Something less something more. Pierre Bismuth employs artistic practice as a tool for examining our perception of reality as well as our relation to culture and it's productions. The underlying aim of his works is always the same - to destabilize pre-established codes of perception and to push the viewer to become critical and incredulous even when presented with cultural objects whose meaning appears self-evident.
Something less something more
PIERRE BISMUTH employs artistic practice as a tool for examining our perception
of reality as well as our relation to culture and it's productions. The
underlying aim of his works is always the same - to destabilize pre-established
codes of perception and to push the viewer to become critical and incredulous
even when presented with cultural objects whose meaning appears self-evident.
This exhibition presents for the first time in Austria a body of works that
shows clearly how Pierre Bismuth uses the same method in manipulating diverse
materials. Pierre Bismuth creates unexpected shifts in the everyday meaning of
things in order to provoke a change in perceptual habits, thus opening the space
for an understanding of the world beyond its constructed meaning. The immediate
accessibility of the materials employed by the artist proves to be a kind of
decoy or lure, which eventually leads the spectator to distance him or herself
from the usual network of significations and implications in which they are
embedded. In this sense Pierre Bismuth never tries to add new meanings to the
objects that he manipulates, but aims simply to neutralize their initial meaning
and thereby delay the act of understanding. His art is above all one of
SUSPENSION.
Opening: 15th January 2004, 7 p.m. - 9 p.m.
together with galleries Georg Kargl, Kerstin Engholm, Gabriele Senn and Lisa
Ruyter.
Exhibition showing until 28th February 2004
Born 1963 in Paris, lives and works in London und Brussels.
Selected solo exhibitions: Kunsthalle Basel, Witte de With Museum Rotterdam,
Sprengel Museum Hannover, Lisson Gallery London, Jan Mot Gallery Brussels, Erna
Hecey Gallery Luxembourg, Cosmic Gallery Paris.
Selected group shows: Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Casino Luxembourg, Manifesta 4
Frankfurt, MAMCO Geneva, 49th Venice Biennale, Musée d'Art Moderne de la Ville
de Paris.
GALERIE CHRISTINE KÖNIG
Schleifmühlgasse 1A
A-1040 VIENNA
t: +43 1 585 74 74
f: +43 1 585 74 74-24