PROJECT FAÇADE
JOSEPH KOSUTH
June 20 - July 4, 2000
After the first half of the month, when the façade project showed a
contribution by Marcus Geiger, the Secession's series of artistic
statements on the current political situation in Austria continues with
a piece by Joseph Kosuth. (Open letter to the Austrian president by the board of the Secession).
The artist, who has a permanent studio in New York, has been living on
and off in various cities in Europe, including Gent, Berlin, and
currently Rome, for about a decade. From the very beginning, his work
has also rested on two pillars based in European intellectual history:
Sigmund Freud's psycho-analysis and Ludwig Wittgenstein's philosophy of
language. Kosuth is one of the founders of Conceptual Art, and it was
him who tried to discuss the conditions and meaning of art with the help
of its own aesthetic means. In his book "Art after Philosophy", which
summarises ideas on this topic since 1969, Kosuth refers to analytical
philosophy and draws a distinction between the exterior object relation
and the interior relation of meaning present in the work of art.
In 1989 the Secession invited Kosuth to devise the exhibition "Ludwig
Wittgenstein Das Spiel des Unsagbaren" to commemmorate the 100th
birthday of the philosopher, in which Kosuth showed numerous works by
fellow artists. Recently, he created a floor installation of texts by
Ricarda Huch and Thomas Mann for the Paul Löbe-Haus (German Parliament)
in Berlin under an "art and architecture" commission.
The work "Every apology helps the tyrant", which was specially developed
for the façade project, also relates to text. The quote is taken from
Aesop, a Greek writer who is believed to have lived in the middle of the
6th century BC. The fables ascribed to him are presumably based on oral
tradition and have only survived as revised versions. The fable as a
literary genre transfers human traits and characteristics onto animals
and creates a parallel world clearly visualising social reality.
Applying a text fragment from the realm of Aesop's fables to the current
political situation is a method legitimate to the genre and an example
of how one can deal with the internal meaning and external conditions of
a work in the way Kosuth does in both theory and practice.
Other artists include: Monica Bonvicini, Louise Bourgeois, Renée Green,
Paul McCarthy, David Shrigley, Milica Tomic, Werner Reiterer, Heimo
Zobernig.
For updated information please contact Matthias Herrmann, Sylvie Liska and
Eleonora Louis at the Vienna Secession on +43- 1- 587 53 07.