[artinfo] Fwd: Kunsthaus Zürich shows 'The Expanded Eye'

[Janos Sugar]

>Press Release
>Zürich, 23 March 2006
>
>Kunsthaus Zürich shows 'The Expanded Eye'
>
>From 16 June until 3 September 2006 Kunsthaus Zürich is showing 'The
>Expanded Eye', an exhibition looking at the ever-widening horizons of the
>human eye in the age of its physiologically and technologically extended
>faculties. The exhibition will comprise around 120 kinetic objects,
>paintings, film- and video installations from the 1940s to the present
>day. Alongside works by the Op Artist Bridget Riley, the Surrealist
>Salvador Dalí and the video artist Nam June Paik, there will also be newer
>works by artists such as Pierre Huyghe and Sam Taylor-Wood.
>'The Expanded Eye' directs the viewer's gaze to the adventurous,
>exploratory side of art. Four decades after 'The Responsive Eye' in the
>Museum of Modern Art, New York (1965), which presented Op Art to the
>viewing public, the artist's eye is urging ever onwards, untrammelled and
>with open relish. It reaches to the heights and to the depths, it probes
>micro and macro realms, and with its newly liberated gaze uncovers the new
>and the supposedly familiar. The title of the exhibition, chosen by
>Curator Bice Curiger, also recalls the book 'The Expanded Cinema' (1970),
>which explored new departures in experimental cinema and undertook a new
>form of structural analysis as cinema did away with timeworn clichés of
>seeing and experiencing.
>
>KINETIC OBJECTS, FILM- AND VIDEO INSTALLATIONS
>Marcel Duchamp and Hans Haacke are represented in the exhibition with
>kinetic objects; films by Maya Deren and Jud Yalkut are screened alongside
>video installations by Pipilotti Rist and Paul Pfeiffer. In addition to
>paintings by Josef Albers, Victor Vasarely and Bridget Riley, drawings by
>Henri Michaux, Markus Raetz and Thomas Bayrle, and spatial installations
>by Gianni Colombo, Otto Piene and Olafur Eliasson, there will also be
>premieres of works created especially for this exhibition by Jules
>Spinatsch and David Renggli. Works such as François Morellet's '40,000
>Squares' (1963), specially reconstructed for the exhibition, turn the
>spotlight on a form of art that, instead of providing a vehicle for
>idealistic contemplation, invites the viewer to enjoy a purely
>physiologically induced visual experience. In the programme of
>accompanying events, the Kunsthaus will screen 16-mm films by Stan
>Brakhage, Tony Conrad, Steina and Woody Vasulka, Peter Tscherkassky and
>others.
>
>THE EYE AND THE CHALLENGE TO OUR SENSE OF REALITY
>The eye is the dominant organ of our time; culture pays homage to our
>sense of sight, constantly increasing visual access and expanding into the
>most diverse universes - geographical, physical, astral, cultural, social,
>physiological. The eye is the measure with which we assess the world
>around us in the first - and often the last - instance. Satellite images,
>websites, livecams, microscopes and telescopes: vehicles that mobilise our
>sight and devices that aid our seeing have become second nature to us. Our
>capacity to virtually and in reality extend our physical reach and to
>enhance our organs of perception has instigated a fundamental,
>far-reaching change in our understanding of reality.
>
>FROM THE EXPANDED EYE TO THE COLLECTIVE I
>Concepts such as active/passive, subject/object, public/private, individual/
>collective have ceased to be distinctively different. Modern art underwent
>a similar process at the turn of the 20th century, when it found itself
>following a parallel track to the then latest scientific discoveries in
>fields ranging from physics (Cubism) to psychoanalysis (Surrealism),
>reflected in the exhibition with works by Marcel Duchamp and Josef Albers.
>There has always been art that responds to the sharpened vision of the
>contemporary sciences, that pressed forwards and posed questions.
>Kunsthaus Zürich is taking stock of the current state of affairs. For the
>delimitation of the eye has implications for the artists' understanding of
>their role, as long as they are actively empathetic towards their
>addressees. Art itself is always contemplated from outside. Its game is
>about exchange: the changing roles that result from changing perspectives.
>The 'expanded eye' becomes the 'collective I' and, as such, draws the
>viewer into its circle.
>
>LIST OF ARTISTS*
>Josef Albers, Thomas Bayrle, Monica Bonvicini, Gianni Colombo, Salvador
>Dalí, Marcel Duchamp, Olafur Eliasson, Karl Gerster, Ruprecht Geiger, Dan
>Graham, Hans Haacke, Birgit/Wilhelm Hein, Garry Hill, Pierre Huyghe,
>Carsten Höller, Jon Kessler, Peter Kubelka, David Lamelas, Malcolm Le
>Grice, Julio Le Parc, Max Matter, Christian Megert, Jonas Mekas, Henri
>Michaux, François Morellet, Ronald Nameth/Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic
>Inevitable, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik,Warren Neidich, Philippe Parreno,
>Markus Raetz, David Renggli, Pipilotti Rist, Gerry Schum, Robert Smithson,
>Jean Tinguely, James Turrell, Victor Vasarely, Jud Yalkut, Jean-Pierre
>Yvaral.
>
>* Subject to change
>
>  PUBLICATION
>The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with texts by Bice Curiger,
>Ina Blom, Diedrich Diederichsen, Kurt W. Forster, A.L. Rees and Rüdiger
>Wehner. Available in German and English, this publication - in the form of
>an anthology - contains artists' statements by Lucio Fontana and Josef
>Albers, as well as theoretical essays by authors including Rudolf Arnheim,
>Georg Kubler and Teilhard de Chardin, reflecting on art and perception
>research: 250 pages, 110 in colour, published by Hatje Cantz.
>
>The exhibition is supported by Swiss Re - Partner for contemporary art.
>
>VISITOR INFORMATION
>Kunsthaus Zürich, Heimplatz 1, CH - 8001 Zurich, www.kunsthaus.ch
>Opening times Tues - Thurs 10 a.m. - 9 p.m., Fri - Sun 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.,
>closed on Mondays
>Public Holiday: 1 August, open 10 a.m. - 5 p.m.
>Admission CHF 16.- / 10.- (concessions) / 12.- per head for groups of 20
>or more
>
>Advanced Ticket Sales
>Switzerland: Kombi-Ticket RailAway/SBB with 10% reduction on rail travel
>and entrance to the exhibition available at SBB stations and by calling
>Rail Service on 0900 300 300 (CHF 1.19/min.). Groups rates also available.
>Magasins Fnac, Tel. +33 1 4157 3212, www.fnac.ch
>France: Magasins Fnac, Carrefour, Tel. 0892 684 694 (0.34 ¤/min.),
>www.fnac.com
>Belgium: Magasins Fnac, Tel. 0 900 00 600 (0.45 ¤/min.), www.fnac.com
>
>
>For further information and visual materials, please contact
>Kristin Steiner
>kristin.steiner at kunsthaus.ch
>Tel. +41 (0)44 253 84 13