Form Matters, Matter Forms
From Readymade to Product Fetish
7 September – 17 November 2024 | Beim Stadthaus
John Armleder
Don’t do it, 1997 – 2021
Mamco, Genf
Starting in the 1960s, consumer products and advertising begin to occupy an increasingly prominent position in art. What had begun as a part of the accumulations of Nouveau Réalisme became the characteristic feature of Pop Art: the transformation of everyday objects into works of art. This strategy stems from the Readymades that Marcel Duchamp began producing in 1913. Although it was still a marginal phenomenon at that time, in emerging consumerism the process was successfully copied and proved to be suitable for the mass market. Working ostensibly without a visible artistic process, which in the form of the creative gesture still legitimizes art to this day, Pop artists appropriated mass-produced goods and popular images using the best capitalist logic and presented them on the art market as profitable limited editions. The DNA of consumer society was explicitly integrated into the art world both visually and economically, putting its symbolic capital to the test. While the products were glorified through the appropriation and turned into icons, their bold optimism and the promise of prosperity was also revealed. The succinct appropriation that can be seen as an ambivalent commentary on the strategies of capitalistic needs for designing, extends to include a form of luxury fetish.
Since then, the exploration of the constantly intensifying spiral of consumption has not stopped in the visual arts. The fusion of art and consumerism is expressed in the blurred boundaries between luxury goods, consumer items, and artworks. Materialism has become one of the formative strategies of visual arts. From the perspective of contemporary art, Form Matters, Matter Forms examines the influence of consumerism and consumer aesthetics on the perception of art and how this perception in turn changes the view of society.
With works by John Armleder, Monica Bonvicini, Marcel Duchamp, Sylvie Fleury, Wade Guyton, Richard Hamilton, Sherrie Levine, Cady Noland, Richard Prince, Andy Warhol, and others.
Curator: Lynn Kost
21.09.2024
18:00 - 19:00Talk with the Artist / Beim Stadthaus
Where is Duchamp? – Talk with Bethan Huws
Over the last two decades, Bethan Huws has become one of the leading experts on the work of Marcel Duchamp. She will talk about her research into the readymade, the end of painting and the birth of conceptual art, and how her engagement with the French artist’s thought processes and work has influenced and shaped her own work.
The written conversation with the artist will be conducted in English.
17.11.2024
13:00 - 14:00Special / Beim Stadthaus
Just What Was it That Made Yesterday’s Homes So Different, So Appealing? – Gespräch mit Etienne Lullin
Together with Etienne Lullin, Lynn Kost will give a guided tour of the exhibition at the finissage. The tour will focus on the work of Richard Hamilton. As a co-founder of Pop Art, the British artist is an important figure in the exhibition and has helped to shape appropriation art and the perception of the readymade. Lullin is an expert on Hamilton and author of the catalogue raisonné of his prints and multiples, the entire holdings of which are in the collection of the Kunst Museum Winterthur.
With kind support
Kunst Museum Winterthur
Beim Stadthaus
8400 Winterthur
Directions
Tuesday 10 – 20 Uhr
Wednesday to Sunday 10 – 17 Uhr
Closed on Monday
CHF 19 / 16 (reduced)
Details