Daimler Contemporary
9 December 2004 - 28 March 2005

The current exhibition includes about 60 works by 25 artists from 11 nations, and concentrates on two key themes: Modernism's critical revision of styles and utopian designs for one, and secondly socio-political reflections.
 

John M Armleder
ohne Titel (Furniture Sculpture) 1993
300 x 425 cm Acryl auf Leinwand, 2 Leuchten,
Bildmaß: 300 x 200 cm

Mathieu Mercier
Still Untitled; 2001
Farbe und Klebefolie auf Holz

Structure d' Altuglas et Melamine; 2001
Acrylgals, Holz, Melamin

One of the most intelligent and radical oeuvres in terms of ›refocusing‹ the abstract avant-garde was created by the Geneva artist John M Armleder from about 1970 on. His provocatively decorative »Furniture Sculpture« consisting of a monochrome picture and two circular lamps effectively sums up how art and design have crossed each other's borders in the 20th century.
We have placed Bojan Sarcevic's photo-collages close to Armleder in the exhibition; these examine the post-war Modernism's ideal image of rational building closely, critically and with relish. Next to him are Mathieu Mercier's systematic distortions and reconfigurations of classical style forms between Mondrian and New Bauhaus.
The Israeli artist Uri Tzaig's minimalist games table seems to bring us closer to the Schiller-like ideal that play without any specific purpose is the apogee of cultural development for the human race.

Sylvie Fleury's post 1990 videos form part of a piece of broadly based media research from a decidedly feminine point of view, presenting the alternate exploitation and undermining of the claims of ›high‹ art and ›low‹ fashion awareness as a 20th century sign.

 

Of the total of six artists with biographies linked to Stuttgart or Berlin, Ulrike Flaig's wall object clad in iridescent car paint in particular can be seen against the background of a balancing act between artificial showpiece and functional object.

The Stuttgart artists Thomas Raschke and Sebastian Rogler, operating under the »Das Deutsche Handwerk« label, charge their subject matter with political explosives from Michel Houellebecq's successful novel »platform«, which has a whiff of scandal about it. Bernhard Kahrmann's drawings are intended to be read in a broader sense as graphic analyses of socially determined spatial constructions.

Works by Sandra Hastenteufel and Eva Teppe seem to fit in with the classical genres of photography and video art, though both are definitely arguing from within the conceptual tradition.

Jane Alexander (SA)
African Adventure; 2000
10 tlg., jeweils 30 x 150 cm
Digitale Tintenausdrucke auf Baumwollpapier
 

Three South African artists provide essential accents for the second key topic in our exhibition - socio-critical and political reflections. Guy Tillim, like Jane Alexander one of the winners of the Daimler Award for South African Culture, which has been available since 2000, is represented by an impressive series of photographs of young Kamajoor militiamen.

 

With Jane Alexander's monumental ten-part series African Adventures they form one of the high points not just of South African photographic art, but generally within committed contemporary photography. The large-scale double projection Snow White by Berni Searle, who lives in Cape Town, is similarly significant for video as a medium.
 

Bernie Searle
Snow White; 2001
Video Doppelprojektion, 9 min

The lightbox by the Chilean artist Alfredo Jaar, well-known since his 1987 documenta appearance as one of the major socio-critical concept artists, pays tribute to Gandhi's grand design for a non-violent revolution, but at the same times asks questions about a possible redemption of this utopia. Jaar's work is linked with that of Martin Gostner, Dmitry Gutov, Thea Gvetadze or Patricia London Ante Paris: they all consider the fact that language and image are used more for self-deception, obfuscation and deliberate falsification of history than they could be a medium for liberated encounters with one's own and the alien self.