Nymphius Projekte: Exhibitions by Friederike Nymphius
KOKSEN IST ACHTZIGER - ART OF THE EIGHTIES
10. September – 12. December 2010
John M Armleder, Günther Förg, Peter Halley, Imi Knoebel, Olivier Mosset, John Nixon, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Franz Erhard Walther, Heimo Zobernig
Since the 1970s John M Armleder, Günther Förg, Imi Knoebel, John Nixon and Franz Erhard Walther were critically examining the medium of painting. What they were claiming was a radical instauration and new aesthetic parameters. At the same time they rediscovered the abstract painting of Kasimir Malevich and took inspiration from Joseph Beuys´ early performances.
In the early 1980s the Austrian artists Gerwald Rockenschaub and Heimo Zobernig, both deeply affected by theater and music, expanded these premises by adding elements of institutional critique. Meanwhile, New York-based artist Peter Halley intensively dealt with Jean Baudrillards theory of simulation, according to which a distinction between original and copy does not exist anymore.
The art deriving from these influences permeated in the reduced formal language of Constructivism and Minimal Art with questions about the nature of art itself brought up by Concept Art. In a world full of pictures with constantly alternating meanings, geometry seemed to be the only possible model to save the artists freedom of action. On the other hand performative elements served to involve and confront the observer. From this contrariness arose works, which sketch out the essential questions of composition still prevailing.
The works by artists of the 1980s will be displayed in a salon hang.
