Otros artistas participantes: Julian Rosefeldt, Allan Sekula, Anetta Mona Chisa et Lucia Tkácová, Andreas Siekmann

The way things are?

ARTISTS: Julian Rosefeldt, Allan Sekula, Los Carpinteros, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová, Andreas Siekmann

To celebrate its institutional opening as Poland´s first newly erected venue dedicated to contemporary art since 1939, Centre of Contemporary Art in Torun invited Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary to present works from the foundation´s collection as part of the inauguration exhibition.

The selection of artworks drawn from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Foundation (T-B A21) explores the question of artistic representation of today´s ever more precarious work spheres within advanced economies. The dramatic but also multi-voiced work histories, as narrated or presented by Julian Rosefeldt, Allan Sekula, Los Carpinteros, Anetta Mona Chisa & Lucia Tkácová and Andreas Siekmann result from radical shifts in production and work processes, such as the outsourcing of services to migrant workers, often sans papiers, and from larger social re-stratifications reflecting the changing orders of social representation. These histories are the symptoms of transitional states, where larger, planetary readjustments create localized distortions and conditions of morbidity and entire sectors of skilled labor are at risk of displacement or disappearance.

The exhibition is complemented by a daily film program True [Hi]stories of Work, consisting of films and videos both from the holdings of T-B A21 and many other selected video and filmic works framing the topic within various geographical and contextual parameters.

Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Founded in Vienna in 2002 by Francesca von Habsburg, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary represents the fourth generation of the Thyssen´s family´s dedication to the arts. The foundation is committed to supporting the production of contemporary art and actively engaged in commissioning and disseminating unconventional projects. T-B A21 sustains a far-reaching regional and international orientation and explores modes or presentation that are intended to broaden the way viewers perceive and experience art.

The exhibitions Other than Yourself currently on view in T-B A21´s space at Himmelpfortgasse and Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary. Collection as Aleph at Kunsthaus Graz are thematic manifestations of the foundation´s collection. The new commission by Matthew Ritchie/Aranda Lasch The Morning Line in the scope of the Art Pavilions project will bring about major participations in this year´s Biennales of Venice and Sevilla.

Exhibition sponsor: Meinl Airports International

The Way Things Are... Works from the Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary Collection
Published by Centre of Contemporary Art "Znaki Czasu", Torun, -Poland
Edited by Daniela Zyman, Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary, Vienna
Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Köln
With contributions by Konstantin Akinsha, Francesca von Habsburg, Barbara Horvath, Brigitte Huck, Joachim Jäger, Stefan Mucha, Daniel Muzyczuk, Saskia Sassen, Andrzej Stasiuk, Eugenio Valdés Figueroa, Daniela Zyman
216 pages, english/polish

ISBN: 978-3-86560-485-9
Price: ?22.00

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Los Carpinteros are a collective of (currently) two Cuban artists travelling the world as a ?Carpenters? Guild? who have forged a reputation with their humorous take on the world. They invent all kinds of things, ranging from houses of stacked cardboard boxes, a transportable city and an inflatable highway to simpler objects that for example easily relinquish their original functions as furnishings and therewith their meaning. Los Carpinteros act as designers and craftsmen, constructing their own world as a paraphrase of the present. Sometimes there is something surreal about it. The frozen moment of breaking through a wall stops short of an almighty disaster effect and seems to be petrified in a special state of weightlessness, in which time and space have lost every meaning. The black humour and absurdity inherent in the works are certainly just the ticket to help us see things differently for once.
(Text: Monika Holzer-Kernbichler)

Espejos de agua (Water Mirrors) continues Los Carpinteros inventions of hybridized interior furnishings infused with new meaning. At first glance, the six wooden drafting tables each with six black desk lamps?appear quite ordinary. Upon closer inspection one realizes that the lights are reflecting not on a piece of glass, but on a shallow pool of water, subverting the usual function of the table as a place to make drawings. Each individual table alludes to the nature of the artistic process and becomes a visual pun about the difficulty and even impossibility of rendering, of drawing upon ideas and making them palpable. With the ubiquitous presence of water and the precarious, potentially unstable tables, one may also imagine the installation as a reference to Cuba?the constantly shifting conditions of the island and the artists who work there.