IDEAL CITY INVISIBLE CITIES
Curated by Sabrina van der Ley and Markus Richter / European Art Projects
Patron: Matthias Platzeck, Prime Minister of Brandenburg
Preview: 8 September, noon 6 pm
Opening: 8 September, 6-10 pm
Symposium: 9 September, noon-5 pm
In just a few weeks the second part of the exhibition Ideal City Invisible Cities will open. Forty-one international artists will reflect from 8 September 2006 onward the ideal city and its sibling, the invisible city in Potsdam, Germany:
Tarek Al-Ghoussein, Francis Alys, Carl Andre, Archigram, Colin Ardley, Tim Ayres, Miroslaw Balka, Daniela Brahm, Pedro Cabrita Reis, Rui Calcada Bastos, Constant, Jonas Dahlberg, Tacita Dean, Jaroslaw Flicinski, Carlos Garaicoa, Dan Graham, George Hadjimichalis, Rula Halawani, Franka Hoernschemeyer, Craigie Horsfield, Katarzyna Jozefowicz, Jakob Kolding, Ola Kolehmainen, Lucas Lenglet, Sol LeWitt, David Maljkovic, Gerold Miller, Matthias Mueller, Teresa Murak, Brian OConnell, Daniel Roth, Albrecht Schaefer, Kai Schiemenz, Les Schliesser, Melanie Smith, Monika Sosnowska, David Tremlett, Anton Vidokle, Lawrence Weiner, Tilman Wendland, Krzysztof Zielinski
A central concern of the exhibition is to confront the artists with two plans of Ideal Cities, or with what has survived of them to this day. Not only the two historical cities but also the underlying invisible cities, hidden by time and history became the points of reference for the works of contemporary artists from twelve European and six non-European countries.
After its first venue in Zamosc, Poland, an extraordinary treasure of late Renaissance architecture, Ideal City Invisible Cities now moves on to the baroque town of Potsdam. Unlike Zamosc whose old town is almost completely preserved, Potsdam has seen major changes during the centuries. Potsdams old centre was almost entirely destroyed in WW II and parts of the early baroque city extensions including the citys castle were subsequently torn down. Today Potsdams new centre is a melange of restored baroque architecture and buildings from the sixties to the present, more a collage than an ideal or even planned city.
The artists working site-specifically will react to the disparate body of the city and insert their work in public spaces and buildings, courtyards or squares. Most projects are characterized by a distanced, critical and sometimes even ironic way of dealing with the planned urban space. The artists are seeking ways to transpose the pre-existing historical situation into their present and their experience of the city. They are reacting to the city as an artificial body, to which they are adding something, partially completing it, filling a gap. They explore the psychogeography of the city or pursue urban archaeology. They are analysing structures, grids, proportions and functions, making them the basis of their interventions. Monika Sosnowska places a dirty fountain in the wilderness of Staudenhof, while Miroslaw Balka sculpture reflects wounds, deeply cut during the second World War. Daniela Brahm and Colin Ardley determine squares and public spaces anew, Franka Hoernschemeyer comments with her installation on the grid of the city plan and Lucas Lenglet creates a sombre Potsdam columbarium for the garden of an apartment building. Les Schliesser continues to narrate the story of his fictive Zamosc born architect Mikolaj Chrupkowski now working in Potsdam, Jakob Kolding points out the traps of functional city planning with a poster project and Craigie Horsfield introduces a site-specific sound installation. Tilman Wendlands installation at Brandenburgischer Kunstverein sculpturally analyzes ideal city plans of the moderns Le Corbusier, Niemeyer and Hansen and Jaroslaw Flicinski will install a large wall painting at the gallery of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam.
Besides the site specific interventions works by 25 artists relating to the main themes of the exhibition including architectural critique, memory and the grid will be shown in altogether five exhibition venues: Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, the gallery of the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, a historical residential building, an old military hospital and the former theatre building..
All in walking distance, the exhibition will cover a trail through Potsdams first and second baroque city extensions from 8 September, 2006 until 29 October, 2006.
Ideal City – Invisible Cities is funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation.
Further generous support is kindly provided by the Adam Mickiewicz Institute, Warsaw and the City of Zamosc. Additional funds thanks to the British Council, Berlin; Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Lisbon; Filigran Group, Leese, Ford Foundation, Cairo; Henry Moore Foundation, Perry Green; Instituto das Artes, Lisbon; Luso-American Foundation, Lisbon; Mondriaan Stichting, Amsterdam, Paschal-Werk G. Maier GmbH, Steinach and Wienerberger Ziegelindustrie, Hannover.
Project Partners Potsdam: Brandenburgischer Kunstverein, Potsdam; Filmmuseum Potsdam, Foundation Grosses Waisenhaus zu Potsdam; Greige Buero fuer Design, Berlin; Hans-Otto-Theater, Potsdam; Haus der Brandenburgisch-Preussischen Geschichte, Potsdam; University of Applied Sciences, Potsdam; Zentralverband Sanitaer, Heizung, Klima; Potsdam.
For images and further information please view www.idealcity-invisiblecities.org or contact Anne Maier at European Art Projects, Tel. 49-30-30 38 18 37, Fax 49-30-30 38 18 30, am@european-art-projects.com
