Proudly Presenting:
Generali Foundation Collection
April 26–October 12, 2014
Opening: Saturday, April 26, 11am
Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Moenchsberg 32
5020 Salzburg
Austria
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 10am–6pm,
Wednesday 10am–8pm
The Generali Foundation has entrusted its internationally acclaimed collection to the Museum der Moderne Salzburg as a permanent loan. This first show, offering a selection of roughly 2,100 works by 250 artists, will provide insight into some of the characteristics of this renowned collection.
One central theme-based group of works comprises objects in which art, design, and architecture merge to shape but also articulate a critique of utopian ideas. Bruno Gironcoli’s phallic sculptures, Dan Graham’s glass pavilions, Hans Hollein’s Mobile Office (1969), Gordon Matta-Clark’s interventions in abandoned buildings, and Walter Pichler’s TV-Helmet (1967) have meanwhile become icons of this theme. The high expectations in new technologies and media since the 1960s have also flowed into numerous works that examine their effects on people. The “feminist-actionist” and “expanded-cinema”-works by VALIE EXPORT, especially her TAPP- und TASTKINO (Tap and Touch Cinema) (1968) and Harun Farocki’s video installations tackle some of these issues in profound groups of works. Works by the younger generation of artists have also contributed to a discussion of this topic from a current perspective.
A number of works in the collection contain—to quote the artist and writer Allan Sekula—”photography against the grain” in conjunction with a media critique, such as Sanja Ivekovic’s photo collages, Martha Rosler’s photo-text-installation about the Bowery in New York, and Sekula’s cinematic photo essays. Years ago, headlines proclaimed the Generali Foundation an “institution for institutional critique.” The collection does actually contain numerous artists whose works focus on the conditions of art, and ask what we actually want from art. Early on in his Condensation Cube (1965), Hans Haacke made visible how visitors have an impact on an artwork. Adrian Piper negotiates hegemonies and stereotypes in the art world, and Andrea Fraser humorously introduces us to the real life going on in a museum in the course of performances as “museum tours.”
With this exhibition, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg is writing the pre-text to a new, rotating collection exhibition, in which works from the Generali Foundation Collection will enter into dialogue with other, extensive holdings from the museum—from the in-house works to the Federal Photography Collection and the FOTOGRAFIS Bank Austria Collection to the MAP Collection.
Represented in the exhibition: VALIE EXPORT, VALIE EXPORT/Peter Weibel, Harun Farocki, Andrea Fraser, Bruno Gironcoli, Dan Graham, Hans Haacke, Hans Hollein, Sanja Iveković, Richard Kriesche, Dorit Margreiter/Mathias Poledna/Heimo Zobernig, Gordon Matta-Clark, Gustav Metzger, Walter Pichler, Adrian Piper, Marjetica Potrč, Florian Pumhösl, Martha Rosler, Allan Sekula, Goran Trbuljak, William Wegman, Peter Weibel, Franz West, Heimo Zobernig
Curators: Sabine Breitwieser, Director, with Christina Penetsdorfer, Curatorial Assistant, Museum der Moderne Salzburg
Organized by the Museum der Moderne Salzburg in cooperation with the Generali Foundation.
*Walter Pichler, Kleiner Raum (Prototyp 4), 1967. Sculpture (3 parts): Helmet, polyester, varnished white, microphone, 48 x 40 x 40 cm; Base, aluminum, PVC-foil, 20 x 100 x 100 cm; Black-and-white photograph, gelatin silver on canvas, loud-speaker, eyelets, 202 x 102 cm. © Generali Foundation. Photo: Werner Kaligofsky.
