKER, STREULI
Exhibition dates: 9 September-26 November 2006
Kunstmuseum Luzern Museum of Art Lucerne
Europaplatz 1 6002 Luzern
41 41 226 78 00
info [at] kunstmuseumluzern.ch
The exhibition takes up a stimulating topic in art since the 1960s. The art of projection that predated cinema e.g. the magic lantern and the slide presentation in science and education has developed into an autonomous, experimentally inclined medium, especially in conceptual and performance art. The slide projection, in contrast to the film or video projection, is, as a still image, well suited to reflecting on the fundamental components of the immaterial appearance of the projected image. When a slide image is cast on the opposite wall by means of a projector, the literal meaning of the Latin root proiectio throw off or throw away is made plain. At the same time, the cast image as the draft of an idea takes up one central aspect of the exhibition: metaphors for the powers of the imagination.
In addition to slide projections that as a precinematic medium played a crucial role in redefining the gallery space in the 1960s, this studio exhibition also includes works such as Son et lumière (Le rayon vert) (Sound and light [The green ray],1990) by Peter Fischli and David Weiss and 1st Light (2005) by the American artist Paul Chan. This rather playful but no less reflective approach to the theme of light projection is contrasted with the conceptual approach of both Dan Graham (Project for Slide Projector, 1966/2005) and his much younger colleague Ryan Gander. Two other works with slides, Exhaled Blanket (1996) by Cornelia Parker and Pain in a Building/ Schmerz in einem Gebäude/Douleur dans un immeuble (1999) by Liam Gillick, intervene in the way they are projected into the room diagonally and brushing up against the side wall, respectively. Big-city life is shown from another side in Beat Streulis double projection New York 91/93 II (1993). An excursus on the performative aspect of expanded cinema leads to VALIE EXPORTs action Cutting (196768) where she also used a slide and which takes up the theme of cut and projection on different levels. One central element of the exhibition are three early works by Imi Knoebel from the 1970s, which have rarely been seen in the original; they use the media of photography, slides, and video to come to terms with light projection and the images that result from it. The photographic images of light forms projected in dark exterior and interior spaces establish a relationship between real space and projected space, whereas the images in light or, more correctly, the retouched originals on glass slides take up the cast image in a way specific to their respective media and thus make the immaterial image their theme, as does the pure white pictorial field of the work Projektionsbildgrösse (Projection image size) does, opening up in its rigid structure the pure space of the imagination.
The exhibition Projektion. Chan, EXPORT, Fischli/Weiss, Gander, Gillick, Graham, Knoebel, Parker, Streuli takes up where the endeavors of those few exhibiting institutions that have explicitly devoted themselves to projection (usually to the static image and slide projection) left off. It is also an appeal for more detailed investigation of the slide projection as an independent medium with its own properties distinct from those of film and the photograph. Able to offer only a focused historical survey of such a broad subject, this studio exhibition addresses projection in the sense of an idea proiectionis.
Works by
Paul Chan (USA, *1973), VALIE EXPORT (A, *1940), Peter Fischli (CH, *1952)/David Weiss (CH, *1946), Ryan Gander (GB, *1976), Liam Gillick (GB, *1964), Dan Graham (USA, *1942 ), Imi Knoebel (D, *1940), Cornelia Parker (GB, *1956), Beat Streuli (CH, *1957)
The exhibition was organized by the Museum of Art Lucerne and will travel to Lentos Museum of Modern Art Linz/Austria (29 Sept 2007 13 January 2008).
Curator: Susanne Neubauer
Curatorial Assistant: Annamira Jochim
The exhibition is supported by British Council
Press officer: Doris Bucher
Tel. 41 41 226 78 11
doris.bucher@kunstmuseumluzern.ch
Catalogue PROJEKTION. CHAN, EXPORT, FISCHLI/WEISS, GANDER, GILLICK, GRAHAM, KNOEBEL, PARKER, STREULI. Ed. Susanne Neubauer, Luzern: Kunstmuseum Luzern, (Frankfurt am Main: Revolver Verlag für aktuelle Kunst, 2006), 128 pp., 23 x 16.7 cm, with numerous illustrations, ISBN 3-86588-318-4. Publication date: mid-october 2006. www.revolver-books.de
