print March 1995

Guillaume Bijl

Guillaume Bijl is best known for his site-specific installations such as the one he did in the room of a patient in a psychiatric institution. These installations remain true to the details and function of the places where they are most frequently shown—museums and galleries. Bijl disrupts preconceived notions of what an exhibition should be, annexes spaces, and attacks their function with his simulated spaces. His work raises the question of what is reality and what is fiction.

In his most recent show, Bijl showed four recent works, including an elephant skull in a vitrine filled with a gray

print February 1995

Roland Schefferski

An early photograph by Roland Schefferski portrays the artist’s shadow filling the outline traced by the artist in the snow. This self-portrait was created while he was a student in Wroclaw and marks the beginning of his consideration of issues surrounding identity, biography, and self-portraiture. This exhibition included very few objects—a table and chair, a curtain, a wardrobe, a basket, and a coat—all of which seemed to refer to their absent owners.

In the corner of the large exhibition space, he placed a basket in a bundle of flowered cloth onto which he had embroidered the outline of his

print January 1995

Gerd Rohling

In the clearly structured spaces of the Nuremberg Kunsthalle, Gerd Rohling created a landscape of sculptures that extended through seven rooms. The title of this exhibition, “Der lange Weg zum guten Bild” (The long road to a good picture) was paradigmatic, given that Rohling showed works from his entire career, out of chronological order, which enabled his works to comment on and paraphrase each other.

Rohling’s paintings and sculpture address what art can be: what avant-garde can mean and what the production of an “art” object involves, as, for example, when he inscribes three oversized palettes

print September 1994

Roman Opalka

In 1965, when he was living in Warsaw, Roman Opalka developed the radical concept of OPALKA 1965/1-∞ that has taken the form of over 180 ‘details’ in paintings, photographs, and audio tapes. Opalka himself describes his method as follows: “In my attitude, which is a plan for my life, the process of working is preserved, simultaneously documenting and defining time. The date of the first ‘detail’ in 1965 is important for me, and from this my entire oeuvre has followed. I write, paint constantly the numbers from 1 to infinity with a brush in white paint on a gray ground. Each successive detail

print March 1994

Raffael Rheinsberg

A few months ago, when Raffael Rheinsberg flew a German flag at half mast in the Swedish city of Visby, German tourists saw their carefree vacation moods and their feelings of national pride being compromised. With the intervention of the German consul, Rheinsberg’s social sculpture had to be moved to a less visible location. In the meantime a Swedish collector placed this Fahne für Deutschland (Flag for Germany, 1993) in his front garden.

The small retrospective of seven of Rheinsberg’s works dealt with the disappearance and negation of the values of the former German Democratic Republic. Since

print March 1993

“It is It”

“It is It,” a three-part exhibition, celebrates the 25th anniversary of the gallery and brings together seven artists from both Europe and the United States. In the first part of this show, Ange Leccia’s Lolita, 1988—a massive, black BMW motorcycle, with its headlight on was placed in the entrance and emitted a recording of the soundtrack of Stanley Kubrick’s Lolita, 1962. In combining sensual music and the motorcycle as symbol of masculinity, Leccia’s sculpture possesses all the characteristics of a bachelor machine. Lolita plots the parameters of technology, eros, and commodity esthetics at

print December 1992

Richard Artschwager

In a room on the main floor of the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt there is a 1967–68 work by Richard Artschwager. It shows a pornographic scene, and the authorities had a sign posted that minors under the age of 18 must be accompanied by an adult in order to view this picture. Artschwager’s work—here completely misunderstood in a puritanical fashion—has always been provocative, less because of its subject matter than because of its radical questioning of materials and hence of the conventions of looking at art. In this exhibition Artschwager presented seven works from the years 1990

print November 1992

Hubert Kiecol

In this show of Hubert Kiecol’s sculpture, drawings, and prints, the sculpture Paradies (Paradise, 1992) was the central work. This work consisted of a white iron grate resting on a concrete pedestal. The title seemed not to correspond to this massive cage of iron and concrete, and while traditional concepts of paradise indicate happiness, Kiecol’s work merely defined the space that a standing person requires. The paradise he erected in the middle of the gallery was empty, and it defined a spiritual place, a realm of the imagination. The concept of paradise is a free, undefined space that can

print October 1992

“Skulpturen und Objekte”

Eleven artists and artist groups took part in “Skulpturen und Objekte” (Sculptures and objects), each presenting one work. In this small, tubelike gallery, a large white pedestal was installed in the middle, and mostly small works were placed there, very close to one another. From this perspective, correspondences and confrontations could develop among the works, and they offered the viewer an overview of the possibilities for sculpture in the ’90s. Of primary importance in this ’90s nomenclature was the creation of objects without political ideology, objects that are simultaneously symbolic

print Summer 1992

Peter Mönnig

In two concurrent exhibitions, Cologne artist Peter Mönnig presented his sculptural principle of organized disorganization. His sculptures, following the exhibitions underlying concept, were always shown in related pairs—oppositional pairs, though this was not necessarily obvious on first view. The similarity between the paired objects resides in the more or less identical material used in their production, but it can also derive from a conceptual relationship between two sculptures.

Accordingly, although the works are very seldom displayed directly next to one another, each of the sculptural

print April 1992

Pieter Laurens Mol

Pieter Laurens Mol called his photo installation from the year 1980 Strijd tussen carnaval en vasten, (The fight between carnival and Lent). This 11-part work reveals the culmination of something this Dutch painter characterizes as highly significant: there are allusions to his homeland’s cultural tradition, which plays on the title of a painting by Mol’s compatriot Pieter Breughel; or the artist’s modellike appearance at the center of his piece; the theme of balance; and the issue of such art-immanent factors as time, composition, and interpretation. The photos, photo installations, and objects

print March 1991

“November November”

Conceptual artists have long been making works that comment on the obsolete political systems in postwar Europe, and “November November” brought a number of these efforts together. The exhibition’s point of departure was a work by Robert Filliou, This Flag Is Meant to Straddle National Borderlines, 1972–74, which was part of a series that attacked national (chauvinistic) emblems and rhetoric. Composed of two flags, the work appears as an ironic assault on national symbols and border demarcations.

Jochen Gerz was represented by three photo-text works from the “IT WAS EASY. . . . ” series of 1988.

Peter Funken