Roman Ondak
dal 21/11/2007 al 16/2/2008
Segnalato da
21/11/2007
Roman Ondak
Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich
My Summer Shoes Rest in Winter. Process-like and casual is how the works of the young Slovakian sculptor appear. The artist seeks his subjects in the social rituals of everyday life, in education, work and leisure. The exhibition owes its poetic title to the sculpture where the laces of the artist's summer shoes dangle tied together from the gallery ceiling to form a fine vertical line in the room. Curated by Bernhart Schwenk.
curated by Bernhart Schwenk
Process-like and casual is how the works of the young Slovakian sculptor
Roman Ondak (*1966) appear. The artist seeks his subjects in the social
rituals of everyday life, in education, work and leisure. This is the first
museum exhibition in Germany to offer insights into his oeuvre.
The exhibition owes its poetic title to the sculpture »Infinity (My Summer
Shoes Rest in Winter)« (2007). The laces of the artist’s summer shoes dangle
tied together from the gallery ceiling to form a fine vertical line in the
room. By the simplest of means the work points to the cycle of human life
that is made up of the body’s permanently repetitive movements. Time is
perceived as a sequence of endless repetitions we call progress and which
seems to follow irrevocable laws.
Ondak’s performance work »Measuring the Universe« (2007) calls for the
involvement of the exhibition’s visitors. The museum attendants mark off on
the walls the height of the visitors (along with their first name and the
date on which the measurement was taken). As the exhibition continues, the
number of markings grows and from them emerges a drawing, in which the
present and passing nature of the body physical can be experienced – in a
minimal way and beyond what is material.
Centrepiece of the exhibition is the installation »Passage« (2004) – a large
table on which hundreds of miniature sculptures made from aluminium foil
have been arranged. These mini figures are the result of a highly specific
approach adopted by Ondak. In a Japanese steelworks the artist had
distributed chocolate bars to the workers and asked them to create a
sculpture from the silver wrapping after they had eaten the contents. A very
ordinary act – the casual screwing up of the aluminium foil – suddenly
becomes the centre of attention and is transformed into a collective act. It
demonstrates the individual talents of each person involved and defines the
artist as a communicator and catalyst of creative action.
As an aesthetic commitment to the omission of the non-essential and
conscious focus on the unspectacular Roman Ondak’s works bear testimony to
an art based on ethical and spiritual conduct.
We thank KPMG for the support in this project.
Opening: November 22, 2007, 7 p.m.
Pinakothek der Moderne
Kunstareal Barer Strasse 29, München