Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Jannis Kounellis & The Materials of Basic Needs

Yesterday we went to the neue nationalgalerie and saw an exhibit by
Jannis Kounellis that we had seen a flyer for at a cafe:
www.smb.museum. It was a very strange exhibit- mostly a labyrinth of
10 ft high iron walls (partially rusted- a sign before the exhibit
said "Danger: The walls of the labyrinth may be dirty") and as you
wandered through you would find certain artifacts- an egg, a bit of
cotton with a fly on it, bags of coal seated in a circle of chairs, empty
coffeee bean sacks that had been strewn together to make a blanket,
rolled up raincoats (maybe) with knives poking out of them. Very bizarre.

As most of the "artifacts" had to do with civilization and necessary
materials in particular I took it to mean something along the lines
that man often lives in poverty- spending his whole life to gain
access to the materials that make life possible- food, coal, blankets-
the bare necessities. Man spends more and more time trying to find
these things until eventually he finds himself in a maze- unable to
escape his search for the materials necessary to satisfy his basic needs. As for what this indicates, I can
only think one of two things: 1) that art is a luxury those in poverty
can't afford or 2) this struggle is in and of itself an artform- it is basic and human in nature and something that needn't go unrepresented. It's
hard to tell which. Carlos seemed to think- more or
less- that the exhibit expressed how 3rd world countries are exploited
for their resources (many of the artifacts were obviously from
argentina or other historically exploited countries).
At any rate, very interesting. Some more photos are
located here: http://www.smb.museum/smb/presse/image_list.php?id_gruppe=109〈=de&n=3

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