Saturday June 30, 2018 the Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur opened the stirring show ALWAYS DIFFERENT, ALWAYS THE SAME. AN ESSAY ON ART AND SYSTEMS. With 34 premium art works this is the attempt to show us the world of systems and answer the question what actual art works has to do with 1960s and 1970s Minimalism!!
Systems are everywhere: from nervous systems, periodic systems, and computer systems to political systems, bank systems, and the alphabet. In the 1960s artists in New York – at the same time the center of the art world – began explicitly examine the systemic thinking of the modern era. Artworks were increasingly created according to system of logic and with an awareness of their context. Questions of perception, the role of the viewer, the context in which the works were produced, authorship, the circulation of works, and their embeddedness within particular aesthetic, art-historical, and social contexts, were decisive. This networking of information has become practical reality in today’s digital society. There has also been a reversal in the understanding and perception of art. Artworks are no longer seen as the expression of a genius but are part of a system that strongly influences art production, the way we view it, and the art market – in other words, the entire discourse. This exhibition (later the book also) brings together various works by artists who consciously use and examine systems in terms of form or content. The various works are always different, yet always the same, forming a compact, temporary system of references around the subjects of perception, difference, cognition, language, interpretation, and the production and circulation of artworks and as a part of society.
The catalogue ALWAYS DIFFERENT, ALWAYS THE SAME
will be published in August/September 2018
Exhibition: 30/6 – 11/11/2018
Artists and their work at the show: Carl Andre: »10 x 10 Altstadt Square«, 1967 and »Spill (Scatter Piece)«, 1966; Art & Language: »Portrait of V.I. Lenin in the Style of Jackson Pollock II«, 1980; John Baldessari: »Examining Pictures«, 1967–1968; Walead Beshty: »Copper Surrogate«, 2016– ; Stanley Brown: »884 mm«, 1973; Peter Buggenhout: »The Blind leading the Blind Nr. 68«, 2015; Angela Bulloch: »Pixel Corner Piece«, 2015; Hanne Darboven: »Untitled«, 1971; Matias Faldbakken: »Remainder XIX«, 2018; Corsin Fontana: »Horizontal Bordeaux«, 2007; Wade Guyton: »Untitled«, 2008; Bethan Huws: »Untitled«, 2008 and 2003; Iman Issa: »Devotees«, 2014; Donald Judd: »Untitled«, 1978; On Kawara: »Date Painting: JUNE 10, 1967«, 1967; Yves Klein: »Untitled (M70)«, 1957; Sol LeWitt: »Wall Drawing #108«, 1971; Piero Manzoni: »Achrome«. 1959; !Mediengruppe Bitnik: »Random Darknet Shopper – the Bot’s Collection«, 2014–2016; Robert Morris: »Untitled (Felt Piece)«, 1967–1968; Charlotte Prodger: »Compression Fern Face«, 2014; Ad Reinhardt: »Black on Black #8«, 1953; Michael Riedel: »Untitled«, 2013; Robert Ryman: »Genereal 50 1/2 x 50 1/2«, 1970; Jan Schoonhoven: »Kwadratenreilt met schuine binnenvlakken op diagonalen der kwadraten in een richting«, 1967; Frank Stella: »Tuxedo Junction«, 1960; Sturtevant: »Warhol Black Marilyn«, 2004; Rémy Zaugg: »Albertis Paradoxon«, 1969–1973