Official Opening / Inauguration

06.06.2017 - 28.06.2017

foundation, Wien / Österreich

Emotional relation, affectivity and memory of a space meet questions of structure of the architectural and institutional space.

The exhibition Official Opening / Inauguration seeks for the bare and hidden outlines of art institutions, by focusing on the spatial and historical implications of Foundation. In its ambivalence of being a project space as well as a space for living, it explores the possibilities and interdependencies offered by these two distinctively defined conceptions. Within the first show the incorporation of institutional parameters, the act of inauguration, is celebrated in a festive moment: After the first hour of waiting in the courtyard, the guest of honor finally cuts the ribbon and the show is opened in an performative act....

Inside institutional representation is further anticipated by the inscription of a white cube, but also questioned through generating frictions and voids within the continuum of the space. Contrasting materials exaggerate the moment of staging and provide polarities throughout the exhibition. The setup provides a structure and institutional invocations to house the eight artistic practices of the Official Opening / Inauguration, which derive from different origins but often coincide on common grounds.

In this sense temporal relations are not only understood as part of a spatial momentum, but further formulate questions of affectivity, emotional relations and memory. Desire serves as motor for personal interest and often leads to modifications of ones surrounding. Those efforts touch the spheres of the personal as well as the institutional and therefore provide the poles in which the show oscillates: an overly of intimate and affective readings with structural and spatial narratives.

The articulation of a vehicle to explore modes of representation starts to stress moments of staging invoked within the show. This conception opens up to methods based in transgression, inscription and camouflage. Therefore shifts in meanings and slippages of space and time are performed on different levels throughout the show. The artworks in the show link to these parameters and transfer them into their own self-referential realm: A possibility for further explorations is laid through the first show Official Opening / Inauguration.

[Quelle: www.foundationvienna.com]