The Museum turns into a Production Hall
ART MACHINES MACHINE ART
Basel, March 5 – June 29, 2008
Opening Tuesday, March 4, 2008, 18.30 hrs
We all agree that art is created by artists. But what happens when
machines start producing art? Do artists become simple engineers?
What lies behind the artist’s withdrawal from the creative act, and
what is its bearing on the originality and the uniqueness of the
artwork? What can we then consider as the artwork: the machine, the
final product or the process of creation? The exhibition jointly
conceived and elaborated by Katharina Dohm of the Schirn Kunsthalle
Frankfurt and Heinz Stahlhut of the Museum Tinguely, Basel, opens
with a presentation of Jean Tinguely’s drawing machines dating back
to the 1950s followed by art machines down to the present day; all of
these have a common feature: they produce their own art. These
machines created by Angela Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson, Damien Hirst,
Rebecca Horn, Jon Kessler, Tim Lewis, Lia, Miltos Manetas, Cornelia
Sollfrank, Antoine Zgraggen and Andreas Zybach transform the Museum
Tinguely, Basel, into a production hall. Depending on the mechanical
process involved, visitors may keep certain works such as drawings
produced by Jean Tinguely’s Meta-Matics and certified stamped sheets
produced by Damien Hirst’s or Olafur Eliasson’s machines.
“People’s basic trust in machine activity, the basis of our
industrial revolution and our affluence, is fundamentally alien to
art’s self-understanding; and so art was very reticent to use
machines to create itself. But to create a machine as an artwork and
to shift responsibility to it for the development of further works of
art abrogates the artist’s autonomy and transfers creativity to an
apparatus. This raises an issue that is very much in vogue in view of
today’s permanent shifting frontiers between the individual and
technology.” (Guido Magnaguagno, Director Museum Tinguely and Max
Hollein, Director, Schirn)
„If one accepts the general assumption that artists, not machines,
are the originators and creators of works of art, then the
discrepancy between the two could not be greater. For while the
machine is conceived with an aim toward qualities like repeatability
of production processes, art, as traditionally understood, is
characterised by uniqueness. Tied to this is the idea of the artistic
individual as a creative genius. And this concept gives rise to the
question – serious as well as ironical – posed in this
exhibition.” (Katharina Dohm and Heinz Stahlhut, curators of the
exhibition)
To create a machine as an artwork and to entrust it with the
responsibility of developing further artworks is a radical step. It
means delegating creativity to a piece of equipment. Do such art
machines then possess a “soul”? Indeed, they develop a dynamic of
their own and enable the creation of an artwork that is an
independent work – but they lack the capacity to lead the work to its
conclusion. The machine with its automatic process does not posses
the faculty of decision nor the possibility of selection. What is
produced are mechanical works of art lacking the factor finality, but
they are nevertheless a fundamental avowal of and testimony to the
sovereignty of the machine and the basic belief in the possibilities
of creative production beyond the act of the individual.
The exhibition „Art Machines Machine Art” opens with 20th century
works by Jean Tinguely that raise the issue of the machine as an
independent creative apparatus in the most original manner. His Méta-
Matics that were first exhibited in Paris in 1959 and earned him his
international renown are motor-driven drawing machines that enable
the spectator to produce abstract drawings. The discrepancy between
the material character of the Méta-Matics and their function, which
is to produce art, can well be interpreted as an ironic comment on
the overriding belief in those days in technical progress. It further
also translates a reflex of the art context of the 1950s: the
mechanically produced drawings are in keeping with the Tachist style
in painting and thus reduce ad absurdum the idea of gestural
abstraction as the direct expression of an artistic individual. This
work group doubtless forms the historical basis of the exhibition.
Grouped around it is a selection of works that share a common trait:
the creative act is delegated by the artist to the machine – a
process that was only possible at the end of the second world war
when a generation of young artists appeared on the scene and broke
with one of the best kept taboos of European art: the concept of the
original work of art. The selection reflects this process in the most
various art media such as painting, drawing, sculpture, video and
ends with the greatest “art machine” ever, the World Wide Web,
without, however, affording a definitive answer.
The visitor to the exhibition will encounter machines such as Rebecca
Horn’s Preussische Brautmaschine and Michael Beutler’s installation
Proper en Droog that concluded production before the exhibition’s
opening, whereas Roxy Paine’s SCUMAK #2 produces throughout the
duration of the exhibition, in this case organic-like sculptures. The
drawing machines Making Beautiful Drawings by Damien Hirst and The
endless study by Olafur Eliasson both require the involvement of the
visitor and pose the basic question as to the relationship between
onlooker and artwork. Whilst a physical phenomenon is at the source
of Eliasson’s work, Hirst addresses the issue of the creative genius.
Andreas Zybach’s Sich selbst reproduzierender Sockel contrary to its
title does not auto-reproduce but requires an input by the visitor in
the same manner that Angela Bulloch’s Blue Horizon needs an external
impulse to begin drawing. Jon Kessler’s video installation Desert
produces sunsets without end, and Tim Lewis’ Auto-Dali Prosthetic non-
stop scrawls signatures. Pawel Althamer’s Extrusion Machine (Bottle
Machine) produces blasphemous plastic bottles; thanks to Antoine
Zgraggen’s Grosser Hammer and his Zerquetscherin the visitor can get
rid of unwanted objects, and Tue Greenfort’s Mobile
Trinkglaswerkstatt transforms glass bottles into drinking glasses.
Finally, with the works of Lia, Miltos Manetas and Cornelia Sollfrank
the “Méta art machine” enters into play – the World Wide Web –
extending the possibility of democratising art production, as did
Tinguely’s works in the 1950s.
The relationship between artist, artwork and onlooker is the theme,
but not always at the basis of all the exhibits. The art machine
enables furthermore the participation of the public and mass-produced
art, thus breaking significantly with the aura of non-reproducible
art. Even though the onlooker is not directly involved in the
creation of some of the works, he/she does gain an insight into its
production and is thus led to reflect on the issue as to where the
work of art begins. The artist, however, will never disappear
completely from the work of art. The art machine remains a tool as
long as it functions within the parameters of the artist. It is only
if and when it starts to act independently and react to situations
autonomously that the whole question of authorship can change. The
creativity of the art machine is apparent only when it works without
control and haphazardly. The machine may be able to produce without
the presence of the artist but it cannot exist without the artist’s
concept.
An exhibition of the Museum Tinguely, Basel and Schirn Kunsthalle
Frankfurt. Curators: Heinz Stahlhut (Museum Tinguely) / Katharina
Dohm (Schirn).
Participating artists: Pawel Althamer, Michael Beutler, Angela
Bulloch, Olafur Eliasson, Tue Greenfort, Damien Hirst, Rebecca Horn,
Jon Kessler, Tim Lewis, Lia, Miltos Manetas, Roxy Paine, Steven
Pippin, Cornelia Sollfrank, Jean Tinguely, Antoine Zgraggen, Andreas
Zybach.
Catalogue: Art Machines Machine Art. Ed. Katharina Dohm, Heinz
Stahlhut, Max Hollein and Guido Magnaguagno. Preface by Max Hollein
and Guido Magnaguagno, Texts by Katharina Dohm and Heinz Stahlhut,
and Justin Hoffmann and in-depth comments. German-English edition, c.
160 pages, c. 130 col. & b&w illustrations, hard cover, Kehrer
Verlag, Heidelberg, ISBN 9 783939 583400 (Price: CHF 49).
Museum Tinguely Paul Sacher Anlage 1 – CH 4002 BASEL – www.tinguely.ch
Press Release and images available for download on the Internet site
www.tinguely.ch
For further information:
Annja Müller-Alsbach, Curator. Tel.: 00 41 (0)61 688 26 18. E-mail:
[log in to unmask]
Laurentia Leon, Press Office. Tel.: 00 41 (0)61 687 46 08. E-mail:
[log in to unmask]
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Paul Brown - based in OZ Dec 07 - Apr 08
mailto:[log in to unmask] == http://www.paul-brown.com
OZ Landline +61 (0)7 5443 3491 == USA fax +1 309 216 9900
OZ Mobile +61 (0)419 72 74 85 == Skype paul-g-brown
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Visiting Professor - Sussex University
http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/ccnr/research/creativity.html
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