Natalia and Julia, 2011 © Pawel Althamer, courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
Paweł Althamer brings his strange, unwordly beings down to earth at Italy's Museion of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano
The Polyethylene exhibition marks the artist's first individual show at a major Italian art institution. Curated by Letizia Ragaglia, it is based on the idea of "science fiction meets Baroque", presenting a crowd of eerie sculptures of beings from another, unknown civilisation. The collection of beings fill the entire fourth floor exhibition space at the museum. The figures were created for the Almech exhibition at the Deutsche Guggenheim in Berlin last year, a project that was the fruit of a collaboration between the museum and and the Almech company - a small factory that produces plastic parts, founded by the artist's father in Wesoła, outside of Warsaw. In Berlin the artist created a virtual offshoot of his father's company, making realistic sculptures of the staff of Deutsche Guggenheim, Deutsche Bank and the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as the museum's visitors.
Paweł Althamer worked with Almech employees to make facial casts of the models and then placed them on metal skeletons. Then the sculptures were coated with polyethylene produced by machines imported from Poland, giving them the characteristic alien palor and an unwordly quality. The pieces compose a spectral, somnambulistic crowd of workers and visitors. As in Althamer's other works, these figures seem to dream about a different reality, yet - as a group - comprise a monument of collective experience.
The project references a range of sculptural heritage, from classical to Baroque sculpture, the Middle Ages and science fiction stories and films. The sculptures are hard to miss, evoking surreal associations derived from a rather commonplace subject - a group of typical manual labourers that carry their own individual stories as well as the collective experience. Althamer proposes a new language for contemporary sculpture based on new materials, new textures, new arrangements and a new way of thinking about the model, the artist and the institution.
Museion Bolzano also presents the first edition of the ongoing Common Task project. The artist arrives in Italy with about 20 of his friends, relatives and neighbours, arriving in a gold bus. Dressed as visitors from another world in golden space suits, the performers explore the streets of Bolzano and the Tyrol region and find out about local traditions. The performance takes place in "real time" and its outcome depends on the interaction between the visitors and their local environment, also impacted by the existing social and cultural background of both the visitors and the local population. The project in Bolzano is part of the broader Common Task initiative started up in 2008, which the artists has since brought across Poland, Europe and the world.
Paweł Althamer (born 1967) is a sculptor and performance artist working in video, installation and action art. Born on May 12, 1967 in Warsaw and resides in Warsaw. From the beginning of his artistic career, Althamer worked in various media, from classic performance techniques, happenings and "action" art to the discipline he founded his education on: sculpture.
The two projects are accompanied by a trilingual (Italian, German, English) catalogue, with essays by Letizia Ragaglia, Andrea Viliani, and Sebastian Cichocki, published by Mousse Publishing.
Paweł Althamer - Polyethylene is on at the Museion of Modern and Contemporary Art in Bolzano between the 26th of May - 26th of August (opening 25th of May at 7:00 pm). Common Task Bolzano takes place between the 23-25th of May, with a talk by the artist on the 24th of May at 7:30 pm.
Museion's institutional partners are Provincia Autonoma di Bolzano, Alto Adige, the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Bolzano, and the MUSEION Partners. Pawel Althamer, Common Task, Bolzano (2012) event supported by Fiorucci Art Trust.
Munich's Sammlung Goetz is also hosting an exhibition of works by Paweł Althamer between the 29th of May - 6th of October 2012. His works are also currently on show at the 2012 Berlin Biennale (27.04-01.07) and the Kiev Biennale (18.05-07.09).
Museion of Modern and
Contemporary Art Bolzano
Via Dante 6, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
www.museion.it
Thumbnail credit: Pawel Althamer, Matthias, Heidrun, Holger, Andreas, Eleanor, René and Fabio, 2011 © Pawel Althamer, courtesy neugerriemschneider, Berlin and Foksal Gallery Foundation, Warsaw. Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin