Make Your Own Life: Artists In & Out of Cologne @ The Power Plant
Wednesday, September 27th, 2006
Martin Kippenberger and Achim Schächtele in the Café Einstein, Berlin,
1979 (detail). Courtesy Estate Martin Kippenberger, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne. Image courtesy ICA Philadelphia.
Make Your Own Life this fall at Canada’s leading contemporary art gallery. Two major exhibitions launch Thursday night, accompanied by a fantastic line-up of programs, including LIVE/LECTURE/LOUNGE, Power Talks, Sunday Scenes, and Power Kids Art Camps. Don’t miss opening weekend.
Saturday 23 September, 3pm
Artist’s Talk: Michael Krebber
The Studio Theatre, 235 Queens Quay West. $8 members. $10 non-members.
Sunday 24 September, 2pm
Curator’s Tour: Bennett Simpson on Make Your Own Life
The Power Plant. Free with admission.
Sunday 24 September, 3pm
Artist’s Talk: Christopher Williams
The Studio Theatre. 235 Queens Quay West. $8 members. $10 non-members.
and don’t miss:
Friday 29 September, 7pm
Major International Lecture Series: Turner Prize winner Simon Starling
The Studio Theatre, 235 Queens Quay West. Free to members. $15 non-members.
Considering “You must make your own life the basis” for art, which the late artist Martin Kippenberger once decreed, The Power Plant is pleased to announce the opening of two must-see exhibitions that consider the life of the artist, and examine the social and cultural intersection, where life becomes the subject of art.
Make Your Own Life: Artists In & Out of Cologne features some of the most influential artists of the late 20th century. This must-see exhibition presents a look at the mythic and art historical significance of Cologne, Germany as a nucleus of contemporary art practice in the 80s and 90s, and highlights the integral social and artistic relationships. Artists in the show include: Bernadette Corporation, Cosima von Bonin, Merlin Carpenter, Stephan Dillemuth, Michaela Eichwald, Roe Ethridge, Filmgruppe West, Andrea Fraser, Kim Gordon, Charline von Heyl, Gareth James, Mike Kelley, Martin Kippenberger, Jutta Koether, Michael Krebber, Louise Lawler, Hans-Jörg Mayer, Lucy McKenzie, Christian Philipp Müller, Nils Norman, Albert Oehlen, Stephen Prina, Josephine Pryde, Blake Rayne, Reena Spaulings, Josef Strau, Rosemarie Trockel, Christopher Williams, and Christopher Wool.
Set against this exhibition is Eve Sussman’s 89 Seconds at Alcázar, that was featured at the Museum of Modern Art’s official reopening last year, and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. It is a 10-minute choreographed tableau, based on Diego Velázquez’s famous 1656 painting Las Meninas. By recreating the events preceding and following the moment that is captured in the Spanish royal family portrait, she presents it as a cinema-vérité film still. Sussman’s extraordinary repositioning of the famous painting, which includes a self-portrait of the official painter, Velasquez himself, like Make Your Own Life, also introduces the life of the artist as subject.
A key figure in the Cologne art scene, Michael Krebber was a close friend of and former assistant to the late Martin Kippenberger. Krebber rethinks the potential for conceptually based painting in the wake of the medium’s exhaustion. He has exhibited widely throughout Europe and North America, with recent solo exhibitions at SECESSION, Vienna, and Greene Naftali Gallery, New York. Krebber’s visit has been generously supported by the Goethe-Institut Toronto.
Curator Bennett Simpson is Associate Curator at the ICA, Boston, where he has organized projects with Paul Chan, Roe Ethridge and Sergio Vega. >From 2001–2004 he was Associate Curator at the ICA Philadelphia, which originated Make Your Own Life.
Working mainly with photographs, and also incorporating film, performance, sculpture, graphic design, and video, Christopher Williams tackles the institutional and vernacular meaning of images, and engages the viewer in analyzing systems of information and power, and in questioning how political art might look and function today. His work has been exhibited internationally, and was recently featured on the cover of ARTFORUM, and was part of the 2006 Whitney Biennial.
In elaborately staged journeys and installations, British artist and 2005 Turner Prize winner Simon Starling creates breathtaking relationships that enact cyclical, sometimes absurd detours across geography and time. “When I’m making art,” says Starling, “I’m thinking up novels in a way. Whether things I’m telling are true or not … I’m involved in an activity which is similar to that of a narrator.” Starling’s works draw out an array of ideas, revealing previously hidden relationships between art, nature, economics, history and place.
The Power Plant extends a sincere thanks to BMO Financial Group, Presenting Sponsor of Make Your Own Life; Nancy McCain and William Morneau as supporting donors of 89 Seconds at Alcazar; and NOW Magazine, Media Partner for both exhibitions. These exhibitions have been financially assisted by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund a program of the Government of Ontario through the Ministry of Culture, administered by the Ontario Cultural Attractions Fund Corporation.
Make Your Own Life: Artists In & Out of Cologne is organized by the Institute of Contemporary Art, University of Pennsylvania. Curated by Bennett Simpson.
The Power Plant at Harbourfront Centre is located at 231 Queens Quay West. Gallery Hours are Tuesday to Sunday: 12-6pm, Wednesday: 12-8pm, Closed Monday, open holiday Mondays. Admission is Free to Members, $4 adults, $2 students/seniors.
For exhibition and tour information, contact 416 973-4949 or thepowerplant@harbourfrontcentre.com or visit www.thepowerplant.org
FOR MORE INFORMATION ON PLEASE CONTACT
THE POWER PLANT CONTEMPORARY ART GALLERY
at Harbourfront Centre
231 Queens Quay West
Toronto, ON M5J 2G8
tel: (416) 973-4949
fax: (416) 973-4933
www.thepowerplant.org
thepowerplant@harbourfrontcentre.com