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5/5/2011

Atlas / Francesco Lo Savio - Tano Festa

ZKM_Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe

Atlas

curated by Georges Didi-Huberman

In what way do certain artists work, and how do they develop their ideas? The ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art shows an interdisciplinary exhibition which, commencing with Aby Warburg’s illustrated atlas “Mnemosyne”, covers a period extending from the early years of the 20th century through to the 21st century. The focus of the exhibition falls less on the completed work as such, than the work surfaces and inspirational sources that disclose the creative processes.

The exhibition addresses the question as to the ways in which the work of the artist is to be interpreted in terms of representing an authentic method. How is it possible to observe the world without following the standard of our knowledge? In keeping with the formulation of this question, the concept behind ATLAS is not directed at collecting “master pieces”: the task of foremost interest is the discovery of sources on which artists have drawn, and which thus make the diverse artistic procedures comprehensible. Thus, it is not Paul Klee’s water colors that are exhibited but, among others, his modest herbarium and the graphical and theoretical ideas which it inspired; it is not Josef Albers’ squares that are presented, but his photograph album of pictures of pre-Columbian buildings.

The Mnemosyne Atlas is an incomplete collection of pictures compiled between 1924 and 1929. It shows that art theorist Aby Warburg (1866-1929) apparently cultivated the same passion for visual intuition as the artists of his time. This makes him a contemporary of avant-garde artists (Kurt Schwitters, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy), of photographers, who worked in documentary style (August Sander, Karl Blossfeldt), of avant-garde filmmakers (Jean Painlevé), of writers who evolved the technique of literary montage (Benjamin Fondane), as well of Surrealist poets and artists (Georges Bataille, Man Ray).

Atlas, who in Greek mythology, contested the power of the gods of Olympus and took the side of human beings, is considered the forefather of astronomers and geographers. At the same time, the concept “Atlas” stands for visible forms of knowledge, whether this be the compilation of geographical designs of a closed cartography, or a collection of illustrations intended to exemplify an abundance of things in a systematic or problematic way.

Above all else, if it appears that the Atlas is an ongoing task of renewed composition of the world, then this is due to the fact that world itself is in a state of continual disintegration. The montage of illustrations represents a key artistic medium for tracing history as it unfolds and, finally, to dismantle it for the purposes of creating alternative models.

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Francesco Lo Savio – Tano Festa. The Lack of the Other

With the exhibition “Francesco Lo Savio – Tano Festa. The Lack of the Other” the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary art presents the art work of the two brothers Francesco Lo Savio and Tano Festa. While their significance for the art world is uncontested, they nevertheless fell into obscurity. By mid 1960 they were among the innovators of a new generation of artists. Once artistic expression had been taken to a new zenith by Jackson Pollock, they went on to formulate a concept of art as a concrete and autonomous activity. Prior to the emergence of Minimal Art, they confronted the creative gesture of the artist with the principles of industrial production.

The exhibition “Francesco Lo Savio – Tano Festa. The Lack of the Other” shows paintings and objects, which, while appearing to fundamentally differ in their aesthetic effect, nevertheless reveals – in a passionate sense –astonishing parallels in their basic artistic conception. To date, Francesco Lo Savio’s (1935-1963) initial steps as an artist have been scarcely researched. His work during the last five years of his life, for example, displays immense compression and intensity. Clearly evident in his work is a striving for objectivity, for precision and transparency: his goal was the depersonalization of the author and the object of creation. The younger of the two brothers, Tano Festa (1938–1988), was paid less attention, although being invited to the Venice Biennale and to the documenta in Kassel. He was the key protagonist of European Pop Art and anticipated Appropriation Art. Until the death of Lo Savio in 1963, the brothers would exhibit their works together, among others at the Galerie Rottloff in Karlsruhe, in 1961. Tano Festa died 25 years later. Throughout his entire career as artist, he would thematize in what were for him typically irregular intervals, the absence of his brother – “The Lack of the Other”.

In the present exhibition, the curators Freddy Paul Grunert and Peter Weibel focus on the work the two brothers as completed between the outgoing 1950s and beginning of the 1960s – a period of acutely intense reflection, of upheaval and of new orientation both in art and technology as well as in society. Thus, the exhibition “Francesco Lo Savio – Tano Festa.The Lack of the Other” offers space for a general consideration of artistic achievements of this period.

In addition to the two protagonists of the exhibition, the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art has dedicated a cabinet space to the collector Giorgio Franchetti. The Franchetti Collection is both the result of a passionately pursued work as collector as well as the collector’s own creation. At present, the greater part of the collection may be viewed at the Palazzo Ca d’Oro in Venice. Renowned artists of the likes of Andrea Mantegna, Giorgione and Tizian form no less part of the Franchetti Collection, than do valuable works by Piero Manzoni, Giovanni Anselmo and Cy Twombly – just to mention but a few names among the collection’s extraordinary scope.

A comprehensive publication will be published, conceived as a presentation of research results: the numerous original documents, statements by key innovators and well-researched essays all contribute to filling what have previously otherwise remained striking lacunae in the field.

Further information: http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$7477

Press contact
Dominika Szope
Head Department Press
Phone: +49 (0)721 / 8100 1220

Image: August Sander: Handlanger, 1928, © Die Photographische Sammlung/SK Stiftung Kultur - August Sander Archiv, Köln; VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2011

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