Meret Oppenheim
Gerhard Richter
Vanessa Beecroft
Mariko Mori
Rachel Whiteread
Tracey Emin
Gregor Schneider
John Wesley
Eric Fischl
Markus Raetz
Georg Baselitz
Robert Wilson
Gilbert & George
Jeff Koons
Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Ilya Kabakov
Sam Taylor-Wood
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Sophie Calle
An exhibition of 127 multiples, or artists' editions, from 1984 to 2002. Beautiful Productions includes works by a wide range of artists among them, the ground-breaking Surrealist Meret Oppenheim, the influential painter Gerhard Richter and also younger cutting-edge artists such as Vanessa Beecroft, Mariko Mori and Rachel Whiteread.
An exhibition of 127 multiples, or artists' editions, from 1984
to 2002, curated by the international art magazine Parkett, opens to the
public in the New Galleries at the Irish Museum of Modern Art on Friday
21 June 2002. Beautiful Productions includes works by a wide range of
artists among them, the ground-breaking Surrealist Meret Oppenheim, the
influential painter Gerhard Richter and also younger cutting-edge
artists such as Vanessa Beecroft, Mariko Mori and Rachel Whiteread. The
exhibition will include six new works by artists such as Tracey Emin,
Gregor Schneider and John Wesley, commissioned over the past year and
shown here for the first time.
Over the past 18 years the editors of Parkett have collaborated with 127
artists in the production of an extraordinary array of prints,
paintings, page-art projects, photographs, drawings, multiples, videos,
DVDs, sound pieces and other inventive formats, available to suscribers
in editions. While most are small in scale and imbued with the
fascination that comes with miniaturisation, others expand across the
space of a billboard or require the walk-around room of a full-size
sculpture. The exhibition comprises, in the words of writer Susan
Tallman, 'a small museum', or Musée en Appartement,
of editions and works, which gives life to the idea, first put forward
in various forms in the 1960s, of an artwork that 'climbs down
off its pedestal and wanders out into the world'.
Many of the early editions, such as the beautifully-printed etchings by
Eric Fischl, Markus Raetz and Georg Baselitz were bound into the
magazine, in the manner of older European high-art publications, while
Robert Wilson's A Letter to Queen Victoria opens out into a
storyboard. Other artists opted for a looser attachment. Gilbert &
George, for whom stiff adherence to form is a signature style, produced
a stiff, double self-portrait that can be tucked into the magazine or
stood on the mantelpiece. Jeff Koons and Felix Gonzalez-Torres both
produced collapsible editions; Koons made an inflatable Balloon Flower
5ft in diameter, while Gonzalez-Torres created a billboard broken into 8
sheets.
Ilya Kabakov's two Kafka-esque scenarios are scaled down to
housefly size (plaster fly included) and Sam Taylor-Wood uses a
panoramic camera to shrink her work while keeping context intact.
Several editions can be worn, including Meret Oppenheim's veined
gloves, Rirkrit Tiravanija's eyeglasses and a tie by Sophie
Calle. However, these are no mere equivalents of the
museum's-shop silk scarf, rather a parasitic game in which the
wearer acts as host for the artist's projects.
Commenting on the exhibition, Brenda McParland, IMMA's Head of
Exhibition said: 'The exhibition provides an opportunity not
only to celebrate the remarkably diverse art of our own time, but also
to highlight the creative forces at work in this innovative publishing
venture. A concise survey of contemporary art unfolds.'
Since its inception in 1984, Parkett has enlisted approximately 550
writers, as well as artist'collaborators in its projects; and
12,000 copies of the magazine are printed quarterly. Beautiful
Productions has been exhibited at MoMA, New York, and the Whitechapel
Art Gallery, London.
Dieter von Graffenried, publisher of Parkett, will present a lecture on
Parkett and its Artists' Editions on Friday 21 June at 11.30am.
Booking essential.
The exhibition is catalogued by a set of full colour postcards of the
works in the exhibition, with an introduction by Dieter von Graffenreid
and texts by Deborah Wye, Chief Curator, Department of Prints and
Illustrated Books, MoMA, New York, and by writer Susan Tallman (price
euro 27.00).
Opening 21 June 2002
Admission is free.
Opening hours: Tue - Sat 10.00am -
5.30pm
Sun, Bank Holidays 12 noon - 5.30pm
Mondays Closed
Image: Meret Oppenheim, Glove, 1985 (Edition for Parkett 4), 2 gloves, goat suede with silk-screen and hand stitched, 22cm x 9cm
For further information please
contact Monica Cullinane at Tel : +353 1 612 9900, Fax : +353 1 612 9999
Irish Museum of Modern Art
Royal Hospital
Military Road
Kilmainham
Dublin 8
Ireland
Phone +353 1 612 9900
Fax +353 1 612 9999