Damage Control. Art and Destruction Since 1950
Kunsthaus Graz
Damage Control. Body Art and Destruction 1968–1972
BRUSEUM/Neue Galerie Graz
November 14, 2014–February 15, 2015
Kunsthaus Graz
Lendkai 1
8020 Graz
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–5pm
T +43 316/8017 9200
kunsthausgraz [at] museum-joanneum.at
Neue Galerie Graz
Joanneumsviertel
8010 Graz
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–5pm
T +43 316/8017 9100
joanneumsviertel [at] museum-joanneum.at
Since the mid-20th century artists of various disciplines have demonstrated a growing interest in the concept of destruction or dismantling. Two group exhibitions in the Kunsthaus Graz and the BRUSEUM/Neue Galerie Graz are dedicated to this theme from two perspectives:
Damage Control. Art and Destruction Since 1950
Kunsthaus Graz
The art of our time has again and again reflected a world of violence: as a reaction to the two world wars, to the atomic bomb, or to images of annihilation in the media. Destruction pervades art production and has been employed by artists as a means of conveying institutional critique or expressing cultural anxiety while, often, keeping specific emotional or cultural references at a distance. The exhibition Damage Control. Art and Destruction Since 1950 presents a phenomenon that extends beyond art: in particular tracing history from a postwar period influenced by American media images, but the exhibition also refers to how today’s fears are determined by current threats such as terrorism and natural disasters—whether real or imagined.
Participating artists:
Ai Weiwei, Roy Arden, John Baldessari, Walead Besthy, Monica Bonvicini, Mircea Cantor, Vija Celmins, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Bruce Conner, Thomas Demand, Luc Delahaye, Sam Durant, Harold Edgerton, Dara Friedman, Cyprien Gaillard, Ori Gersht, Jack Goldstein, Douglas Gordon, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Mona Hatoum, Larry Johnson, Yves Klein, Michael Landy, Christian Marclay, Gordon Matta-Clark, Steve McQueen, Gustav Metzger, Raphael Montañez Ortiz, Juan Muñoz, Laurel Nakadate, Yoshitomo Nara, Arnold Odermatt, Yoko Ono, Pipilotti Rist, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Ruff, Joe Sola, Shōmei Tōmatsu, Jean Tinguely, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool
The exhibition was organised by the Hirshhorn Museum, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C. in association with Mudam Luxembourg and Kunsthaus Graz. Drawn in part from the Hirshhorn Museum collection, the exhibition brings together groundbreaking works of international significance not just from the branches of painting, film and photography but also from sculpture, installation and performance.
Curated by Kerry Brougher (Director, Academy Museum of Motion Pictures, Los Angeles), Russell Ferguson (Professor, Department of Art, University of California, Los Angeles)
Project coordinator (Graz): Katrin Bucher Trantow
Damage Control. Art and Destruction Since 1950 received major funding from the Terra Foundation for American Art, and is also made possible through generous support from the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia and the Japan Foundation.
Damage Control. Body Art and Destruction 1968–1972
BRUSEUM/Neue Galerie Graz
Expanding upon the exhibition in the Kunsthaus Graz, the BRUSEUM is devoted to a special aspect of artistic destruction: Body Art in its early stages from the angle of Actionist self-harming. Starting out from the “Destruction in Art” symposium in London in 1966, the emergence of a body-centred art can be observed internationally around 1970, which in its essence shows ‘the use of the artist’s body as sculptural material’. It also already contained the deconstruction and destruction of the new sculptural material and thus the self-injuring of the artist as an artistic act. Before the background of a global, political and social upheaval, which is commonly associated with the number “1968,” the artists’ radical performances raise questions that have not lost any relevance in terms of individual existential concerns and social-political tensions.
Participating artists:
Vita Acconci, Günter Brus, Chris Burden, Dennis Oppenheim, Gina Pane, Mike Parr, VALIE EXPORT, Peter Weibel, among others
Curated by Roman Grabner
