Reprototypes, Triangulations and Road Tests
Simon Starling in collaboration with SUPERFLEX
PUBLICATION: Simon Starling / Superflex: Reprototypes, Triangulations and Road Tests
SPONSORED BY:
Wiener Städtische Versicherungsverein
DURATION: May 30 – September 23, 2012
LOCATION: Thyssen-Bornemisza Art Contemporary,
TBA21 Augarten, Scherzergasse 1A, 1020 Vienna, Austria
Curated by Daniela Zyman and Eva Wilson
Based on intensive research and (self-)experimentation, Simon Starling’s works take the form of multipart installations that incorporate technological trappings, films, photography, objects, performance, and publications. With a sharp interest in and a decisive concern for the historical and especially the history of science and technology, Starling implicates history’s untimely workings in the present.
Prouvé (Road Test) reactivates a piece of mid 20th century modernist design in a new way and in so doing kicks against the mummification of Jean Prouvé’s work within contemporary museum culture. Prouvé (Road Test) takes the aspirational nature of Prouvé’s 1950’s roof structure, Shed – a wing-like design that owes as much to aviation and automobile engineering as it does to functionalism in architecture – and puts it to the test under somewhat absurd but never the less fitting circumstances.
The multi-part installation Exposition, 2004 even proposes the juxtaposition of various historical events. The work collapses contemporary technology onte the developments of the Modernist era, specifically referencing the exhibition design by Lilly Reich made for the International Exposition in Barcelona in 1929. In addition, Exposition focuses on the precious platinum-group metals, which are present in the work in two very different manifestations. The first being in the form of three Platinium/Palladium prints, which are illuminated by three spotlights, which are in turn powered by electricity generated by a portable fuel cell. It is at the heart of this potentially revolutionary power source that we also find platinum metals.
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