Walead Beshty
Standard Deviations
25 January – 19 April 2020 | Beim Stadthaus
Walead Beshty
Sharp LC-90LE657U 90-inch Aquos HD 1080p 120Hz 3D Smart LED TV, 2017
© Walead Beshty, Courtesy the artist and Petzel, New York,
and Regen Projects, Los Angeles, Photo: Robert Acklen
Press conference
Thursday, 23 January 2020, 11 am; individual tour by appointment
Kunst Museum Winterthur | Beim Stadthaus
Museumstrasse 52, 8400 Winterthur
register for media orientation
Artist’s talk
Sunday, 26 January 2020, 1 pm
The artist interviewed by curator Lynn Kost
Kunst Museum Winterthur | Beim Stadthaus
Walead Beshty, born 1976 in London, investigates in his work the functioning of the art system and its effects on works of art. At the Kunst Museum Winterthur, his multifaceted work will be presented for the first time in the German-speaking world in an institutional solo exhibition.
Walead Beshty’s artworks are mostly geometrically abstract in form and industrially produced. This reminds us of the principles of minimal art. However, Beshty does not understand his works as autonomous objects that are developed in interaction with the exhibition space and the viewers. Instead, he sees them within a broader context in which they are produced, transported, installed, exhibited, viewed, traded, and discussed.
For the artist, these aspects of the art system are so decisive for the existence and relevance of works of art that they virtually help design the works. Materials, production conditions, studio and exhibition spaces, transport systems, institutional constraints and the environment of criticism, the public, collectors, galleries etc. are essential for artistic decisions, and thus they exert a strong influence on the aesthetics and perception of art. Beshty’s works make this interdependence clear: they are conceived in such a way as to document their own genesis as well as to make visible the influences of the system in which the works also function: as a commodity, a carrier of meaning, a means of transport, a news archive, a fetish, an object of research, etc.
Hence the artist deals on the one hand with the basic conditions of artistic work and on the other hand with the context in which the works are embedded, evaluated and sold. The mutual influence of all these elements can be experienced in his exhibitions as a dynamic network of artistic freedom and system constraints.
Walead Beshty lives and works in Los Angeles. His work encompasses numerous media such as photography, sculpture, installation, prints, drawings and collages. The exhibition at the Kunst Museum Winterthur presents various recent groups of works, many of them for the first time.
Publication
To accompany the exhibition, König Books London is publishing a monograph on the work of Walead Beshty with texts by Noam Elcott and Lynn Kost and interviews conducted by Lionel Bovier and Hamza Walker.
The exhibition and publication were realized in collaboration with the Musée d’art moderne et contemporain (MAMCO), Geneva.
Documents
Table [Source: embossed lacquered medium density fiberboard and chrome finish steel conference room desk designed by Lievore Altherr Molina from the conference room at Galerie Capitain Petzel, Berlin. Surrogate: WB98014 (produced in conjunction with Friedrich Petzel, Owner; Gisela Capitain, Owner, Michael Wiesehöder, Director; Svenja Schuhbauer, Associate Director) Copper Surrogate (Table: designed by Lievore Altherr Molina, Karl-Marx-Allee 45, Berlin Germany, September 11 November 4, 2014), conceived in 2013, produced in 2014, made of polished copper and powder coated steel with the dimensions 71 37⁄64 x 39 13⁄32 x 29 31/32 inches as a singular object. Production completed by Benchmark Scenery Incorporated, Glendale, California from 48 ounce Electrolytic-Tough-Pitch C11000 Copper Alloy cut from 60 x 120 inch mirror-polished sheet and 24 ounce Electrolytic-Tough-Pitch C11000 Copper Alloy cut from 60 x 120 inch mirror- polished sheet, with formed corners where necessary, copper plated hardware, perimeter edge French cleat system, and separate black powder-coated steel support structures. $26,733.35 production cost including travel and storage crates with floating lockable cleat system. Unexposed surrogates shipped by Los Angeles Packing, Crating and Transport, Incorporated from Los Angeles to Berlin, August 28 through September 10, 2014. Installed in place of Lievore Altherr Molina desk at Karl Marx-Allee 45, Berlin, Germany, on September 11, 2014, exposure through the duration of Martin Kippenberger: Window Shopping at Galerie Capitain Petzel until November 4, 2014. Table has one base surrogate with the dimensions 27 9⁄16 x 19 7⁄8 x 28 15⁄32 inches.]
© Walead Beshty, Courtesy the artist
Photo: Jens Ziehe
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