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Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

EVA GRUBINGER
SPARTACUS, 2007 Installationsansicht
Foto: Norbert Miguletz

EVA GRUBINGER
SPARTACUS
SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT
Römerberg
60311 Frankfurt, Germany
phone: (+49) 69 29 98 82-0
fax: (+49) 69 29 98 82-240
welcome@schirn.de

http://www.schirn.de

With its exhibition “Eva Grubinger: Spartacus,” the Schirn continues its programmatic focus on current contemporary positions. Jan De Cock’s spectacular new installation “Denkmal 7″ inside and outside the Schirn was the last work presented in this series. For “Spartacus,” Eva Grubinger also makes use of the Schirn’s specific spatial context, positioning her works in three places: in the rotunda and on the “table” (a concrete structure) outside and in the cabinet within. A wire-netting fence surrounds the lower floor area of the rotunda and the observation tower in its center. On the table, which is also fenced in, two stands face each other threateningly, while another piece of fence and a harsh spotlight bar the visitor’s way in the cabinet. In “Spartacus,” the artist, who was born in Salzburg in 1970 and has been living in Berlin since 1989, again dedicates herself to manifestations of power and impotence, of observing and being observed. Her installations are formal abstra
ctions of complex modes of social communication. By means of allegorical compression, they visualize spatial, psychological and medial representations
of power.

“Spartacus,” the title of the exhibition, recalls one of the earliest revolts in history, the uprising of the Roman slave and gladiator of Thracian provenance and his army against the ruling social class which still operated in full possession of its representative and symbolic power. 2000 years later, the technologies of power have become more sophisticated in multiple ways, emerging, as Foucault put it, “from the king’s sun and entering modern society’s various institutions of discipline.” In the 1970s, Foucault based his concept of modern disciplinary society on the English philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s (1748-1832) Panopticon design, which represents the core pattern of an observer who is in control without exercising power by subjecting the “inmates” to their own control.

Foucault interpreted this structure as a symbol of modern societies’ principle of order. The Panopticon tower has left Bentham’s architecture and spread extensively in multiple new technologies: video surveillance, mobile telephony, Internet, satellite systems, etc. Being observed and disciplining oneself has become a single operational context that does not require a superior authority to guarantee compliance to society.

Eva Grubinger’s works are also to be seen against this background of the apparently clarified relationship between the observer and the observed. For the exhibition in the Schirn, the artist has created three space-related installations for inside and outside the building which explore the regulating and disciplinary functions of public institutions and structures such as prisons, sports arenas, or museums. Every such place represents a defined territory with rules of its own which are nevertheless directly related to the public sphere. Enforcing these rules produces architectures and objects exercising their influence on the individuals and their behavior.

The cage-like walk-in installations on the table, in the rotunda and the cabinet of the Schirn oscillate between urban terrain and some kind of prison yard. A recurring black wire-netting fence dominates the presented triad and transforms the places into a Suprematist deployment of line, circle, and square. Fence and cage constitute a border that allows gazing through. The square fenced-in installation on the table is comprised of two stands facing each other. The observer watches the observer. Wire-netting fence surrounds the rotunda with the observation or lookout tower in its center. In the cabinet, visitors are separated from the spotlight blinding them by another piece of fence. The urban architecture of the installations illustrates the context of constraint and control.

The three black coated steel objects or object groups establish different gaze relations in regard to the viewer. The stands on the table between Römer and Cathedral attract looks from outside. By contrast, the tower in the rotunda is oriented inside-out. The fence surrounding the tower at some distance resembles a cage from which the gaze breaks free from its elevated position and takes in the surroundings. The third situation levels the relation. The glaring light behind the piece of fence does away with both border and observer. Thus, the only conventional exhibition space of “Spartacus” destroys all conventional relations possible between viewer, work, and environs.

Since 1994, Eva Grubinger has presented her works in numerous group exhibitions such as in the MUMOK in Vienna, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Charlottenborg Konsthall in Copenhagen, the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg, and the Berlinische Galerie. She has shown solo exhibitions in various international galleries, the Künstlerhaus Stuttgart, or the KIASMA Museum of Contemporary Art in Helsinki. Eva Grubinger has attracted international attention with her solo presentation “Dark Matter” in the BALTIC Centre for Contemporary Art in Gateshead (GB) in 2003, in which she translated her long-term exploration of social systems of control into an impressive precise architectural form. Recently, she exhibited a both fascinating and alarming work on the omnipresence of communication in today’s world in the Kunstfenster des Kulturkreises der deutschen Wirtschaft in the B.D.I. in Berlin — a work whose aesthetics, like that of “Spartacus,” reveals the influence of Minimalism and monochrome
painting.

CATALOGUE: “Eva Grubinger: Spartacus.” Edited by Matthias Ulrich and Max Hollein. With a text by Matthias Ulrich. German/English edition, ca. 50 pages, photographic documentation of the installation at the Schirn with numerous color illustrations, soft-cover, to be published after the opening of
the exhibition.

DIRECTOR: Max Hollein

CURATOR: Matthias Ulrich

SPONSORS: The exhibition “Eva Grubinger: Spartacus” is supported by the Austrian Federal Ministry for Education, the Arts and Culture.

OPENING HOURS: Tue., Fri.-Sun. 10 a.m. -7 p.m., Wed. and Thur. 10 a.m. - 10 p.m.

INFORMATION: http://www.schirn.de

PRESS CONTACT: Dorothea Apovnik, phone: (+49-69) 29 98 82-118, fax: (+49-69) 29 98 82-240, e-mail: dorothea.apovnik@schirn.de http://www.schirn.de (texts and images for download under PRESS).

Artforum

December 2007 in Artforum
Artforum
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“The Best of 2007.” What were the highlights in art during the past year? Artforum’s special year-end issue compares notes with a cast of critics, curators, art historians, and artists from around the world.

Making their selections for outstanding individual shows and works are, for example, Benjamin H. D. Buchloh on Gerhard Richter’s project for the Cologne Cathedral; Tacita Dean on Block Beuys in Darmstadt, Germany; David Rimanelli on Carol Bove in New York; and Linda Norden on Robert Gober in Basel, Switzerland. And then, among the Top Tens, you’ll hear from Lynne Cooke, Daniel Birnbaum, Okwui Enwezor, Ann Goldstein, John Kelsey, Claire Bishop, Jessica Morgan, Matthew Higgs, Jack Bankowsky, Ali Subotnick, Tom Vanderbilt, and Marta Kuzma on what they found to be the year’s outstanding moments.

“It’s getting late in America. And Richard Prince’s retrospective showed his notoriously slippery yet spellbinding paintings and photographs to be the perfect talismans for the final days of Empire.” –Daniel Birnbaum on “Richard Prince: Spiritual America” at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York

“I did not know that Arnold Palmer drinks Lite Green Tea Lemonade Half & Half–that is, not until I first saw Tiger Woods, 2006, in Rachel Harrison’s indispensable spring show.” –Jack Bankowsky on Rachel Harrison at Greene Naftali Gallery, New York

“The works Bruce Nauman made in the 1960s effortlessly combine his personae as a nerdy art student in the studio (silly walk) and a techno geek (a hologram!) with his inner dork (counting stairs and playing with neon tubes) and, of course, the undeniable macho man (fishing!).” –Ali Subotnick on “A Rose Has No Teeth: Bruce Nauman in the 1960s” at Berkeley Art Museum, California

Also: the best in film, music, and books chosen by Chrissie Iles, James Quandt, Amy Taubin, John Waters, T. J. Wilcox, David Byrne, Kim Gordon, Julian House, Damon Krukowski, Marissa Nadler, Alex Waterman, John Baldessari, T. J. Clark, Arthur C. Danto, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, and more.

“The best feel-bad gay movie ever made.” –John Waters on Jacques Nolot’s Before I Forget

And: Artforum’s annual “On the Ground” essays, where insiders give the lay of the land in different cities. This year, Debra Singer roams New York and finds parallel worlds in art and on stage; Michael Ned Holte surveys starry-eyed Los Angeles; Tomasz Fudala takes stock of “liquid” Warsaw; Jennifer Allen beholds rebuilt Berlin; Mathieu Borysevicz looks at glittering Shanghai; and Catherine Wood, Ryan Gander, and T. J. Demos weigh in on London beyond the bejeweled skull.

“For now, the living is still cheap, but the rate of change, its celerity, certainly makes the heart seem like a slow companion to history.” –Jennifer Allen on Berlin

Plus: “The Artists’ Artists.” The toughest judges divulge the shows that inspired and influenced them this year, with contributions from Allora & Calzadilla, Thomas Bayrle, Douglas Gordon, Wade Guyton, Sanja Ivekovic, Michael Krebber, Nate Lowman, Josephine Meckseper, Rosalind Nashashibi, Paulina Olowska, Alessandro Pessoli, Elizabeth Peyton, Cosima von Bonin, Xu Zhen, Akram Zaatari, and many,
many others.

“Strangely contemplative and intimate, like a really, really loud love poem to each other, everything, and everyone.” –Enrico David on the Gilbert & George retrospective at Tate Modern, London

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Visit artguide–Artforum’s free directory of the international art world, listing art fairs, auctions, and current gallery and museum shows in more than four hundred cities–at http://www.artforum.com/guide