NOTHINGNESS
ARTISTS: ART & LANGUAGE, ROBERT BARRY, HARTMUT BÖHM, STEFAN BRÜGGEMAN, MARTIN CREED, ATTILA CSÖRGŐ, MANFRED ERJAUTZ, CEAL FLOYER, DAN GRAHAM, GRAHAM GUSSIN, ALEXANDER GUTKE, JOHN HILLIARD, MICHAEL KIENZER, IGOR & SVETLANA KOPYSTIANSKY, STEPHEN LITTLE, JONATHAN MONK, MAX NEUHAUS, GORAN PETERCOL, TOBIAS PUTRIH, WERNER REITERER, SANTIAGO SIERRA, MARCUS WILFLING, ERWIN WURM, CAREY YOUNG
February 26, 2005 – April 2, 2005
“There is something about void and emptiness which I am personally very concerned with. I guess I can’t get it out of my system. Just emptiness. Nothing seems to me the most potent thing in the world.” Robert Barry, 1968.
Galerija Gregor Podnar and DUM Association are pleased to announce the Nothingness exhibition curated by London based Neil Robert Wenman.
The exhibition is based on the concept of nothingness – the title of the show. What is nothingness? What are the spatial differences between terms such as nothingness, vacuum, void, emptiness and the numerology of zero?
It is the concern of the exhibition curator that work of this nature is often misunderstood as an extreme form of pure abstraction based on conceptualist, reductivist and formalist tenets or considered as simply nihilistic. The exhibition aims to challenge such preconceptions: ‘Nothing’ means no-thing, the absence of thing. It differs substantially from some-thing, any-thing, and every-thing. Yet, paradoxically, there is a distinct relationship between these four notions. ‘Nothing’ is the parent of something, anything and everything.
Ever since the birth of Conceptual art in the late 60s artists have continued to represent ideas of nothingness through the concept of dematerialization. It is from this standpoint that the exhibition aims to give a spatial reading of nothingness through the work of contemporary artists in reference to earlier projects developed as part of the Conceptual movement. In this regard we will display works of mainly internationally renowned artists of different generations with a geographical focus on Great Britain, Central Europe (Austria, Croatia, Germany, Hungary, and Slovenia), Sweden, and America (Mexico, USA).
A book publication with essays by Kathy Battista, Neil Robert Wenman, and Lívia Páldi & Gregor Podnar will accompany the exhibition.
The exhibition has been made possible in collaboration with Ministry of Culture of Republic of Slovenia, MOL – Cultural Department of the City of Ljubljana, Pristop, Ljubljana, Austrian Cultural Forum, Ljubljana, and British Council Slovenia.
Nothingness was conceived in collaboration with Galerie Eugen Lendl, Graz
Special thanks to Natascha Grilj, Roman Uranjek, Franci Zavrl