8/9/2006
Ideal City
Different Venues, Potsdam
A central concern of the exhibition is to confront the artists with two plans of ‘Ideal Cities’, or with what has survived of them to this day. Not only the two historical cities but also the underlying invisible cities, hidden by time and history became the points of reference for the works of contemporary artists from twelve European and six non-European countries.
In just a few weeks the second part of the exhibition Ideal City -Invisible Cities
will open. Forty-one international artists will reflect from 8 September 2006 onward
the ideal city and its sibling, the invisible city in Potsdam, Germany:
Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Francis Alys, Carl Andre, Archigram, Colin Ardley, Tim Ayres,
Miroslaw Balka, Daniela Brahm, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Rui Calcada Bastos, Constant,
Jonas Dahlberg, Tacita Dean, Jaroslaw Flicinski, Carlos Garaicoa, Dan Graham, George
Hadjimichalis, Rula Halawani, Franka Hoernschemeyer, Craigie Horsfield, Katarzyna
Jozefowicz, Jakob Kolding, Ola Kolehmainen, Lucas Lenglet, Sol LeWitt, David
Maljkovic, Gerold Miller, Matthias Mueller, Teresa Murak, Brian O’Connell, Daniel
Roth, Albrecht Schaefer, Kai Schiemenz, Les Schliesser, Melanie Smith, Monika
Sosnowska, David Tremlett, Anton Vidokle, Lawrence Weiner, Tilman Wendland,
Krzysztof Zielinski
Curated by Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter / European Art Projects
Patron: Matthias Platzeck, Prime Minister of Brandenburg
A central concern of the exhibition is to confront the artists with two plans of
‘Ideal Cities’, or with what has survived of them to this day. Not only the two
historical cities but also the underlying invisible cities, hidden by time and
history became the points of reference for the works of contemporary artists from
twelve European and six non-European countries.
After its first venue in Zamosc, Poland, an extraordinary treasure of late
Renaissance architecture, Ideal City -Invisible Cities now moves on to the baroque
town of Potsdam. Unlike Zamosc whose old town is almost completely preserved,
Potsdam has seen major changes during the centuries. Potsdam’s old centre was almost
entirely destroyed in WW II and parts of the early baroque city extensions including
the city’s castle were subsequently torn down. Today Potsdam’s new centre is a
melange of restored baroque architecture and buildings from the sixties to the
present, more a collage than an ideal or even planned city.
The artists working site-specifically will react to the disparate body of the city
and insert their work in public spaces and buildings, courtyards or squares. Most
projects are characterized by a distanced, critical and sometimes even ironic way of
dealing with the planned urban space. The artists are seeking ways to transpose the
pre-existing historical situation into their present and their experience of the
city. They are reacting to the city as an artificial body, to which they are adding
something, partially completing it, filling a gap. They explore the psychogeography
of the city or pursue urban archaeology. They are analysing structures, grids,
proportions and functions, making them the basis of their interventions. Monika
Sosnowska places a dirty fountain in the wilderness of Staudenhof, while Miroslaw
Balka sculpture reflects wounds, deeply cut during the second World War. Daniela
Brahm and Colin Ardley determine squares and public spaces anew, Franka
Hoernschemeye
r comments with her installation on the grid of the city plan and Lucas Lenglet
creates a sombre Potsdam columbarium for the garden of an apartment building.
Les
Schliesser continues to narrate the story of his fictive Zamosc born architect
Mikolaj Chrupkowski now working in Potsdam, Jakob Kolding points out the traps of
functional city planning with a poster project and Craigie Horsfield introduces a
site-specific sound installation. Tilman Wendland’s installation at
Brandenburgischer Kunstverein sculpturally analyzes ideal city plans of the moderns
Le Corbusier, Niemeyer and Hansen and Jaroslaw Flicinski will install a large wall
painting at the gallery of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
Besides the site specific interventions works by 25 artists relating to the main
themes of the exhibition including architectural critique, memory and the grid will
be shown in altogether five exhibition venues: Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, the
gallery of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, a historical residential
building, an old military hospital and the former theatre building..
All in walking distance, the exhibition will cover a trail through Potsdam’s first
and second baroque city extensions from 8 September, 2006 until 29 October, 2006.
Ideal City - Invisible Cities is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Further generous support is kindly provided by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw
and the City of Zamosc. Additional funds thanks to the British Council, Berlin;
Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Filigran Group, Leese, Ford Foundation,
Cairo; Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green; Instituto das Artes, Lisbon;
Luso-American Foundation, Lisbon; Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdam, Paschal-Werk G.
Maier GmbH, Steinach and Wienerberger Ziegelindustrie, Hannover.
Project Partners Potsdam: Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam; Filmmuseum
Potsdam, Foundation „Grosses Waisenhaus zu Potsdam“; Greige - Buero fuer Design,
Berlin; Hans-Otto-Theater, Potsdam; Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preussischen
Geschichte, Potsdam; University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam; Zentralverband
Sanitaer, Heizung, Klima; Potsdam.
For images and further information please view
http://www.idealcity-invisiblecities.org or contact Anne Maier at European Art
Projects, Tel. +49-30-30 38 18 37, Fax +49-30-30 38 18 30,
am@european-art-projects.com
Preview: 8 September, noon - 6 pm
Opening: 8 September, 6-10 pm
Symposium: 9 September, noon-5 pm