Moveable Parts. Forms of the Kinetic
9 October 2004 – 16 January 2005
Kunsthaus Graz, in collaboration with Museum Tinguely, Basel
Opening October 8th, 2004, at 7.00 pm
Kunsthaus Graz
Lendkai 1, A-8020 Graz
T +43-316/8017-9213
presse [at] kunsthausgraz.at
Hans Haacke, Blue Sail, 1964/1965; Property of the artist, as a permanent loan to the Museum fur Gegenwartskunst Siegen; Foto: Wolfgang Neeb, (c) VBK, Wien, 2004.
Art on the move – movement in art. From the 60s up to the present.
An exhibition investigating the forms of expression of kinetics and machines in contemporary art has been conceived together with Museum Tinguely, Basel. In a comprehensive display it draws an arc from the 1960s up to the present and in this way makes the stages of the development of Kinetic Art traceable.
Intending to document the centuries-old development of Machine Art, Pontus Hulten curated the committed project “The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age” at the Museum of Modern Art, New York in 1968. Already the title of the exhibition delineates both the departure into the electronic age and the necessity of summing up the past. Having arrived in the digital age, we are only seldom thrown off balance by technological innovations. Nevertheless, visions and harbingers heralding fusions of biological and artificial organisms evoke ethical objections and controversial debates.
For Moving Parts eight international artists of a younger generation have created new works dealing with the ambivalent relationship between man and machine. These contemporary projects are imbedded in an extensive historical overview where the complexity of Kinetic Art in all its spectacular forms of expression is condensed.
From Jean Tinguely’s noisy scrap metal sculptures, the light-kinetic works of Gerhard von Graevenitz and Werner Bauer, Stephan von Huene’s moving sound installations and Pol Bury’s magnetic marvels up to more recent works by Paul McCarthy, Jason Rhoades, Martin Walde, Joachim Fleischer and many other artists – there could not be more multifaceted approaches to the machine and its movement. Yet, in spite of the historical scope covered by the works, the organisers of the exhibition are not intending to reconstruct the stages of the development of Kinetic Art. In fact, Moving Parts should be understood as a snapshot of the present situation to be seen in the broader context of earlier kinetic works. Obviously, our relationship to technology has changed, the rapid technological progress has also entered art and is offering us all possibilities of bringing life to sculptures nowadays. The interaction with the viewer and the performative are becoming more and more important and opening up new interpretative approaches. In this way new views on the world of the machines are becoming visible, offering a poetic momentum that ought to elevate our conception of the machine far beyond that of merely a physical device of power transmission.
An extensive catalogue has been published on the occasion of the exhibition that contains text contributions written by Soke Dinkla, Guy Brett, Peter Weibel and Christian Theo Steiner as well as a preface by Guido Magnaguagno and an introduction by Peter Pakesch. Informative commentaries about their works – some of which containing up-to-date interviews – are dedicated to the artists represented in the exhibition.
Yakoov Agam, IL
Thomas Baumann, AT
Werner Bauer, DE
Julien Berthier, FR
Martha Boto, AR
Pol Bury, BE
Gianni Colombo, IT
Siegfried Cremer, DE
Attila Csorgo, HU
Olafur Eliasson, DK
Malachi Farrell, IE
Joachim Fleischer, DE
Hans Haacke, DE
Istvan Haraszty, HU
Jeppe Hein, DK
Rebecca Horn, DE
Wendy Jacob, USA
Peter Konitz, DE
Piotr Kowalski, PL
Julio Le Parc, AR
Lia, AT
Paul McCarthy USA
Bruce Nauman, USA
Fernando Palma Rodriguez, MX
Michelangelo Pistoletto, IT
Sigmar Polke, DE
Tim Prentice, USA
Sabrina Raaf, USA
Werner Reiterer, AT
Jason Rhoades, USA
George Rickey, USA
Michael Sailstorfer, DE
Nicolas Schoffer, HU
Jeffrey Shaw, AU
Roman Signer, CH
Jesus-Rafael Soto, VE
Takis, GR
Jean Tinguely, CH
Gunther Uecker, DE
Gregorio Vardanega, IT
Gerhard von Graevenitz, DE
Stephan von Huene, USA
Martin Walde, AT
Tsai Wen-Ying, CN
Krysztof Wodiczko, PL
Christiaan Zwanikken, NL
Curators: Katrin Bucher, Peter Pakesch, Heinz Stahlhut, Peter Weibel
