Exhibition
From here to much further out
23.01.2016 -
19.06.2016
Rethinking the Sculpture Park
Nathan Coley (UK)
Sven Johne (D)
Bjørn Melhus (D)
Robin Minard (CDN)
Alicia Paz (MEX | FR)
Jenny Perlin (USA)
Tilo Schulz (D)
As expected, the artists who had been invited in spring 2015 surprised in autumn with their first ideas and proposals for the sculpture park of the Kunstmuseum Magdeburg. The exhibition presents the now complete drafts and models for possible new works of arts for the park to the public for the first time. In remarkably intensive ways, the participating artists refer to the cultural-historical particularities of the given situation and formulate statements that bind the sculpture park after more than 25 years of existence into the present day with new artistic questions and methods.
Tilo Schulz, 10 Porträts, hinten in (d)einem Kopf (model)
Nathan Coley, For Other People and Other Work (model)
The fact that instead of figural bronzes, that have been dominating among the existing works, now sound (Robin Minard), film (Jenny Perlin), light (Bjørn Melhus), painting (Alicia Paz), photography and language prevail, is most striking. It is not the sculpted form made of a certain material that carries the expression, it is more a container storing the artistic effect. In general, self-experience, memory (Sven Johne) or usability (Nathan Coley) and change (Tilo Schulz) are components of a new concept of sculpture, understood as social and textual, encouraging discovery and play at the same time. Sculpture thinks itself opener in its material and more diverse in its effect. That exceeds physical or traditional body-space-relations just as our everyday life has moved itself into so many medial spaces, to find information, orientation, and entertainment.
In order to gain a more significant characteristic for this unique urban experience space, landscape architect Axel Lohrer (Munich/Magdeburg) suggests changes in design in two places of the sculpture park that offer specific spaces for the integration of present works of art. He adds a square and a garden, creating a stronger clarity within the urban presence of the complex of medieval architecture, present and future works of art and inner-urban landscape.
It is clear that by realising such projects in following years, the sculpture park will develop from a place of contemplating art more to a place for sensing and experiencing, inviting us to stay.