(un)painted
15 November 2002 - 5 January 2003
Moderna galerija/Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana
Tomièeva 14
1000 Ljubljana Slovenija
Tel.: + 386 1 2416800
Fax: + 386 1 2514 120
www.mg-lj.si
Image: IRWIN, WAS IST KUNST (Stella, Untitled/Concentric Squares, 1974), 2002
Curated by Zdenka Badovinac
Press conference: Friday, 15 November 2002 at 11 a.m.
Opening view: Friday, 15 November 2002 at 8 p.m.
Press conference: Friday, 15 November 2002 at 11 a.m.
You are kindly invited to the press conference and the opening of the exhibition. At the press conference, which will take place on Friday, 15 November 2002 at 11 a.m., at the Information centre of Moderna galerija, the exhibition will be introduced by the curator and the director of Moderna galerija Zdenka Badovinac. There will be present the following artists: the IRWIN group, Valery Koshlyakov, Olaf Nicolai and Eliezer Sonnenschein.
The exhibition (un)painted investigates the issue of the todays function of a painted work of art and of painting in general. Its concept is based on the understanding of the difference between the two expressions for a painting introduced by the French theoretician Hubert Damish: tableau and picture. This difference also marks the distinction between the traditional, two-dimensional painted surface (easel painting) and the moving, electronic image. In practice, the exhibitions concept originates from several other contexts: from the collecting activities of the collections owner Karlheinz Essl, a successful businessman and owner of the Baumax company, who unlike other private collectors has always shared his collection with the public; and from the function of painting today, about which Zdenka Badovinac says that as long as painting communicates, it is infinite, and as along as the last viewer exists, painting will continue to exist.
The exhibition (un)painted involves a special type of intervention and dialogue between seven invited artists and art groups (Anonymous, IRWIN, Johanna Kandl, Valery Koshlyakov, Olaf Nicolai, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Eliezer Sonnenschein) and works from the Essl Collection (Lucio Fontana, Hans Hartung, Pierre Soulages, Frank Stella, Jim Dine, Markus Prachensky, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Hermann Nitsch, Arnulf Rainer, Sam Francis, Hans Hartung, Georges Mathieu, Gerhard Richter).
Like the collections owner, who established a public museum for the collection, these artists are re-displaying the paintings from the collection together with a different perception of the works. In this way they are not only establishing a dialogue with the collection; they are also establishing a dialogue between two different philosophies of painting: painting where everything happens on the two-dimensional surface (tableau), which predominates in the collection, and painting that allows the image not to remain faithful to the material medium (picture as defined by Damish).
For the occasion of this exhibition, the Slovene artist Tadej Pogaèar & the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Museum of Contemporary art will make an artistic intervention to the national permanent collection of Moderna galerija. The installation will be on view from Friday, 15 November 2002 till Sunday, 5 January 2003 at the Moderna galerija.
The exhibition (un)paited was organised in co-operation with the Essl Collection, Klosterneuburg.
MODERNA GALERIJA LJUBLJANA/MUSEUM OF MODERN ART
Tomièeva 14
1000 Ljubljana Slovenija
Tel.: + 386 1 2416800
Fax: + 386 1 2514 120
E-mail: info@mg-lj.si
Contact: Mag. Adela eleznik
Tel.: + 386 1 2416808
E-mail: adela.zeleznik@mg-lj.si
Moderna galerija Ljubljana
Opening hours:
Tuesday Sunday 10 am to 6 pm, second day of the holiday 10 am 1 pm.
Closed on Moday.
