Thyssen-Bornmisza Art Contemporary
Himmelpfortgasse 13,
1010 Vienna
July 3 – October 31, 2009

Alisa Andrasek / BIOTHING, John Bock, Monica Bonvicini, Hernan Diaz Alonso / Xefirotarch, Ksenia Ender, Dan Flavin, Rodney Graham, Florian Hecker, Nikolaus Hirsch & Michel Müller in Collaboration with the Cybermohalla Ensemble, Greg Lynn FORM, David Maljkovic, László Moholy-Nagy, Olaf Nicolai, Neri Oxman / MATERIALECOLOGY, Manfred Pernice, Matthew Ritchie with Aranda\Lasch and Arup AGU, R&Sie(n) / François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux, Bojan Šarcevic, Fred Sandback, Francesca Woodman, Cerith Wyn Evans

Transitory Objects is based on a seemingly simple concept: to present architectural objects together with works of art, many drawn from the collection of Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Showing architectural objects alongside artworks or using techniques of presentation and mise-en- scène similar to those used for works of art is an established approach today, yet Transitory Objects also looks at some of the more complex issues raised by this phenomenon.
In past years Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary has acquired architectural objects as part of its collection of contemporary art, but more importantly, it has also produced and supported full-scale architectural projects within the experimental parameters and settings of art- related productions. In the context of projects such as The Morning Line, by Matthew Ritchie and Aranda\Lasch; Your black horizon Art Pavilion, by David Adjaye and Olafur Eliasson; or R&Sie(n)’s concept for thegardenofearthlydelights, “architecture” has shifted from its proper place of production and reception, as well as from its status as heteronomous object. This conceptual shift not only represents an effect specific to the art context but also retraces the processes and production logics of a contemporary “visual industry” that penetrates and interweaves all aspects of cultural production. Within this medial setting, architectural objects have become figures of display and exchange value, as well as protagonists in the scenario of aesthetic experience. Having assumed a market-oriented and institutional status, they circulate within the economy of art-world discourse and its complicity with the logic of the market.

Transitory Objects thus attempts to question the notion of the aesthetic in terms of an understanding of its conditions of autonomy and heteronomy, to look at the shift in the context and status of the architectural object as a reflection, analysis, and negotiation of a given cultural and sociopolitical state of affairs, which has to be considered as a premise of production within the “field of the aesthetic.” Faced with the interweaving of institutional and market-oriented logics in contemporary exhibitions, it examines how economies of symbolic value creation result from the layering of art and knowledge markets. Transitory Objects attempts to focus on the “experimental setting” of shifting disciplinary grounds and boundaries, its possibilities of critique, and its instrumental effects.

PHOTOS:

Bojan Šarcevic
The breath-taker is the breath-giver (Film A), 2009
Super 16mm film, modified projector, acrylic glass pavilion 300 x 200 x 300 cm, 2 min 57 sec, color, sound
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary

David Maljkovic
Retired Compositions, 2008
Collage on paper
70 x 100 cm
Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary
Photo: Courtesy of Metro Pictures, New York

Monica Bonvicini
Untitled (Chain swing), 2006
Chains (galvanized steel), chain snap closings (galvanized steel), translucent lights, glossy black floor paint
Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist

R&Sie(n) / François Roche and Stéphanie Lavaux
thegardenofearthlydelights, 2008
Glass dripping in mould by cnc machine
65 x 53 x 25 cm
Architect: R&Sie(n) Creative team: François Roche, Stéphanie Lavaux with Barbara Ozimec, botanist Machine with Stephan Henrich. Collaborator: Leopold Lambert, Jakob Ingemansson.
Production: Pedro Veloso, Paris Lopud, Croatia, 2008

Cerith Wyn Evans
Something like a Picture (for Ali), 2011
Botanics, electrics, lamp Dimensions variable
Courtesy of the artist