stars cosmic art from 1900 up to the present...3 exhibition facts exhibition title stars cosmic art...

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, A-4021 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1

Tel: +43 (0)732.7070-3600 Fax: +43 (0)732.7070-3604 www.lentos.at

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Information Sheet

STARS

Cosmic Art from 1900 up to the Present

29 September 2017 until 14 January 2018

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Content

Exhibition Facts ………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Press Text …………………………………………………………………………………… 5

Exhibiton Plan .…………………………………………………………………………….. 6

Programme .…………………………………………………………………………….. 8

Exhibiton Booklet .…………………………………………………………………………….. 8

Press Images…………………………………………………………………………………… 22

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Exhibition Facts

Exhibition Title STARS

Cosmic Art from 1900 up to the Present

Exhibition Period 29 September 2017 until 14 January 2018

Opening Thursday, 28 September 2017, 7 pm

Press Conference Thursday, 28 September 2017, 10:00 am

Exhibition Venue LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, upper floor

Curators Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Curator

Sabine Fellner, Curator

Exhibits The exhibition presents around 130 works including paintings,

photographs, sculptures, objects, graphics, films and video installations

of 91 artists from the 20th and 21st centuries. The show is divided into

seven chapters: Prologue, Lichtsmog, Threat, Sublime, Romanticism,

Leittern and Cosmology.

Publication The exhibition is accompanied by the publication Stars. Cosmic Art

from 1900 until Today. Edited in Verlag für moderne Kunst. With a

foreword from Hemma Schmutz and texts by Sabine Fellner, Thomas

Macho, Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Ute Streitt and Margit Zuckriegl in

German language, price: € 29

Sponsor

Contact Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1, 4020 Linz, Tel. +43(0)732/7070-3600;

[email protected], www.lentos.at

Opening Hours Tue–Sun 10 am to 6 pm, Thur 10 am to 9 pm, Mon closed

Architecture/Exhibition Silvia Merlo

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.lentos.at/

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Admission € 8; concessions € 6

Press Contact Clarissa Ujvari, T +43(0)732.7070.3603, [email protected]

Available at the Press Conference:

Doris Lang-Mayerhofer, Commissioner of Cultural Affairs for the City of Linz

Hemma Schmutz, Artistic Director LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz

Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, Curator

Sabine Fellner, Curator

mailto:[email protected]

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Exhibition Plan

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Art Education Programme and Events

PUBLIC GUIDED TOUR

every Sunday and Tuesday, 4 pm

duration 1 hour, costs € 3, exclusive admission, german only

FLASHLIGHT GUIDED TOUR

every 1st Saturday in a month at 4 pm

in english, duration 30 Min, € 2, no admission fee

GUIDED TOUR WITH THE CURATORS

Thursday 5 October, 7 pm

with Sabine Fellner and Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller, german only

GUIDED TOUR FOR DEAF MUSEUM VISITORS

every 1st Saturday in a month at 4 pm

Friday 29 September (espacially for deaf seniors)

with sign language interpreter

admission and guided tour free for deafs

BABY-TOUR

Tuesday 10 October, 10.30 am

Mummy, Daddy, Baby. Cool! A relaxed guided tour through the exhibition.

Buggy, baby carrier and baby bottle welcome.

Duration: 1 hour, costs: museum ticket, Please register under T 0732 7070 (Teleservice Center der Stadt Linz)

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Exhibition Booklet

PROLOGUE

The stars have always fascinated poets, astrologers, philosophers and scientists; artistic engagement with the

stars is manifold – descriptive, associative, conceptually poetic, and symbolically minimalistic.

Julia Bornefeld

* 1963 in Kiel, Germany

The Ephemeral, 2016

Courtesy Galerie Elisabeth and Klaus Thoman Innsbruck / Vienna

With this glittering chandelier made of thousands of one-cent coins, stars rain down from the sky. The

shining light object, reminiscent of a luxurious chandelier of old, fulfills many functions. It is at once a lamp, a

light sculpture, and a consumptioncritical decorative object of value. The copper coins that first become

recognizable at a closer look, painstakingly bored through and threaded, make us aware of the transience of

values, as the word “ephemeral” means fleeting or impermanent. The Ephemeral also refers to the fairy-tale

“The Star Talers” by the Brothers Grimm, in which a pious girl gives her last shift to a poor person: “And thus

she stood there, with nothing left at all, when suddenly some stars fell down from heaven, and they were

nothing else but hard shining talers, … Then she gathered together the money into it, and was rich all the

days of her life.” It is only a shame that the European banks plan to get rid of the “valueless”

one- and two-cent coins soon!

Jason Dodge

* 1969 in Newton, Pennsylvania, USA

In Alytus, Lithuania, Janina Krulikauskiene wove silk

into linen the color of a snowy night and city lights and

the distance from the earth to above the weather.

Kunsthalle Bielefeld

“Everything is already there in the things,“ says Jason Dodge. The artist has dealt extensively with

Heidegger’s “thing-in-itself“ and American poetry, such as that by William Carlos Williams. The artist, whose

work was already presented in an exhibition in LENTOS in 2013, combines seemingly everyday objects with a

poetic title. The objects may seem so familiar that one does not notice their presence or may not consider it

remarkable. Dodge’s selected objects, like the folded blanket here, need some attention so that something –

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inspired by the lyrical title – is set in motion in the viewer’s mind. In Alytus, Lithuania, Janina Krulikauskiene

wove silk into linen the color of a snowy night and city lights and the distance from the earth to above the

weather. The title tells of a certain activity and situation. It has the effect of a mysterious note, which could

be the start of a fairy-tale-like story. The year of its creation is purposely not indicated, which makes the

work we viewers create timeless.

LIGHT POLLUTION

Darkness, which has always been regarded as a symbol of evil and threat, has been banished by artificial

light. Urban illumination meanwhile outshines the stars and deprives us of the view of the Milky Way,

shooting stars, and comets.

Thierry Cohen

* 1963 in Paris, France

Shanghai, Paris, Sao Paulo, 2011/2012

Courtesy of the artist, Danzinger Gallery, New York and Esther Woerdehoff

Gallery Paris

The stillness of dark cities is the starting point for Cohen’s photographs. In the series Darkened Cities he dives

into total darkness in big cities. This makes them seem oddly dead and abandoned. He stretches a sky of

twinkling stars above them. This results in pictures with an inescapable fascination, familiar and yet strange.

But then we realize we are no longer familiar with this starry sky in our cities. Above three selected cities,

Cohen suggests the endlessness of the starred firmament that no longer exists. For he only finds the fantastic

sky by traveling – always following the same latitude of the selected cities – to the most remote places in the

world. He abruptly demonstrates to us the consequences that the loss of the starred firmament has for us.

Grazia Toderi

* 1963 in Padua, Italy

Orbite Rosse (Red Orbits), 2009

Collection Füsün & Faruk Eczacibasi, Istanbul

The artist links the light of cities with that of the stars, the light of the sky with that of the earth. In her

gigantic double-projection video, the line of separation blurs that is otherwise provided by the horizon.

Viewers are immersed in an endless, spectacular, redish sea of light, the sources of which cannot be clearly

distinguished. Are stars glowing here or rockets or the flood of light from urban space? The booming sound

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makes it quite clear that the visual maelstrom must be the depiction of a metropolis. Italo Calvino’s book

Invisible Cities, but also Jacopo de Barbari’s fantastical map of Venice, created about 1500, influenced Toderi.

With Orbite Rosse, shown in 2009 at the 53rd Venice Biennale, the artist calls attention to the problem of

worldwide light pollution, to the disenchantment of the night illuminated by stars due to the omnipresence

of light.

THREAT

Sometimes we are directly confronted with messengers from the universe, when comets streak past the

earth and meteorites hit the surface of the earth.

Barbara Anna Husar

* 1975 in Feldkirch, Austria

Meteorite Snare, 2011

Courtesy Galerie Maximilian Hutz, Lustenau

At a closer look, the wild wire form turns out to be a collection of used deep-fry baskets. Then when we read

the title Meteorite Snare, the artist’s not entirely seriously meant intention becomes apparent: capturing the

solid bodies from outer space. For a limited period of time, the installation adorned the facade of the studio

of the Austrian Broadcasting Corporation in Vorarlberg. The used deep-fry baskets are from voluntary

donors. In exchange for a deepfryer basket, donors received a certificate with its own “wire to space”. Husar

envisions the provincial studio as a spaceship – which is hardly unreasonable, due to the form of the building

– and the Meteorite Snare also as a tentacle for information from outer space.

Iv Toshain

*1980 in Sofia, Bulgaria

Nomos Basileus, 2015

Shooting Star – Kate Moss, 2016

Loan by the artist

An over-sized morning star, the symbol for Venus, evening star and Lucifer, ominously catches your eye

immediately. The globe pierced by twenty-one spikes bears the neon lighted sign “NOMOS BASILEUS”

(Greek: the law is king) or – if you circle around the globe from the other side – BASILEUS NOMOS (Greek: the

king is the law). Toshain refers to a text by the poet Pindar (518– 446 BCE) about the deeds of Hercules. The

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work refers to rights and violence and to historical and present military conflict. No less ominous and

emotionally impressive is the second exhibited work by Toshain. The beautiful face of the model Kate Moss is

pierced by throwing stars (shuriken) and thus virtually shredded. The title Shooting Star is intentionally

ambiguous. The artist plays with the smooth flawlessness of the star; as the replica is wounded, the

untouchable celebrity becomes human and vulnerable.

Nives Widauer

* 1965 in Basel, Switzerland

MeteoRita, 2013

Loan by the artist

Fortunately, no meteorite has fallen on this lady’s head. It almost seems as though it has always belonged as

a perfectly fitting headdress to this female figure from the South Sea, which Widauer discovered during her

world travels. A meteorite becomes dangerous when it enters our field of gravity. This does not seem to

affect MeteoRita. The light wooden figure stands upright, although she is wearing a heavy stone on her head.

Her straight axis is further emphasized by the mirror she stands on. The artist had an aha-experience many

years ago in the Natural History Museum in Vienna. Faced with the fallen meteorite exhibited there, she has

the idea of inviting researchers to publish a book together about the stones from space. At that time,

Widauer enjoyed signing her emails as MeteoRita. The artist has long been interested in space research and

overcoming gravity. This is also evident in Constellations II in the chapter “Romance”: In lace doilies the

cosmos spreads from inside to the outside.

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THE SUBLIME

The sublimity of the endless starry sky evokes wonder and awe. Artistic approaches explore this sense of

awe, revel in utopias, subject it to critical analysis, distance themselves with wit and irony, but also enter into

direct dialogue with science.

Thomas Feuerstein

* 1968 in Innsbruck, Austria

Angeldust, 2003

Stiftung MUSEION, Museum für moderne und zeitgenössische Kunst Bozen

Do we see constellations? Bright stars grouped together against the firmament? Andromeda, Ursa Major,

Phoenix, Orion oder Cassiopeia? Constellations can

be traced back to early cultures. They served orientation and were useful for journeys by sea. But fentanyl,

procaine, desipramine, morphine or haloperidol are certainly no constellations. They are narcotics or pain

relievers used for pain therapy, depression or shizophrenia. LSD and heroin, on the other hand, are

categorized as illegal drugs. Angeldust – or phencyclidine – as in the title of the work, has been used since

1926 as an anesthetic in vetrinary medicine, but it is also considered a drug. In 1979 Angeldust triggered a

rampage by a schoolgirl in San Diego. The artist represents the chemical composition, the formula of these

substances on a black ground with white dots. The journey to the stars begins with consciousness-expanding

substances.

Anselm Kiefer

* 1945 in Donaueschingen, Germany

The Starry Heavens Above Me and Moral Law Within Me, 1997

Courtesy Albertina, Vienna, Inv.-Nr. DG2016/19

The title of this large, black woodcut collage is a quote from Kant. The form is reminiscent of a winged altar

with predella (Italian: step). Was Kiefer perhaps thinking here of famous predellas (Grünewald, The

Entombment of Christ or Dix, Der Krieg)? In the predella before us, a reclining man – the artist himself – is

depicted, who is currently in a state of transformation. The stars are twinkling above him. After relocating to

the south of France, Kiefer reorientated himself thematically: he is now interested in themes revolving

around the link between microcosm and macrocosm, from quantum physics through Buddhism, Jewish

mysticism,´all the way to the philosophy of Robert Fludd. “When we look inside ourselves, we see a cosmos

that in its small form is just as large as the cosmos in space,” explains Kiefer in a video for the exhibition

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Die Holzschnitte in the Albertina in 2016. Kiefer reanimates the traditional technique of the woodcut. Works

like this collage of manually printed woodcuts are intended to appeal to all the senses.

Gerhard Richter

* 1932 in Dresden, Germany

Constellation, 1969

Museum Frieder Burda, Baden-Baden

Richter, who began his studies in 1951 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Dresden, is a painter. He created

Constellation in 1969, eight years after fleeing from the GDR to West Berlin. He painted it at a time when

painting was accused of being bourgeois and pronounced dead in artistic circles. The art world was busy with

Minimal Art, Land Art and Conceptual Art instead. Rooted in this spirit of the times, Richter distances himself

from his motifs and questions whether any kind of knowledge value can even be attributed to pictures at all.

At first he painted from photographs, e.g. from magazines. Or he drew stars by tracing them from astronomy

atlases. In Constellation, created during the work phase of his Gray Pictures, he paints what cannot even be

imagined: the endless expanse of the starry sky. Or is it just white paint dotted on wet black paint after all?

Ugo Rondinone

* 1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland

MAYTWENTYFOURTHTWOTHOUSANDTWELVE, 2012

Courtesy Krobath, Vienna

One of Rondinone’s most important themes is that of time. When the artist gives one of his works a date as a

title, then it is like a personal diary entry for him. The division into days, months and years gives the artist a

sense of

orientation. Everyone associates their own experiences with a date. It is a fact that on 24 May 2012 the

private space transporter Dragon undertook its first supply journey to the International Space Station ISS. We

do not know whether Rondinone turned his gaze to the night sky on this date in this context. He has

created many complexes of work that have a date as a title, including pictures of clouds, windows,

landscapes, circles or stripes. Rondinone especially appreciates slowness. His works accordingly decelerate,

enable immersion and allow space for one’s own thoughts or memories.

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Thomas Ruff

* 1958 in Zell am Harmersbach, Germany

STE 2.14 (23h26m -60°C), 1992

Edition 1/2

Courtesy Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle, Munich

Ruff became interested in astronomy at an early age: he bought his first telescope when he was fourteen. In

1978 he applied for Bernd Becher’s photography class in Düsseldorf. Since then he has been convinced that

photography cannot depict reality. Rendering reality is consequently a result of the decision of the

photographer. With large-format portraits of the generation of the 1980s Ruff became a shooting star of the

photo scene. STE 2.14 (23h26m -60°C) is also a largeformat picture and thus belongs to the tradition of the

panel painting. It is part of the series Stars, on which Ruff worked from 1989 to 1992. 606 negatives from the

archive of the European Southern Observatory (ESO) served him as starting material. He selected certain

image excerpts and enlarged them. A firmament like this one is not visible to the human eye even through a

telescope. In reference to the starry sky, a depiction of reality through photography must still remain an

illusion too.

Birgitta Weimer

* 1956 in Gemünden, Germany

Messier 7, 13 and 38, 2012/2013

Private collection, Cologne

Weimer’s installation from the Messier Series immerses the space in glittering light. It consists of three

capsule-shaped objects on the floor, which project a magnificent sky of stars onto the surrounding walls. This

formation corresponds to the astronomical objects first cataloged by the French astrologist Charles

Messier (1730–1870). Messier was a “comet-chaser”. He discovered twenty comets and listed over a

hundred galaxies, star clusters and nebulae. On 16 November 1974, the astrophysicists Frank Drake and Carl

Sagan attempted to send a message to extraterrestrials using radio signals at the Arecibo Observatory in

Puerto Rico in conjunction with the research program SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence). The

globular cluster Messier 13 was selected as the most promising candidate for extraterrestrial intelligence,

because many stars are congregated in a small space. If a response comes from outer space, it will take

about 45,600 light years to reach the earth. Earthlings have been waiting for a reaction ever since. Aliens,

anyone out there?

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ROMANCE

Glittering stars in the night sky, stargazers, dream-readers, and the birth of a

star evoke desires, emotions, and romantic images.

Klemens Brosch

* 1894 in Linz; † 1926 in Linz, Austria

Milky Way, approx. 1916

Privately owned, Linz

Brosch, a drawing genius tormented by nocturnal visions and nightmares, attempted to capture the

impossible on paper: a depiction of the Milky Way. A major exhibition in the NORDICO City Museum and the

State Gallery of Linz was recently devoted to the graphic artist, addicted to morphine and cocaine, who

worked primarily in Linz. With pen in ink, Brosch drew thousands of tiny stars in the smallest format,

presumably with the help of a magnifying glass. On the lower right edge of the picture there is a surprise to

be discovered: The plant turns into a plant-like gnome, who approaches the universe, the starry heavens, and

even enjoys his insular existence. In the artist’s imagination, outer space is populated, as his painting

Observatory shows, by strange and busy aliens.

Katharina Lackner

* 1981 in Kirchdorf, Austria

Of Heroism and Adventures, 2010

NORDICO Stadtmuseum Linz

In her video installation Lackner explores the investigation of movement inthe universe. The tale of a journey

filled with desire and heroic stories is told inpoetic images. In a superimposition of videos projected onto a

drawing, cliché dand romantic notions collide. As though zooming in with a telescope, fade-insshow: an old

sailing master,

sounds of the sea, a double-decker, and a globe. The globe with geographic coordinates is doubled with disk-

like projections reminiscent of planets. Image parts vanish in the darkness, others appear again like a mirage.

Glittering stars finally spread out into a rain of stars falling onto the drawing. Lackner’s poetic installation

recalls the fairy-tale of The Star Talers, in which a pious girl give away her last shift and is richly rewarded by

heaven.

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Roman Scheidl

* 1949 in Leopoldsdorf, Austria

The Birth of a Star (Naissance d’une étoile), 1987

Loan Atelier Sonnenhof, Vienna

With wild brush strokes and red-blue contrasts, the painter links a dance scene with the birth of a star. When

a nuclear reaction is triggered, a star is born that rests in gas and dust clouds, so-called nebulae. This is

exactly the moment Scheidl shows. An explosion splits the night-blue sky, a young star glitters forth. On earth

a dancer assumes an extreme pose with wide-spread arms. Is she seeking shelter from the red, glowing lava

in a daring jump into the saving shadow of a tree? Is the planet doomed, which is dipped into a rush of

colors? When the earth burns up at some point with all its living creatures, new stars will emerge in space:

destruction is followed by a new beginning.

Kiki Smith

* 1954 in Nürnberg, Germany

Sky, 2012

Courtesy Pace Gallery, New York

Artists have always made it possible to experience dreams. Smith lets a female nude float up to the sky. Like

a swimmer, the young woman seems to fly into the universe with outstretched arms. Naked and free, past

the mighty mountains, large and small stars, accompanied by birds and butterflies, she leaves all earthly

goods behind as though in a dream. The Gobelin was produced at Magnolia Editions in Oakland/USA, in

jacquard technique in an edition of ten each. In 1805 the French weaver Jacquard invented a weaving

machine that made complicated patterns possible. Smith links old weaving techniques, digital technologies,

and romantic ideas. The versatile artist, who works with drawing, sculpture, glass painting, print graphics,

photography and tapestry, has presented her work several times at LENTOS. Again and again, the poetic

theme of “woman under stars” has a special significance.

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ORIENTATION

Planets and fixed stars were originally regarded as divine beings, whose tremendous power determined the

life of humans. The star as an aid to orientation already played a crucial role in seafaring, as well as in religion

and astrology.

Adriana Czernin

*1969 in Sofia, Bulgaria

Untitled, 2016

Courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Vienna

Decoratively filling a surface with geometrical patterns is part of the fine arts of many cultures. As the

starting point for her work, Adriana Czernin used a fragment from an Islamic ornament from the Ibn Tulun

mosque in Cairo from the thirteenth century. The fragment is currently in the Museum for Applied Art in

Vienna. To find the lost pattern of the fragment, Czernin conjoins existing dots and lines with a ruler. She

investigates the geometrical construction of the pattern in series. She focuses her attention on the stringency

of the system as well as on possible asymmetries, sometimes intentionally leaving out parts of the pattern.

This results in free forms that she contrasts with the ornamentally recognizable fragments. The symmetries

are broken, the statics transformed into dynamics, and the rigidness into movement.

Imi Knoebel

* 1940 in Dessau, Germany

Starry Sky – for Lola, 1970/2006

Private collection, Dusseldorf

In 1968 Knoebel, a student of Beuys, elevated a simple stretcher frame to an artwork. For Knoebel, with

Kazimir Malevich’s work Black Square on a White Ground everything in art had already been said and done.

For this reason he made use of the media of photography and light for his idea of dematerialized painting. In

1970, in a minimalist painterly gesture, he added a white dot to each of fifty-four photographs, which

together showed the stars of the northern and southern hemisphere. Attempting to find the dots is as futile

as the proverbial search for a needle in a haystack. Four years later, for the occasion of the birth of his

daughter, in Constellations – for Olga Lina, he made her just as immortal as Callisto from ancient mythology.

Together with her son Callisto was by Zeus in the sky as Ursa Major and Ursa Minor. The Constellations – for

Lola are dedicated to Knoebel’s granddaughter. Knoebel’s early conceptual work Constellations from 1970

thus tells, in its current version from 2006, a very poetic and very personal story.

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Emil Orlik

* 1870 in Prague, now Czech Republic; † 1932 in Berlin, Germany

Nighttime Journey on the Mediterranean Sea, early 20th century

Belvedere, Vienna

Orlik, who began teaching at the State Educational Institution of the Berlin Applied Arts Museum in 1905,

was always a traveling artist. He journeyed not only throughout Europe, but also in North Africa, China and

Japan. He was extremely versatile as an artist: he was a master of many print-graphic techniques and he

painted. He became especially well known for his Japaneseinspired color woodcuts. The painting Nighttime

Journey on the Mediterranean Sea was inspired by this and by his journeys. In the painting Orlik allows us to

take the perspective of the captain. The sailors relaxing on the deck seem to rely entirely on the helmsman.

For him, orientation is made easier by a bright navigation star in the distance.

Teresa Präauer

* 1979 in Linz, Austria

STARS. A Piece for Seven Monitors, 2016

Loan by the artist

Moving words are distributed across seven monitors. For her video installation Präauer was inspired by

geometric grids of the starry sky on the arched ceilings in churches. Her words appear in a dynamic of their

own and vanish again, while viewers follow them and are addressed directly. The award-winning author and

artist takes us along on a special journey to the stars. As in her novels Für den Herrscher aus Übersee, Johnny

& Jean, or Oh Schimmi, her writing style can be characterized as succinct and precise. With STARS, Präauer

started from the number seven, Miller’s famous number in the thesis that a human can only hold seven

plus/minus two chunks (of information) in short-term memory. The result is a poetic Piece for Seven

Monitors, which one will certainly remember.

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COSMOLOGY

Measuring and surveying the universe, its planets and stars has always occupied humanity. Artists

incorporate scientific photo and film material directly into their work and critically examine attributed roles

and gender positions in the scientific field.

Max Ernst

* 1891 in Brühl, Germany; † 1976 in Paris, France

Maximiliana or the Illegal Exercise of Astronomy, 1964

Sammlung Würth, Inv.-Nr. 3987

The World of the Simpleminded, 1965

Paris, Centre Pompidou – Musée national d’art modern – Centre de création

Industrielle

The Illegal Exercise of Astronomy, 1967

A film about Ernst Wilhelm Leberecht Tempel 1821–1889 with and for Max Ernst by Peter Schamoni, 12’

The Maximiliana, one of the most significant artist books of the twentieth century, is a joint work by Ernst

and the Russian poet Illiazd. Mysterious figures between poetic texts and secret writing – this 120-page book

is dedicated to a German amateur astronomer. Ernst deals with the astronomer Tempel, whose poem Der

Glöckner (“The Bell-ringer”) inspired the artist for this book, paintings, and a film with Peter Schamoni.

Maximiliana is the name of a planet that Tempel discovered in Venice. Even as a child, he wanted to become

a stargazer, but he was rejected in Germany for his lack of studies, so he went abroad. Ernst, who also had to

emigrate, was very touched by this. Secret writing in capital letters is linked with circles, wheels, spirals or

nebulae. Tempel’s poem Der Glöckner is presented in the middle section, other pages comment on his

research. Bird-fish creatures or fantasy figures perform mysterious dances. The texts are arranged in wave,

ray or zig-zag forms. Some figures recall Egyptian books of the dead, Indian cultures, secret codes or

invocation rituals. Along with dreams, the stars, the sun and the moon become recurrent themes.

Discovering the unconscious is often addressed. The artist uses the procedure of “écriture automatique”

(automatic writing), which can be observed in the film. The book and painting become a cosmos of dancing

stars. As Ernst said: “The brilliance of the stars is not reserved for the owners of

admission tickets!”

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Alicja Kwade

* 1979 in Katowice, Poland

Medium Median (Homo-Mensura), 2016

Courtesy of the artist, Whitechapel Gallery, London, König Galerie, Berlin,

kamel mennour, Paris and 303 Gallery, New York

The title of the mobile installation made of twenty-four smart phones soundslike a magic spell. “Medium”

comes from “middle”, “median” means the statistical average, “homo” means “human”, and “mensura”

means measure. The famous statement “man is the measure of all things” from Protagoras might come to

mind. What is meant with this title: the human and the human measure are small; reality is always made by

humans. This is what Kwade’s installation tells of, as it leads us into the middle of the universe. The iPhones

maintain contact with various satellites via GPS. These satellites enable the app Sky Guide (a digital star map)

to determine the position of the iPhones and thus also the position of each telephone in relation to the stars.

The original voice of the voice recognition software Siri tells us of the genesis, the story of the creation of the

world in seven days. The universe is large, the image of it on earth small. It is so small it fits on a smart phone

display. The information conveyed is made by humans. In comparison with the actual reality of the universe

it seems rather meager.

Aura Satz

* 1974 in Barcelona, Spain

Her Luminous Distance, 2014

Courtesy of the artist and Fridman Gallery, New York

Spheric sounds, flashing images of craters, stars, and women, triggered by a comparator. A similar device

with slide projectors and a rotating disk was used by astronomers to ascertain the difference between two

photographs of the night sky. Satz integrates this apparatus and uses slides from historical photo plates.

These show women astronomers, who worked in Harvard between 1890 and 1920 as “human computers”.

They had to measure the distance from the earth to countless stars. Henrietta Swan Leavitt (1868–1921) was

one of them. The deaf researcher, who was proposed for the Nobel Prize in 1925, soon recognized that there

are many galaxies. She cataloged around 2400 unknown stars. In 1912 she discovered the period–luminosity

relationship, a method for measuring the distance of galaxies. A crater on the moon, the Leavitt Crater, was

named after her. The blinking recalls a ping-pong game, but also the strenuous work routine of these

women. The installation is an important contribution to the history of forgotten women astronomers, who

achieved milestones in researching the universe.

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Katharina Sieverding

* 1944 in Prague, Czech Republic

Looking at the Sun at Midnight SDO/NASA (Blue), 2010–2015

Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Thomas Schulte, Berlin

The captivating appearance of a blue sun glows gigantically from inside LENTOSinto the urban space of the

Danube Promenade. The depiction on the LED screen consists of 200,000 4K satellite data from space. From

this, Sieverding animates a dynamic, almost four-hour-long continuous film loop of the “complementary

sun”. The records were made available to the artist by NASA. With the help of the “Solar Dynamics

Observatory” (SDO), a mission started in February 2010, it became possible to observe the star in the blue

spectrum of the satellite images. In her video installation Sieverding combines cosmic dimensions with

contemporary technology – a recurrent concept in the artist’s work.

Nicole Six

* 1971 in Vöcklabruck, Austria

Paul Petritsch

* 1968 in Friesach, Austria

The Sea of Tranquility, 2017

Loan by the artists

Here Six & Petritsch deal with space and time experiences. The artist duo’swork is always site-specific and

dialogical. Collection objects, such as the meteorite from Prambachkirchen found in 1932, are integrated in

the work, as well as a text quotation from Johannes Kepler. This quote describes his vision of a moon landing.

The Sea of Tranquility links the objects moon and earth with Kepler, the first footprints on the moon, and a

photo series. These were taken during a circumnavigation of the earth, which the artists traveled along an

abandoned race track near the prime meridian. Above the cement track, the glowing stripe of light is

recognizable as the sun, as a star. The title of the work is taken from the part that refers to the Apollo 11

mission in 1969, the first moon landing. The astronauts’ footprints, which are still visible today, were

transferred 1:1 to earth. Following instructions on the poster, you can follow the path of the moon mission.

22

Press Images

Press Images available for download at www.lentos.at.

Free use of press images only in conjunction with the relevant exhibition.

Angela Bulloch

Night Sky: Aquarius Pegasus. 12, 2012

Courtesy die Künstlerin, Esther Schipper,

Berlin und Simon Lee Gallery

London/Hong Kong

Katharina Sieverding

Looking at the Sun at Midnight SDO/NASA

(Blue), 2010 – 2015

Bildrecht Wien, 2017

© Katharina Sieverding, photo: © Klaus

Mettig, Bildrecht Wien, 2017

Julia Bornefeld

Ephemere, 2016

Courtesy Galerie Elisabeth und Klaus

Thoman Innsbruck/ Wien,

Bildrecht Wien, 2017

photo: Lena Kienzer

Alicja Kwade

Medium Median (Homo-Mensura), 2016

Courtesy the artist, Whitechapel Gallery,

London, König Galerie, Berlin, kamel

mennour, Paris und 303 Gallery, New

York

Foto: Roman März

23

Mohammed Qasim Ashfaq

FALLING STARS II, 2014

Courtesy the artist and Hannah Barry Gallery,

London; photo: Damian Griffiths

Anselm Kiefer

The starry sky above me and the moral law

within me, 1997

Albertina, Wien

Gerhard Rühm

To the Stars, 2016

Courtesy Privatsammlung, Köln, und

Christine König Galerie, Wien

photo: Reinhard Haider

Barbara Anna Husar

meteorite snaire, 2011

Courtesy Galerie Maximilian Hutz

Iv Toshain

NOMOS BASILEUS, 2015

Exhibition view Winterpalais Prinz Eugen,

Wien

Bildrecht Wien, 2017 © Iv Toshain, photo:

Markus Schieder

Adriana Czernin

Untitled, 2016

Courtesy Galerie Martin Janda, Wien

24

Exhibition view

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, 2017

photo: maschekS.

Max Ernst

Le monde des naïfs, 1965

Bildrecht Wien, 2017; photo: © Centre

Pompidou

Kiki Smith

Sky, 2011

© Kiki Smith, Courtesy Pace Gallery und

Magnolia Editions, photo: Kerry Ryan

McFate

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

25

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

Exhibition view


photo: maschekS.

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Facade, 2017

View: Katharina Sieverding, Looking at the Sun

at Midnight SDO/NASA, 2010 – 2015

photo: maschekS.

Elisabeth Nowak-Thaller (Curator),

Sabine Fellner (Curator)

Exhibition view: Stars. Cosmic Art from 1900

until today

photo: maschekS.

stars cosmic art from 1900 up to the present...3 exhibition facts exhibition title stars cosmic art...

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