One, No One and One Hundred Thousand

One, No One and One Hundred Thousand is an exhibition inspired by Oulipo’s literary strategies based on the idea of a “workshop of potential literature.” According to one of its founders, Raymond Queneau, Oulipo’s objective was to propose new “structures” for writers that are mathematical in nature, or to invent new artificial or mechanical procedures that could contribute to literary activity: props for inspiration or aids for creativity.

This notion of potentiality will be applied to the format of an exhibition—not as an assertion of what an exhibition should be, but as an attempt to uncover what it could be. An exhibition conceived as a “machine” that produces other exhibitions.

Nine artists were commissioned to create new works, which will then be presented in a display that can change continually according to the choice of the spectator. The works in the show will be diverse in scale, medium and material:
Darren Bader will propose an open combination of 8 and 12.
Jason Dodge will submit litter to be located in the space.
Phanos Kyriacou has produced six sculptures in the shape of water cooler bottles that can be handled.
Jonathan Monk will present some pieces of furniture by Franz West.
Marlie Mul will realize two scaled up hammers.
Adriana Lara will show a readymade employing time.
Amalia Pica will create a number of joyful works on paper.
Martin Soto Climent will contribute a colourful graffiti blind.
Lina Viste Grønli will exhibit four wooden letters on wheels.

The exhibition will open with a set-up designed by the curator. On from the day after the works will be deinstalled and placed back on top of their respective packaging. The space as such will remain empty, while the art works will be waiting to be installed in a different configuration. Each visitor will thus be invited to mount his or her own exhibition. A member of the Kunsthalle staff will afterwards document the new set-up with a number of photos, which all together will constitute the exhibition catalogue.

In addition to that, a singe Polaroid with an installation view will be taken to create a visual diary in progress of the exhibitions. Following Marcel Broodthaers’s motto “Every exhibition is one possibility surrounded by many other possibilities which are worth being explored,” the exhibition potentially presents an unlimited number of possible arrangements of works according to the exhibition’s duration and its number of visitors. It also investigates various aspects related to exhibition making and questions the authorship and authority of today’s curator. The main actor of the exhibition will be the spectator who will not act as a consumer but as a co-producer of the artists and the curator.

The legendary Raymond Queneau book A Hundred Thousand Billion Poems acts as a manifesto for this exhibition. The book consists of 14 groups of 10 lines of poetry each; the groups are ordered and the lines written in such a way that one may select one line from the first group, one line from the second group, and so on until 14 lines are selected. These 14 lines, read in the order of selection, will comprise a sonnet. Since there are 10 options for each of 14 choices, it follows that exactly 100,000,000,000,000 different sonnets may be produced using this method. It would take some 200,000,000 years to read them all when the reading takes place twenty-four hours a day. 

Artists: Darren Bader, Jason Dodge, Phanos Kyriacou, Adriana Lara, Jonathan Monk, Marlie Mul, Amalia Pica, Martin Soto Climent, Lina Viste Grønli

Curator: Luca Lo Pinto

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For further information please contact: Katharina Murschetz T+43 (0) 1 5 21 891221 / press [​at​] kunsthallewien.at