calendario eventi  :: 

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19/4/2012

Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch

Kunstverein Medienturm, Graz

For the project the artists experiment with all of their possessions: objects that are necessary for their daily routine or the outcome of their work, even though the items appear to be useless. Toothbrushes, books, computers, beds, tables, clothes, cars, but also the keys to their apartment, bank cards or passports are amassed in the Kunstverein Medienturm premises. The original function of those objects is suspended, they are listed in an inventory and presented to the public in sculptural form. Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch confront visitors to the exhibition with the system of their own things. How do the objects describe the protagonists' lives? Furniture, for example, is usually arranged along an axis that expresses a regular daily routine and the symbolic presence of its users, and not presented as a category as it is in this exhibition.

A person's home, their setting, the objects with which they surround themselves tell almost everything about him/her, as Jean Baudrillard commented just over 40 years ago in his book The System of Objects. In this text he interprets the mass-produced objects surrounding us as a closed system of signs: an illusory world of consumption where desire and commodity are inextricably linked. On the basis of home furnishings, Baudrillard’s text provides an analysis of the way objects have developed and changed according to their respective reference system: Furniture and the people living amid it form a complex ecosystem, they adapt to suit one another. From this angle, furniture and objects personify human relationships. The true dimension of objects is subordinate to a moral dimension. Creatures and objects are thus linked to each other and, with this secret understanding, adopt an intimacy, an effective value, which is traditionally described as their “presence”. At Kunstverein Medienturm, Nicole Six and Paul Petritsch cross the line between inside and outside. Their formal juxtaposition of the objects and the visitors opens their belongings to discussion in a social and a psychological context. The comprehensive artist book to the exhibition documents not only the installation in Graz with conceptual consistency but also the artists' now empty living and work spaces, as well as all of the things that slowly accumulate again over the course of the exhibition. The artist book is published by Verlag für Moderne Kunst, Nuremberg.

Press contact
Helga Droschl Tel: +43/(0)664.3935718 key@medienturm.at

Opening april 20th at 6pm

Kunstverein Medienturm
Josefigasse 1, 8020 Graz
Tue – Sat 10 a.m. – 1 p.m., Wed – Fri 3 – 6 p.m.
steirischer herbst Sat, Sun 3 – 6 p.m.

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