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Museion
in Bolzano is devoting a double event to Pawel Althamer (born Warsaw,
1967), the artist's first appearance in a public institution in Italy, with
the solo show Polyethylene curated by Letizia Ragaglia and the
performance project Common Task, Bolzano (2012), curated by Andrea
Viliani.
Polyethylene: science fiction
meets Baroque
A crowd of pale sculptures, part zombies, part
creatures from an unknown civilization—positioned singly or in
groups—is set to take over the exhibition space on Museion's fourth
floor. The result of a "collective creative process," the figures were
created for the exhibition Almech at the Deutsche Guggenheim in
Berlin. Pawel Althamer's work has always explored the roots of classic
sculpture, subverting its principles. During the Berlin exhibition the
artist and his staff created plaster casts of the faces of volunteers
involved in the project. The masks—highly realistic, but also
totem-like and surreal—were grafted onto bodies of "synthetic white
flesh," aka polyethylene. Channeling everything from classical to Baroque
sculpture, the funerary art of the Middle Ages, comic strip aesthetics, and
sci-fi films, the sculptures are of great emotional impact, evoking
multiple associations. Each of them embodies both a single story and
infinite stories, and together they form a social sculpture which extends
beyond the confines of the museum. With the Pawel Althamer show Museion
continues its exploration of the different languages of contemporary
sculpture, and its reflections on the permeability of the museum venue.
In parallel to the exhibition in Museion, the Sammlung
Goetz in Munich, Germany will be hosting solo show
devoted to Pawel Althamer. The performance Common Task forges a
connection between the two shows.
Common Task,
Bolzano (2012)
Museion presents the first showing of
Common Task in Italy. Around 20 performers (the artist, along with
friends, relatives, and neighbors), travelling from Poland in a gold bus,
will visit and explore both the museum and the city of Bolzano, wandering
astronaut-like among the sculptures in the exhibition Polyethylene,
and also through the streets of Bolzano and the valleys of the South Tyrol
region, exploring local traditions like the wood carving of Val Gardena.
Their actions will mostly spring from encounters with the local community
and the staff of the museum, thus representing an authentically
"time-based" exhibition. Compared to the canons of the museum
exhibition, this uncontrollable element forges a connection with the
urban setting and the background of social and cultural
relationships that underpins it. The event is part of the broader Common
Task project that the artist initiated in 2008 as a series of
performance actions. Drawing on Althamer's studies under Grzegorz Kowalski
at the Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts, Common Task is conceived as a
science fiction movie shot in real time in contemporary society, used as an
adventurous film set. What the project puts forward and shares is a more
hypothetical and propositional approach to institutional as well as art
practice.
On occasion of the exhibition and performance by Pawel
Althamer in Museion there will be a catalogue (in Italian, German and
English) with texts by Letizia Ragaglia, Andrea Viliani, and Sebastian
Cichocki, published by Mousse Publishing.
Museion's
institutional partners are Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano, Alto Adige, the
Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bolzano, and the MUSEION Partners.
Pawel Althamer, Common Task, Bolzano (2012) event supported
by Fiorucci Art Trust.
We would like to thank Mauro De Iorio and the
Fondazione Giuliani for their support in producing the catalogue.
*Image above:
Pawel Althamer, Matthias, Heidrun,
Holger, Andreas, Eleanor, René and Fabio, 2011.*
©
Pawel Althamer, courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin and Foksal Gallery
Foundation, Warsaw.
Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
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