Carsten Nicolai
static fades
May 31st until August 1st, 2007
Haus Konstruktiv Zürich
Selnaustr. 25
8001 Zürich
T +0041 (0)44 217 70 80
F +0041 (0)44 217 70 90
info@hauskonstruktiv.ch
www.hauskonstruktiv.ch
The artist and musician Carsten Nicolai — also known as alva noto — is one of the most colourful and multifaceted personalities on the contemporary art scene. Nicolai has performed and created installations in many of the worlds most prestigious spaces including The Guggenheim NYC, MOMA San Francisco, MOMA Oxford, NTT Tokyo, and Venice Biennial Italy. His current exhibition ‘static fades’ at Haus Konstruktiv in Zurich furnishes him with the setting for his extraordinary concert ‘xerrox’.
Carsten Nicolai’s installations explore the boundaries of human sensory perception. They enable us to make auditive and visual experiences of phenomena such as sound and light frequencies and electromagnetic fields.
‘static fades,’ the artist’s first large solo exhibition in Switzerland — he was born in Chemnitz, Germany, in 1965 and now lives in Berlin — extends across three floors of Haus Konstruktiv. The list of Nicolai exhibitions worldwide is impressive. He is among just a few contemporary artists to produce satisfying works that explore tensions between the fields of art, science and sound.
Nicolai’s works are based on complex, interdisciplinary investigations and scientific observations. They provide acute insights into individual worlds of perception and sensation. Most of the pieces presented at Haus Konstruktiv are new, having been designed especially for these spaces throughout almost the entire past year. Despite their clear and spare formal idiom, these works are highly charged and atmospheric.
OPENING HOURS: Tuesday/Thursday/Friday 12 am to 6 pm, Saturday/Sunday 11 am to 6 pm, Monday closed
CATALOGUE: Carsten Nicolai — static fades, published by JRP Ringier Verlag
The exhibition is being sponsored by Zurich Group | Art Mentor Foundation Lucerne | Galerie EIGEN + ART Berlin/Leipzig | ewz | Lehrwerkstätte für Möbelschreiner, Baugewerbliche Berufsschule, Zürich | Schulthess Druck | rent a museum
Accompanying Carsten Nicolais exhibition we are presenting Volume 4 of our series ‘Visionary Collection’.
The Zurich Prize
Carsten Nicolai is the first artist to receive a newly created art award, the Zurich Prize, which will be awarded annually. Its conception is the result of close cooperation of the Zurich Group insurance company with Haus Konstruktiv. The Zurich Prize is perfectly suited to highlight this art institution’s specific mission, which is to reveal connections between classically Concrete-Constructivist and Contemporary positions in art.
The Zurich Prize is intended to express our appreciation of a younger generation’s artistic positions, and to provide some support to the autonomous artistic expression of a male or female artist who has already made a lasting impression on the national and international contemporary art scene. Prize money of CHF 80,000 — to be invested in a solo exhibition at Haus Konstruktiv and a substantial publication by JRP Ringier Verlag — makes it one of Europe’s most highly endowed art awards. The award ceremony will be held at Art Basel.
From 2008 onwards, a highly qualified jury will nominate the winner of the Zurich Prize. Jury members are Dorothea Strauss, Director, Haus Konstruktiv (President); Samuel Keller, Director, Art Basel, and designated Director, Fondation Beyeler; Annette Kulenkampff, CEO, Hatje Cantz Verlag; Gianfranco Verna, gallery owner; David Weiss, artist; and Markus Hongler, CEO, Zurich Switzerland. Each year, five independent, world-renowned curatorial advisors will submit artist nominations.
For this year’s launch of the Zurich Prize, the Zurich Group and Haus Konstruktiv decided to give it a clear profile by awarding the prize to Carsten Nicolai. To quote Dorothea Strauss, Director of Haus Konstruktiv, ‘Carsten Nicolai meets our award criteria to an exemplary and extraordinary degree. Reflecting the Classical Avantgarde’s universalist and societally relevant positions, his works are a perfectly contemporary treatment of these issues.’
alva noto — xerrox concert at Haus Konstruktiv
July 13tth, 2007, 7.30 pm
Sound artist Carsten Nicolai — also known as alva noto – has established himself as a leading member in the realm of electronic sound and visual designers whom are using art and music as hybrid tools to create microscopic views of creative processes.
0riginals are unique, be it genetic codes or image and sound documents. Their copies are mere means of distribution. to secure these originals from misuse is the main issue today. The essence and potential of the copy mostly is disregarded. We live in a world of constant reproduction where only the replication counts as original, the single object is a sheer copy of the prefiguration, which is abstract and becomes an icon. By the technique of copying the copy also often contains mistakes and abstractions, that differ from the original. These simplifications and deformations inherent to the copy process lead to a gradual loss of its connection to the original and results in a substantial change of meaning.
On ‘xerrox’, alva noto works with samples from muzak, advertising, soundtracks and entertainment programs. These sounds we hear randomly in everyday life and thereby they become an always present and available public domain. With ‘xerrox’ alva noto manipulates these recognizable melodic (micro) structures by the process of copying. He alienates them beyond recognition so the results manifest their connection to the original only suggestively. In this respect: the original is copied to the original.
The concert is being sponsored by the Zurich Group.
For further information concerning the exhibition and the concert see also:
