Was Modelle können

Model show!

In the field of architecture and urban planning, the three-dimensional architectural model - on a reduced scale - was and is an aid in the communication of planned or realised architecture. The model can efficiently provide information about larger spatial contexts that are perceived quite differently or possibly not at all in their original size. This is because the model also makes it possible to reduce spatial complexity through miniaturisation. Suddenly it is possible to see at a glance what can only be experienced piece by piece in the original size in the temporal process of physical inspections. It is striking that in contemporary art the architectural and urban model is often taken up and freed from its narrowly defined functional context, that its primarily phenomenological qualities are then adapted and made fruitful for artistic questions. In the conceptually understood contemporary art of the last 40 years, the architectural model is poetically opened up and utilised in a metaphorical and theatrical way. The mysterious aura of the small, as described by Gaston Bachelard, is also important in this context: this allows the gaze to penetrate - quasi disembodied, but always relying on and trusting in the physical experience. On the one hand, the obvious reference to the architectural model helps in the development and solution of sculptural questions, on the other hand, the architectural model - especially in its state, which always remains a draft and is to be realised - can serve as an instrument of criticism and illustration of utopia. One of the fascinations of the model is precisely the both/and, the simultaneity of direct sensual presence and the suggestive distance to the viewer's experiential space. The exhibition and book attempt to write a brief history of the architectural model in contemporary art. This will begin with the legendary - monumental - models by Charles Simonds and Anne and Patrick Poirier, touch on the 1990s with Ludger Gerdes, Hermann Pitz and Thomas Schütte and continue the thread up to today's current positions.

Artists:
Absalon, Michael Ashkin, Thomas Bayrle, Peter Downsbrough, Jean Pascal Flavien, Alicia Framis, Carlos Garaicoa, Ludger Gerdes, Christian Haake, Gabu Heindl & Drehli Robnik, Friederike Klotz, Langlands & Bell, Rita McBride, Isa Melsheimer, Stephan Mörsch, Sirous Namazi, Hermann Pitz, Anne & Patrick Poirier, Hinrich Sachs, Michel Sauer, Thomas Schütte, Laurie Simmons & Peter Wheelwright, Charles Simonds, Stephen Willats, Elizabeth Wright, Yin Xiuzhen

Exhibition:
Museum of Contemporary Art Siegen, 29/6 - 12/10/2014