1/2/2002
Philippe Parreno
Portikus, Frankfurt
El Sueno de una Cosa. For his installation at Portikus, Philippe Parreno again takes up the principle of co-operation but in a new way. Under the title 'El Sueno de Una Cosa', the artist presents the sequence of a fictitious Robert Rauschenberg retrospective.
EL SUEÑO DE UNA COSA
Philippe Parreno (b. 1964) is well known for his numerous collaborations
with artist friends such as Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe,
Rirkrit Tiravanija, Carsten Höller or Inez van Lamsweerde, with
architects such as Francois Roche or designers like M/M. In his works,
he always searches for ways to evoke a rethinking of the common models
of exhibitions, authorship and narration.
For his installation at Portikus, Philippe Parreno again takes up the
principle of co-operation but in a new way. Under the title "El Sueño
de Una Cosa", the artist presents the sequence of a fictitious Robert
Rauschenberg retrospective. A group of large-format, white monochrome
paintings by Rauschenberg from 1951 is displayed. Rauschenberg himself
had described these pictures as an "emergency", "not being Art because
they take you to place in painting art has not been" (in a letter to
Betty Parson). It is completely up to the viewer to read something into
the white canvases or project something onto them. And John Cage, who
was inspired by these pictures, among others, to compose his famous
piece 4'3'', describes them as "airports for light, shadows and
particles".
Philippe Parreno takes up these statements in his installation in a very
direct manner. He presents the paintings in a classical exhibition
situation, but then the space darkens, and a film by Philippe Parreno is
projected onto Rauschenberg's pictures. The 1-minute film was shot on a
Norwegian island near the North Pole, and the timeless landscape shots
are accompanied by the beginning of Edgar Varese's composition "Desert"
from 1954. While the music and the images only hint at a narrative
dramaturgy, the film attains its narrative qualities through its
contextualization, as interruption of an institutional exhibition, and
through the construction of meaning by the viewer. By superimposing a
distant dream landscape in the wan midnight sun on the white monochrome
surface, Rauschenberg's "emergency" is overcome in an ironic and poetic
way. Parreno is therefore less interested in the film as a result, but
rather as a narrative instrument that reveals new contexts depending on
the form in which it is presented. The temporary replacement of the
exhibition space by a cinema additionally questions the institutions of
the white cube and the cinematographic black box in regard to their
neutrality.
Portikus
Schoene Aussicht 2 D-60311
Frankfurt