Form Follows Fiction
October 17, 2001 - January 27, 2002
Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art
ph. 39.011.9565209, fax 39.011.9565231
Curator: Jeffrey Deitch
Catalogue: Charta, Milan
Form Follows Fiction, an exhibition project curated by Jeffrey Deitch will be presented by the Castello di Rivoli Museum of Contemporary Art from October 17, 2001 – January 27, 2002. Among the artists invited are: Franz Ackermann, Amy Adler, Doug Aitken, Vanessa Beecroft, Gregory Crewdson, John Currin, Olafur Eliasson, Cai Guo-Qiang, Pierre Huyghe, Kurt Kauper, Toba Khedoori, Matthieu Laurette, Margherita Manzelli, Mariko Mori, Takashi Murakami, Tim Noble and Sue Webster, Chris Ofili, Gabriel Orozco, Pipilotti Rist, Matthew Ritchie, Kara Walker.
Form Follows Fiction examines the increasing confusion between fact and fiction in contemporary art and contemporary life. As elements of contemporary life move closer to art, and as art moves more directly into life, the differences between the artificial and the real are becoming increasingly blurred. The exhibition focuses on a new generation of artists who are developing new models of contemporary reality. The reality they model through their work is as fictional as it is real.
“Form Follows Function” was the dictum of high Modernism. The mainstream of modern art and architecture was generally based on a material reality. Architecture mirrored function and art revealed the materials from which it was made. As our model of reality has become more layered and less concrete, art has moved increasingly into the realm of “Form Follows Fiction.”
The most influential artists of the past five years are constructing their own aesthetic worlds through their work, worlds in which one loses one’s grasp of the border between the artificial and the real. Some of these artists create artistic structures that intersect with everyday life, pushing their audience into the gap between fiction and reality. Other artists create elaborate fictional worlds where past, present and future are collapsed into one and where art historical icons and the debris of contemporary popular culture have equal relevance. Others are creating elaborate fictional systems that fuse elements of reality and fantasy.
Form Follows Fiction is conceived as a sequel to Post Human, also curated by Jeffrey Deitch, and presented at the Castello di Rivoli in 1992. It continues Post Human’s exploration of a new model of the human condition, pushing deeper into the confusion between the artificial and the real. The exhibition attempts to represent the new conception of reality being developed by the generation of artists that has emerged since the mid-1990s.
The exhibition is supported by Fondazione CRT Cassa di Risparmio di Torino.
