Archive Exhibitions 2009

Frozen Moments. Daniel Spoerri’s snare-pictures in dialogue with Judith Albert, David Claerbout, Caro Niederer, Beat Streuli, Jeff Wall

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, June 27 to September 13, 2009

Daniel Spoerri’s snare-pictures from the 1960s are milestones in art history. However, these early works by the now almost 80-year-old artist reveal their relevance not only from the vantage point of art history. They actually appear up-todate and immediate also when in direct confrontation with works by a younger generation. Thus common daily life plays a central role in this dialogue between the older artist and the younger ones Judith Albert, David Claerbout, Caro Niederer, Beat Streuli and Jeff Wall. However, this is true not only because they use everyday things and motifs, but also because they think about the meaning of time, which arises from their concerns with everyday life.

With glue or synthetic resin Spoerri fixes situations found by chance onto the tabletop – remains of food, dishes and other objects – and hangs these vertically onto the wall like a still life. The so-called snare-pictures or Tableau-piège capture a particular moment and save it. To extract a moment from the randomness of daily flow, can either mean this moment is stopped short or drawn out. It can describe both fixation and perpetual motion and can also stand for eternity as well as transience.
David Claerbout, for example, in his complex video installation (Sections of a HappyMoment, 2007) extends a single photographic moment over a period of 26 minutes, in which the same family at play is shown from a constantly changing perspective. Beat Streuli, however, takes photos from the exact same position of constantly new passers-by who appear accidentally. Like Claerbout he shows these photos from the series Porte de Ninove (2007) in a projected film sequence. This seemingly coincidental lining up of anonymous people creates a similar feeling of endlessness, as does the video by Judith Albert. In Zwischen der Zeit (2004) a female figure - only partly visible - pours milk from a jug into a bowl. The everyday activity, which Spoerri consciously interrupts by fixing the objects, with Albert perpetually continues. The milk runs from the jug in a clever endless loop. As with Albert and Spoerri, Jeff Wall’stable in the large-scale photo An Octopus (1990) stands at the centre of events. In acellar-like room an octopus lies on an old wooden table. What looks like a casual documentary shot, is really a carefully lit staging of requisites. Caro Niederer is also concerned with the reinterpretation of the commonplace as something precious. She takes unspectacular snapshots, and then has them hand-knotted into gigantic silkcarpets in China. By taking her motif out of its private context in both time and content (the rendering by foreign workers takes nine months) Niederer’s personal objects become universally valid and parables of daily life as well as of life in general. With Spoerri also, it is less the obvious perishableness of the leftover food and litter that make a memento mori of the snare-pictures, but more the demonstrative removal from the eternal cycle of life. What connects Spoerri’s work directly with the works of the younger generation shown here is the exploration of chance and purpose, of motion and standstill, of ordinary moments and eternity. The exhibition Frozen Moments and the basic theme of duration, which manifests itself in differentways in each of the exhibits, rests on the ancient and continuously prevailing question as to the human perception of time and its passing.

Katharina Ammann

Public Tours

On Thursdays, July 2, 16, 30; August 6, 13, 20; September 3, at 12.30

Children’s Workshop Fixing – Arranging

August 26 (6 – 8 years), September 2 (9 – 12 years), 2 pm to 4 pm
Atelier rumantsch, 9 da settember, da las 14 fin las 16

Artist Interview

Friday, September 11, at 6.15 pm
Katharina Ammann and Beat Stutzer will have a discussion with the artists Judith Albert and Caro Niederer

Movements

Saturday, September 12, at 7.30 pm
A concert given by the kammerphilharmonie graubünden with works by Marti, Kelterborn, Brähm, and Kopetzki
Admission CHF 25.- (BKV 20.-)

Publication

Gefrorene Momente – Daniel Spoerris Fallenbilder im Dialog mit Judith Albert, David Claerbout, Caro Niederer, Beat Streuli, Jeff Wall, ed. Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, with texts by Katharina Ammann, Nicole Seeberger and Beat Stutzer, Kehrer Verlag, Heidelberg,
broschure, ca. 20 x 24cm, ca. 72 pages, ca. 35 colour illustrations, CHF 35.-
(CHF 28.- for members of the Bündner Kunstverein)

The exhibition Frozen Moments is being subsidized by: 

• Ars Rhenia Stiftung zur überregionalen Förderung von Kunst und Kultur
• Kulturstiftung Landis & Gyr, Zug

Tapestries by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner and Lise Gujer: Unknown designs and patterns

Bündner Kunstmuseum Chur, February 7 to March 22, 2009 

These amazing and in many ways fascinating designs by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880-1938) for tapestries and weavings are now shown for the first time. Lise Gujer (1893-1967) had woven them on her loom during the artist’s lifetime and also after his death. Most of these designs are unpublished and have never been exhibited.

Shortly before her death Lise Gujer left a sealed parcel to the Rätisches Museum, which according to her wish should not be opened until 30 years later, probably in order to prevent imitations of her own work. In 1998 when this time was up, it was discovered that the parcel contained Kirchner’s numerous sketches and designs for weavings. The sheaf of papers was donated to the Bündner Kunstmuseum for professional safekeeping, storage and restoration. With these designs the Bündner Kunstmuseum has at its disposal a visually impressive and art historically highly significant collection of far in excess of fifty designs and sketches. After extensive and laborious restoration the numerous sheets, which had been in a desolate condition, have in the meantime been restored and can be presented to the public.

The exhibit introduces these designs - frequently made up of several parts - which in their curious presence and visual richness are deeply inspiring. These partly downright monumental, but due to their material quality nonetheless delicate looking designs and patterns convey an imagery of their very own. Pointing far beyond their original function as patterns, they can all but hold their own next to the actual tapestries as independent works of art. This is thanks to their specific materiality, as on the one hand two-dimensional -sometimes multicoloured - drawings, on the other hand as almost plastic three-dimensional mixed media objects. In appropriate places the completed tapestries by Lise Gujer are exhibited next to the designs, in order to illustrate by way of a dialogue both their correlations and divergences.

Beat Stutzer

Guided Tours

On Thursday, February 12 and 26, and March 12 at 12.30 pm

Publication

Bildteppiche von Ernst Ludwig Kirchner und Lise Gujer. Ein Werkkatalog der Entwürfe, ed. by Beat Stutzer, with contributions by Mechthild Flury-Lemberg, Eberhard W. Kornfeld, Kristina Liedtke and Beat Stutzer, Schriften zur Bündner Kunstsammlung 3, hardback with book jacket, 120 pages, 156 illustrations, CHF 49.- / CHF 30.- for BKV members.