calendario eventi  :: 

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27/1/2011

Agathe Snow

Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin

curated by Katherine Brinson

All Access World, a new cycle of works by Agathe Snow, will be presented in an exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, from January 28 to March 30, 2011. It will form the sixteenth commission in an ambitious series launched in 1997 by Deutsche Bank and the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation to facilitate the creation of major new projects by contemporary artists.

The exhibition takes as its subject the world’s monuments, landmarks, and historical sites, focusing on the ways they shape collective memory and serve as potent touchstones of national identity. Snow explores how monuments could jettison these didactic aspects in favor of a supple multiplicity that would increase their relevance to contemporary life and make them vessels of genuine cultural exchange. This utopian ambition is articulated through her establishment of All Access World, a fictional organization that subjects monuments to an irreverent process of appropriation and transformation, reimagining them as consumer products that can be customized to reflect individual tastes, interests, and experiences.

All Access World will exemplify the artist’s multivalent creative approach, immersing visitors in a vividly realized environment that encompasses sculptures, wall collages, video works, and interactive performances. Snow perceives monuments as exaggerated sculptural objects composed of geometric shapes such as pyramids, domes, and columns, and she has appropriated these archetypal forms to construct a series of new, mix-and-match creations that will be presented in the temporary All Access World “showroom” at Deutsche Guggenheim.

Visitors will be invited to physically engage with these sculptures and freely reposition them on a floor emblazoned with a distorted world map, allowing the exhibition to be continually reconfigured. A series of large-scale collages depicting monuments in the All Access World inventory will form the backdrop to this shifting tableau, while a suite of video works will present direct encounters with the iconic structures Snow has been studying. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue conceived by the artist to function as a consumer guide from which imagined customers can design their own monuments in a range of sizes and materials, accessorized with special features. A welcome text by the artist and a series of collaged “samples” illuminate the possibilities contained within the All Access World brand.

Agathe Snow was born in Corsica in 1976 and lives and works in New York. Her work balances visions of apocalypse and entropic decay with an earnest faith in the redemptive power of human ingenuity and community. Snow’s performances, ranging from carnivalesque banquets to dance marathons, operate as scenarios for uninhibited social exchange, always undertaken with a fierce conceptual commitment. Interactive elements and elaborate fictions also underpin her sculptural installations, which she fashions from an exuberant array of everyday objects and scavenged street debris. With the transformative addition of paint, plaster, and collage, she coaxes her materials and their attendant histories into evocative new forms that frequently develop and mutate over the course of an exhibition.

Snow has presented solo exhibitions at international institutions including the New Museum, New York, and the Jeu de Paume, Paris (both 2009). Her work has been included in numerous group shows at venues around the world, including the Migros Museum, Zurich; Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis; White Columns, New York; SculptureCenter, New York; the Parrish Art Museum, Southampton, N.Y.; Northern Gallery for Contemporary Art, Sunderland, United Kingdom; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma; Saatchi Gallery, London; and the Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh. Snow’s work also appeared in Performa 07 (in collaboration with Marianne Vitale) and the 2008 Whitney Biennial Exhibition, both in New York. Agathe Snow: All Access World is organized by Katherine Brinson, Assistant Curator, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum. The accompanying catalogue, designed by Brendan Duggan of An

Art Service and with an introductory text by Brinson, is available in English and German for 22 Euros.

On the occasion of the exhibition, Deutsche Guggenheim will present Edition No. 54, sunglasses by the artist designed with and handmade by MYKITA. The Edition is exclusively available in a limited and signed edition of 200 + 8 A.P. (price upon request) at the Museum Shop of the Deutsche Guggenheim, (030) 20 20 93-15/-16.

Performances, Talks, and Events

The exhibition will be supported by a program of lectures, youth workshops, and children’s events, including an Artist’s Talk on January 28, 2011, in which Snow will discuss her new body of work. On the occasion of the Long Night of the Museums, an interactive performances conceived by Agathe Snow will take place on January 29.

Guided tours are offered free of charge everyday at 6 pm. The popular Lunch Lectures (Wednesdays at 1 pm), which focus on specific themes within the exhibition, and the “I like Mondays” Lectures (Mondays from 11 am to 8 pm) complete the range of possible art encounters.

Press Contact
Sara Bernshausen
tel: ++49 - (0)30 - 20 20 93 14
fax: ++49 - (0)30 - 20 20 93 20
mail: sara.bernshausen@db.com

Opening January 28 2011

Deutsche Guggenheim
Unter den Linden 13/15, 10117 Berlin
Hours: Daily 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
Admission 4-3 euro

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