Bodies–Cities

In this latest thematic exhibition of the collection, staged in collaboration with the Generali Foundation, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg examines the interpenetration of the city and the human body based on a selection of works by 25 international artists.

Cities have always been a stage and engine for art and social change, and as such have also emerged as a subject of artistic enquiry. Our cities are the product of human imagination and endeavor as well as the setting in which our bodies exist. Their urban architecture, ideologies and economies, the encounter between different cultures, identities, and social environments all form a terrain that influences the meaning and role of our bodies. In the exhibition Bodies–Cities. Collections and Excursions, the Museum der Moderne Salzburg looks at how artists have been exploring the interpenetration of the city and the human body since the 1960s. The social and political upheavals of this decade have changed our perception of the public realm and reverberate in art to this day. The 25 artists in this exhibition have cast the “urbanized” body into a medium to address political causes and existential concerns, an arena of discipline and rebellion, and an instrument for the exploration, occupation, and redefinition of urban spaces. Bodies–Cities is the 12th exhibition of the collection to be staged in collaboration with the Generali Foundation and brings together key works and rarely shown art from the collections of the Generali Foundation and the Museum der Moderne Salzburg with a selection of international loans.

“In this exhibition we not only explore how artists have examined the relationship between human beings and the city since the 1960s but we also consider the body’s relevance in today’s urban context, despite the shift from an analog to a digital space,” says Marijana Schneider, Curator. Jürgen Tabor, Generali Foundation Collection Curator, adds: “The confrontation between bodies and cities emerges as a central theme in the sociocritical works of the 1960s and 1970s in particular. Today it is once again forms of protest that demonstrate the significance of the body in urban space. Here a link exists between the past and the present that we are able to illustrate thanks to a selection of loans by young international artists.” Schneider and Tabor are presenting some 57 works and series of works—mostly photographs, videos, and performative pieces—organized into themes: the body as a medium through which to explore and reflect urban spaces, rhythms, and ways of life; the body as an instrument of confusion, subversion, and protest; the body and architecture in codefining interrelations; the role of intimate spaces and isolated spheres of life within the urban fabric, and, finally, social interaction as the fundamental component of urban life.

Works by Gerd Antz (1900 Remscheid, AT—1988 The Hague, NL), Anna Artaker/Meike S. Gleim (1976 Vienna, AT/1972 Wolfsburg, DE—Brussels, BE), Alice Creischer/Andreas Siekmann (1969 Gerolstein, DE—Berlin, DE/1961 Hamm, DE—Berlin, DE), Lili Dujourie (1941 Roeselare, BE—Ghent, BE), VALIE EXPORT (1940 Linz, AT—Vienna, AT), Isa Genzken (1948 Bad Oldesloe, DE—Berlin, DE), Dan Graham (1942 Urbana, IL, US—New York, NY, US), Ulrike Grossarth (1952 Oberhausen, DE—Berlin, DE and Dresden, DE), Luis Jacob (1971 Lima, PE—Toronto, CA), Allan Kaprow (1927 Atlantic City, NJ, US—Encinitas, CA, US), Renate Kowanz-Kocer (1954 Vienna, AT), Friedl Kubelka (1946 London, UK—Vienna, AT), David Lamelas (1946 Buenos Aires, AR—New York, NY, US and Brussels, BE), Gordon Matta-Clark (1943—1978 New York, NY, US), László Moholy-Nagy (1895 Bácsborsód, HU—1946 Chicago, IL, US), Inge Morath (1923 Graz, AT—2002 New York, NY, US), Adrian Piper (1948 Harlem, New York, NY, US—Berlin, DE), Martha Rosler (1943 Brooklyn, New York, NY, US—New York, NY, US), Allan Sekula (1951 Erie, PA, US—Los Angeles, CA, US), Marinella Senatore (1977 Cava de’ Tirreni, IT—Rome, IT and Paris, FR), Richard Serra (1939 San Francisco, CA, US—New York, NY, US), Johanna Tinzl (1976 Innsbruck, AT—Vienna, AT), Stephen Willats (1943 London, UK)

Curators: Marijana Schneider and Jürgen Tabor
Presented by Generali Foundation