Tobias Madison
dal 23/9/2010 al 20/11/2010
Segnalato da
23/9/2010
Tobias Madison
Kunstverein Munchen, Munich
Do It To Do It. While giving access to the early stages of Madison's emerging oeuvre, this exhibition features a selection of works that are as fragmentary in form and content as a group show. Artefacts, videos and installations serve all these different qualifications in one fluid continuum.
From September 25 through November 21, Kunstverein München offers the first comprehensive solo
exhibition in Europe, Do It To Do It, of upcoming Swiss artist Tobias Madison (*1985, Basel). While giving
access to the early stages of Madison’s emerging oeuvre, this exhibition features a selection of works that are as
fragmentary in form and content as a group show. As it happens, Madison does not work alone; he has become
the inspirational driver of numerous intellectual and material collaborations that map out an intelligent system
of self-sufficiency and accessibility. With each of these collaborations Madison touches upon alternative and
unexpected streams of cultural production. Hence, he establishes an artistic identity that celebrates a poetry of
ambiguity within cultural conventions of taste, value, utility and trade. The artefacts, videos and installations by
Madison serve all these different qualifications in one fluid continuum and on equal terms.
The exhibition Do It To Do It features four large-scale corporations – most of them still in development. The
objects in the exhibition give way to carefully constructed trade structures of adding value, that merge artistic
production with corporate methodology.
In his ongoing research into the heritage of Italian product designer Ettore Sottsass Madison started a
continuing collaboration with artist/collector Ruedi Bechtler (*1942 in Zurich), who owns several originals by
the Italian designer. The exhibition Do It To Do It shows a group of photographs – produced together with
Ruedi Bechtler. These images feature broken Sottsass vases that are introduced to strategies of cultural
recycling and high tech product representation in today’s media.
Another group of works, entiteled Yes I Can!, takes on the corporate message of the Radisson Hotel group to
motivate each member of its staff to fulfill all the wishes of its costumers. Driving from Switzerland to China
this summer, Madison collected a selection of Yes I Can! flags, cutting them from the facades of the Radisson
hotels, as though the slogan was an invitation to do so. Upon his return, the flags turned into canvases, were
painted collectively by Madison and his artist colleagues (such as Matias Faldbakken and John Tremblay) and
redistributed as works of art in his institutional shows.
The iconicity of the Yes I Can! logo and its legibility to a common public increases the value of the work, while
incorporated into paintings exhibited at an art institution, the logo gains new currency, that would even benefit
the Radisson’s cultural identity.
In a recent interview with Bart van der Heide, which is published in the exhibition folder, Madison mentions:
"In order to steal a flag from the Radisson Hotel, you sometimes have to stay in the Radisson Hotel; and in
order not to pay for your stay at the Radisson Hotel, you have to find a way to appeal to the company so they
let you stay for free; and in order to do that, you need the backup of institutionalized collections that (a) pay for
the work and (b) confirm its cultural value."
By taking on these different collaborations Madison maps out alternative structures of production within the
visual art and the ethical parameters that are touched upon when strategies of self-sufficiency meet the growing
internationalization in the art world of today. With this development artistic invention of visual artists is pushed
to unlimited potential, and appreciation of value seems as open ended and multi faceted as the endless
possibilities of production that are at his or her disposal these days.
Press contact
Kajana Wagner Phone: +49 (0)89 20001135 presse@kunstverein-muenchen.de
Press Date: 23rd of September, 2010, 11 am
Opening: 24th of September 24, 2010, 7 pm
The aftershow party with DJ Mirco Hektor (Dontstop & Mjunik Disco) will be introduced by Japanese-German Taiko percussion group Waraku – Kai SHOU.
Image: Tobias Madison with Yes I Can! Kyte, 2009
Kunstverein München
Galeriestraße 4 - 80539 München
Opening hours: Tue – Sun: 10am – 6pm
Admission fee: Regular: 5€ Reduced: 3€ Members: free