Gegeben sind /
Given → Reuterswärd Fahlström Duchamp

Öyvind Fahlström and Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd – whose work is prominently represented in the collection of the Sprengel Museum Hannover thanks to a generous donation by the artist – belonged to a circle within the Swedish art scene of the 1950s and 1960s that was as united in its enthusiasm for Marcel Duchamp’s work as in its vehement rejection of Abstract Expressionism. Now, in the exhibition, and above all in the book GEGEBEN SIND, the works of these three very different artists come together. Numerous lines of connection between their works become apparent, so that, in view of the concepts and games, their play on words and their irony, what they have in common emerges more and more clearly. Among Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd’s best-known works is the sculpture “Non Violence”: that revolver with the knotted barrel which was placed in front of the UN Headquarters in New York and has become, as it were, an emblem of that institution’s seemingly impossible task of preserving world peace. With this sculpture, which has been installed at 16 further locations internationally, Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd was responding at the time to the murder of John Lennon.

Exhibition:
Sprengel Museum Hannover, 26/3 – 26/6/2022