conceptual applied III - Daimler Art Collection · 2 Installation view ‘Minimalism and Applied II’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2010 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III

Conceptual & Applied III. Surfaces and PatternContemporary Art from the Daimler Art Collection with Design and Architecture

April, 4 – November, 2, 2014 Daimler Contemporary, Potsdamer Platz Berlin

Curator: Renate Wiehager. Co-Curator: Luca Trevisani

ARTISTS:John M Armleder (CH), Lina Bo Bardi (I), Natalie Czech (D), Benni Efrat (IL), Egon Eiermann (D), Haris Epaminonda (CY), Susan

Hefuna (EG), Iman Issa (EG), Alicja Kwade (PL), Sol LeWitt (USA), Angelo Mangiarotti (I), Mathieu Matégot (H), Bruno Munari (I), George Nelson (USA), Henrik Olesen (DK), Helga Philipp (A), Tula Plumi (GR), Gio Ponti (I), Bojan

Sarcevic (SRB), Oskar Schmidt (D), Carmelo Tedeschi (I), Luca Trevisani (I), Georg Winter (D), Tapio Wirkkala (FIN)

Daimler ContemporaryP o t s d a m e r P l a t z B e r l i n

01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III 10.04.14 13:56 Seite 1

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Installation view ‘Minimalism and Applied II’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2010


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Over the past ten years, the Daimler Art Collection has fo-cused on the field of constructive, conceptual and mini-malistic tendencies from the 1920s to the present day. Ofparticular interest were artists whose work straddles freeand applied art disciplines. ‘Minimalism and Applied I’(2007) introduced fine artists whose art work crosses overinto architecture, into product design and graphic design. Incontrast with this, the second part of the series (2010) fo-cused on a dialogue between outstanding early exponentsof architecture and furniture design with international con-temporary art. The third part of the exhibition series is allabout presenting artists and designers whose aestheticconcepts exist in the gray area between art and design,with a specific focus on surfaces, materials, and pattern.The theme for the exhibition was significantly inspired by,on the one hand, collaboration and discussions with youngItalian artist Luca Trevisani, the co-curator of the show, and, on the other hand, the art theory texts of Nicolas Bourriaud—in this case, we are referring primarily to hisbook ‘The Radicant’, published in 2009.1 In the introductionthat follows, this is illustrated by the inclusion of quotesfrom Trevisani and from Bourriaud’s texts, which reflect andprovide a commentary on the text itself.

Installation views ‘Minimalism and Applied I’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2007


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Translation, the removal of hierarchy, transcodingTranslation, the removal of hierarchy, transcoding, trans-gression / fluidity, variables, diversity / the migration offorms into differing contexts / circulation of ideas and concepts—as key terms, these apply not only in the contem-porary art context, but also in the context of new develop-ments in architecture, design, literature and theater. Theseexpressions go hand-in-hand with a new understanding ofmaterials and processes, but also with the decisive decon-struction of any hierarchy, in relation to one another, of art,product design and craft work. Additionally, this levelling ofhierarchies as a central factor of contemporary art bringswith it possibilities for declining all forms of a theme bymaking use of a variety of artistic media, for the mirroringof individual inventions in the themes of architects workingin parallel and in the works of forerunners in various disci-plines. Luca Trevisani, the co-curator of our exhibition, whois represented by a new spatially expensive installation inthe center space of the Daimler Contemporary, summed allthis up in the following prosaic words: “I believe in prolifera-tion, in the absence of hierarchy. What’s the relationshipbetween an object of yours and the photo you take? Is it anecho, a replica, a double, a mirror, or just all the hypotheses

Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.a. Bojan Sarcevic, Jasper Morrison, Egon Eiermann


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I’ve written? […] It’s like my dirty habit of melting elementsand stories; I can’t stop the continuous dialogue betweenworks of others and one of mine, between documentationand creation, between two and three dimensions. It is aprocess of growth that has something organic about it.”2

Further current phenomena in international contemporaryart include “transcoding” and “translation”. In other words,many artists of today detach meaningful context and con-stellations of meaning from their standard coding—cultural,national, politically-determined. These artists reproducethemes and adapt them to new parameters, thereby allow-ing the various contentual factors and intentions of the art-work to circulate, as it were, between different languagesand contexts. On the one hand, this is a critical and self-critical act. On the other hand, it is a strategy that articu-lates an understanding that the method of ‘translation’accepts the artistic work as a process with the end resultleft open, possibly with an indefinable ‘remainder’, ratherthan as a constant. Asked whether the scanning, reproduc-tion and circulation of images and ideas are central to hisartistic aesthetic, Trevisani responds: “It doesn’t really matter what you want to say, but how you say it. While I’ve Luca Trevisani, one work from the series Die Befindlichkeit des Landes, 2013


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014:

f.l. George Nelson, Benni Efrat, Helga Philipp, Natalie Czech, Sol LeWitt


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.l. Helga Philipp, George Nelson


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always been interested in reasoning, talking and drawing attention to this idea of things that go together, combine,grow and celebrate an idea of unity, the main thing is think-ing about how to do it. Consequently, the idea of taking mymost cherished concepts and seeing them multiplied is central, since I am convinced that their combined value ismuch greater than their individual worth. As I gained confi-dence with this method, in the end things exploded: theyexploded in my hands and I gradually became braver aboutdoing it.”3

Nicolas Bourriaud has coined the term ‘altermodernity’ todescribe the concepts of ‘duplications’ and ‘in toto value’.This relates directly to ‘translation’ and ‘synchronisation’ inaesthetic praxis: “This twenty-first-century modernity, bornof global and decentralized negotiations, of multiple discus-sions among participants from different cultures, of theconfrontation of heterogeneous discourses, can only bepolyglot. Altermodernity promises to be a translation-ori-ented modernity, unlike the modern story of the twentiethcentury, whose progressivism spoke the abstract languageof the colonial West. And this search for a productive com-promise among singular discourses, this continuous effort

at coordination, this constant elaboration of arrangementsto enable disparate elements to function together, consti-tutes both its engine and its import. The operation thattransforms every artist, every author, into a translator ofhim- or herself implies accepting the idea that no speechbears the seal of any sort of ‘authenticity’: we are enteringthe era of universal subtitling, of generalized dubbing. Anera that valorizes the links that texts and images establish,

John M Armleder, Avec les deux lustres (FS), 1987-1993Acrylic on canvas, 2 lamps


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the paths that artists forge in a multicultural landscape, thepassageways they lay out to connect modes of expressionand communication.”4

So, how does the term ‘translation’ make itself felt as a keycategory for our exhibition? Many of the figures from theworlds of art, architecture and design featured in the exhi-bition subject their themes and methods to a gradual modi-

fication and translation as part of their working process, sothat the method itself becomes a transitional phase. The art-work may initially find expression in a sculptural form, but, inthe next stage, may experience a process of reinterpretation,through photography, copying, transformation into language,material destruction etc. This approach is demonstrated byorganically shaped furniture objects (Philipp, Bo Bardi), me-andering text images (Czech), abstract/ornamental spatial

Tapio Wirkkala, Pyörre [Whirl], 1954, plywood Jasper Morrison, Glo-Balls, 1998-2009, aluminum, blown glass, plastic


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structures (Trevisani), fashionable accessories that can beworn (Tedeschi) or temporary and performative “objects ofaggression” (Winter). In addition, the transfer of ideas, ma-terials and histories between diverging ‘systems of order’and ‘codes’ invariably produce factors of deconstruction or‘chaos’ in terms of identifiable and comprehensible per-spectives of meaning. In his productions, Luca Trevisaniconstantly addresses the collision of two factors—“orderand chaos”. Specifically, he uses translation as a way ofsubverting and enriching the meaningful content of quotedtexts—a process that also plays a key role in the artworks ofNatalie Czech: “I wanted to use extracts from books origi-nally published in English. Instead of looking to the originalquote, I had the Italian version translated back into English.That was one of these changes of state.” (L. Trevisani)5

John M Armleder is a master of self-reflexive irony who iscapable of constantly creating new transformations. He isalso the spiritual originator of many ideas and concepts ofcontemporary art—of artistic processes and strategies suchas ‘re-reading’, ‘transfer’ and ‘transport’ of -isms/tech-niques/styles by means of diverging contexts.

Henrik Olesen, Intervention in to an ideological system (After Cildo Meireles),2003, eggshell, letraset, paper


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The Furniture Sculptures (FS)—two significant examples ofwhich are present in our exhibition—are a central artworkgroup in this respect. Ever since the early 1970s, Armlederhas been ‘re-editing’ the programmatic interconnection ofart and design in Russian constructivism, in associationwith the further developments of these ideas by the Bau -haus and in the sculptural ensembles of the early Americanminimalists. This idealistic impetus, however, is subvertedby his use of trivial furniture or fittings found on the rubbishheap, which utilize the full spectrum of ‘high and low’: carheadlamps and wickerwork stools by Egon Eiermann, crys-tal chandeliers, radiant heaters, neon lights and disco balls.Armleder’s artwork plays around with art history and withits “abundance of meaning”. The longer we look at it, how-ever, the more it produces an impression of precisely theopposite, of abject ‘emptiness’. The polar relationship between the spirit and the material—between the ideal andthe rubbish—no longer obtains. This represents a gain and aloss simultaneously: we lose our system of reference, butgain the freedom to decide.

George Nelson, Bubble Lamps, 1947 (Design), plastic coating over a steelwire-frame, brushed, nickel-plated steel


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Helga Philipp, Kinetisches Objekt and Seating furniture, 1970Installation view ‘Leben mit Kunst’, furniture store Ertl, Graz, 1970

Lina Bo Bardi, Bowl Chair, 1951, steel, leather, mixed media


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Tapio Wirkkala, Golden Bowl, 1971, Design for Rosenthal

John M Armleder, EE (Furniture Sculpture), 2004Canvas and 3 stools “EH 23“, (Design: Egon Eiermann)


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Luca Trevisani, Iman Issa, Natalie Czech


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Leveling, transgressionPreviously, the term ‘de-hierarchization’ was introduced. Wemight add the term ‘leveling’ (used in a positive sense),seen as a conceptual and reflective leveling of existing val-ues, as a new evaluation and an opening up of new horizonsfor idea and form invention. Let us return to a statementmade by Luca Trevisani during the run-up to this exhibition;his statement could be taken to represent the views of manyof the participating artists: “It’s all about lowering the levelof things […] to move the reading. […] It’s an exercise in re-spect towards a tradition, handled with lightness, humilityand the awareness of possible failure. In confrontation withhistory, I show my respect for it and line up behind all thosewho have already done this. When I approach something I’m unfamiliar with I want to lower my tone, but not to dese-crate it, because desecrating something means taking it off a pedestal in order to somehow throw it down on theground as if it were a dictator’s statue. Lowering the level inorder to put it within everyone’s reach, to unmask a certainreverence towards certain things. For me, placing every-thing on a horizontal plane and saying they are all the sameis not the same as taking away their ‘power’, rather it meansputting them within everyone’s reach. […] I’m interested in

drawing attention to unconscious gestures, without reflect-ing about any kind of mould. Without expressing judgments,without pledging my allegiance. I find it quite annoyingwhen people have to line up in support of something at allcosts. This thing happens, and that’s all. When someonefaces it, they have to formulate their own opinion, I justwant them to face it. And I try to do that.”6

Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Haris Epaminonda


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Luca Trevisani, Susan Hefuna


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.l. Oskar Schmidt, Gio Ponti, Eero Aarnio, Tula Plumi, Gio Ponti


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A new publication by Rachel Sara—in which she presentsthe architectonic life’s work of Lina Bo Bardi, who also fea-tures in our exhibition—is entitled ‘The Architecture ofTransgression’. The kind of ‘transgression’ that is under discussion here is the subversion or exceeding of standardnorms of behavior, the radical reinterpretation of architec-tonic praxis, of how architecture understands its role in so-cial and political terms: “Transgression suggests operatingbeyond accepted norms and radically reinterpreting practiceby pushing at the boundaries of both what architecture is,

and what it could or even should be. The current economiccrisis and accompanying political/social unrest has exacer-bated the difficulty into which architecture has long beensliding: challenged by other professions and a culture ofconservatism, architecture is in danger of losing its prizedstatus as one of the pre-eminent visual arts. Transgressionopens up new possibilities for practice. It highlights thepositive impact that working on the architectural peripherycan make on the mainstream, as transgressive practiceshave the potential to reinvent and reposition the architec-tural profession: whether they are subverting notions ofprogress; questioning roles and mechanisms of production;aligning with political activism; pioneering urban interven-tions; advocating informal or incomplete development; actively destabilizing environments or breaking barriers oftaste. In this new dispersed and expanded field of opera-tion, the balance of architectural endeavor is shifted fromobject to process, from service to speculation, and fromformal to informal in a way that provides both critical andpolitical impetus to proactively affect change.”7

This neatly and concisely describes the concept of ‘trans-gression’ as it exists on all levels of contemporary aesthetic

Lina Bo Bardi, Casa de Vidro, São Paulo 1951

Egon Eiermann, Sep Ruf, German Pavillon for World Exhibition,

Brussels, 1958


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and cultural discussions. It is a term borrowed from thephysical sciences: in geography, it describes the advancingof the sea over large expanses of land, and, in biology, it describes the emergence of new, dominant genotypes. LinaBo Bardi and Egon Eiermann are outstanding historical ex-amples of the referenced ‘translation’ of the concept as de-ployed by Sara in the context of architecture—engagement,urban intervention, a wider field of action etc. Examples in

the field of contemporary art include the process-orientedsculptural ‘workshops’ of Carmelo Tedeschi and Georg Winter.

Lina Bo Bardi (born in Rome in 1914) was an architect, stageset designer, editor, illustrator, furniture designer, museumplanner and curator of art and craft exhibitions. She is cur-rently being rediscovered as one of the foremost visionarypractitioners of living the unity of art, culture and society inthe 20th century.8 In 1946, Lina Bo Bardi moved to SãoPaulo. She succeeded in translating the roots of Brazilianculture into the language of modernism—overcoming the hierarchical relationship between art and craft, transcend-ing disciplines and always proceeding toward the visionary

Lina Bo Bardi, SESC Fábrica daPompéia, São Paolo, 1977

Lina Bo Bardi, Museo d’Arte ModernaSão Paulo (MASP), 1968

Lina Bo Bardi, Lina’s World, Edition for Bowl Chair, Re-edition Arper 2013


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goal of demonstrating to the people of her time their ownindividual potential and thereby opening up new spaces ofexperience, insight and social responsibility.9

The visionary potential in the work of architect and furni-ture designer Egon Eiermann is possibly seen most clearlyin his transparent buildings of the 1950s to 1970s, withtheir focus on appropriate use of material and their qualityof urban/natural integration, but also in his highly practi-cal, organically-shaped furniture designs, which were cre-ated for serial production. Eiermann succeeded in doingsomething remarkable: he united the reductive aesthetic of

severe minimalism with the enlivening factors of morphol-ogy and ornament, always with a view to accomplishing aclearly defined social objective: “I see the smallest worker’shouse and the largest building produced with equal care, directed by that high responsibility, the ensuring of therights of life for every individual. This is, however, the high-est revelation of the democratic way of thinking […] Toserve the present day and the people of the present day:anyone who succeeds in doing this for the time in which helives has achieved something of such unheard-of greatnessthat it is entirely superfluous to think of the history of thesethings in the future.”10

Egon Eiermann, Berlin Hansaviertel, 1954

Egon Eiermann, HeadquarterStahlbauwerke Müller, 1958


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“In the case of Carmelo Tedeschi’s objects, which, over thecourse of the artistic process, may become sculptures, butmay also become wearable bracelets, it is the context andthe audience for the discourse that decides how the art-works are interpreted, in what way they are used and howthey are received. At the same time, all of his artworksexert a form of stage presence—this may be the result of hisprofessional origins in costume and the theater. At an earlystage, he began charting a course between the spheres ofvarious media and specialist areas, presenting his artworksin a variety of contexts, allowing them to appear as fashionor as high art. […] The spiritual influences behind the artis-tic work of Carmelo Tedeschi have a significant link with thetown of Fez in Morocco, his home and the base for his ac-tivities—including all-year-round workshops with youngartist-craftspeople—when he is not in Berlin. It is this realmof interaction between centuries-old crafts and contempo-rary design that constitutes his vision for the union of twonormally separated worlds and very different productionmethods, as a productive synergy, transcending the di-verging extremes of nostalgia and an unreserved faith intechnological progress. In Tedeschi’s ‘migration’ not onlybetween different ‘target groups’ but also between different

Carmelo Tedeschi, leather accessoires

Studio Tedeschi, Berlin


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Carmelo Tedeschi


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commercial markets, he traverses, or transcends, socio-political boundaries, and this finds expression in the aes-thetics and impact of his objects.”11

The best way to start to understand Georg Winter’s way ofthinking and working is through Ukiyo Camera Systems(UCS), the label that Winter himself set up in 1992 as an‘umbrella organization’ for his complex, interlinking artisticwork. ‘Ukiyo Camera Systems. Office for development ofcamera technology and new media’, to give it’s full title, isbased in Stuttgart and Budapest and is further broken downinto various ‘subsidiary companies’ (UCS moving pictures,Telemotorik, Telegrooming; Emergence and Pictorial Organi-zation Research Post etc.). A development office like UCSacts subversively and operates within a “working field thattries to undermine established commercial and productionstructures, using phenomenological approaches at first,and then tries to claim a different concept of technology foritself.” (G.W.) Georg Winter translates the (Japanese, Bud-dhist) concept ‘Ukiyo’ with the sentence: attentiveness tothe moment overcomes sadness about the passage of time.In the 1990s, Ukiyo Camera Systems developed a broadrange of instruments—various types of still camera as well

Georg Winter, Psychotektonische Prozesse (back: "Kölner Krümmung")Mixed Media, UCS High Black Monitor, Model Solitude 1

Ukiyo Camera Systems, painted woodInstallation view Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2012


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as devices relating to video, film and TV technology. Whenused, they expand the conventional notion of media towardsfundamental orientation questions—understood spatiallyand intellectually. Georg Winter has developed a fundamen-tally new way of understanding of the categories of pro-duction, communication, interaction and reception in theartistic field. The path the artist is following is one thatleads from a certain set of problems—camera technique, on-tological questions, cultivation and politicization processesetc.—to research results derived from these. The appropri-ate operational forms in their turn are developed from theseresults in each case, and are followed by the paths for me-diating and transmitting them into social and public space.In parallel with this, there are the questions (newly gener-ated for each project) of de-potentiation and condensationof three-dimensional actions and processes in the sense ofreturning experience to existential, cognition-related andbody-conditional bases: how can the original meaning ofconcepts that we handle largely subconsciously be re-vealed again? What actions attach them as a matter ofcourse to the ‘true’ meaning that makes itself known in thisway and to the origin of the words in their basic meanings?What instruments can I offer in order to make the links

Georg Winter, Psychotektonische ProzesseExercises for and against aggressions

Installation view Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, 2012


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between word and thing, between concept and object, manageable again and thus physically and tangibly compre-hensible?

Wandering formsHoneycombs, grids, chain elements, networks and (numeric)symbols/spheres, circles, bowls, Möbius strips, spirals/stylized symbols and abstract spatial figures—this world offorms drawn from culture, nature, abstract geometry andarchitecture approximately describes the wide-ranging in-ventory of forms that can be encountered in our exhibition.

Sol LeWitt’s 16-part graphical portfolio Lines of One Inch inFour Directions and All Combinations of 1971 is an earlyiconic conceptual work that creates a relationship betweenthe static qualities and changeability of abstract structures.In these artworks, the clearly predefined regularity of thegraphical process goes hand-in-hand with the rhythmicopenness of the visual result. Sol LeWitt’s artwork isechoed, with a different emphasis, by the Kinetic Art andOp Art-inspired graphical artworks and light objects createdby Austrian concrete artist Helga Philipp. The artist uses

Sol LeWitt, Lines of One Inch in Four Directions and All Combinations, 1971 16 parts (detail)


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Helga Philipp, Untitled, 1970, silkscreen

P. 27: Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Alicja Kwade


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Lina Bo Bardi, Designs for Bowl Chair, 1951

Gio Ponti, Living Room, Villa Arreaza, Caracas, 1956

Gio Ponti, Poltrona D.153.1, 1953 Leather, brass

Lina Bo Bardi, Re-editions Bowl ChairArper, Italien 2013


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graduations of gray to white and changes in light intensityto give the serial sequence of circles of the same size aspatial dimension. It is given an additional perception-re-lated quality and a multiplicity of meaning by the move-ments of the viewer.

L’architettura è un cristallo was the subtitle of a publica-tion by the Italian architect and designer Gio Ponti that appeared in 1945. In addition to being the subject of thiswide-ranging study of architectural history, however, dia-mond and crystal forms were a prominent geometric themein his buildings (the Pirelli Tower, Milan) and his interior de-signs (one such being his design for the living room of theDiamantina Villa in Caracas, 1957). Inspired by the abstractornaments that are a part of Venezuelan culture, Gio Pontidesigned wall panels with a cool, blue-and-white diamondpattern, which gives his interior space and furniture ensem-ble a pictorial dimension. In our ‘Conceptual & Applied III’exhibition, we have placed a wall object and a sculpture bythe young Greek artist Tula Plumi on and in front of a wallfeaturing designs by Gio Ponti. This arrangement allows the primary colors of her images or sculptures, which areinspired by the Bauhaus abstract avant-garde and by the

Gio Ponti, Tavolino D.555.1, 1954-55, Metal, crystal, hand painted metal grid

Gio Ponti, Tappeto D.754.1, 1954pony leather


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Luca Trevisani, Susan Hefuna


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fascinated by the mosaic floors of Roman city houses dating from the 1st to the 4th century AD. His artwork (DieBefindlichkeit des Landes [The mental state of the land],2013, 5 parts, UV ray print on plastic mirror foil, each ca.152 x 270 cm), which aims to allow people to experience thelocation in a new way both physically and mentally, there-fore uses the abstract patterns found in the mosaics of theDomus Ortaglia—reconstructed to scale by the Italian artistin the form of wood models—as its basic forms. Trevisanijuxtaposes these maquettes with living snakes—pythons andboas—whose patterns are based on the original colorationof the flooring. Trevisani deploys the snakes simultaneouslyin a symbolic and in an instrumental way—the creaturesmake the shapes accessible, centimeter by centimeter. Asthey enliven and fully explore the wooden lattice, theirsmooth forms contrast with its angular form. ‘Snakes knowthat feeling an object’s surface is learning it, but under-standing it in its depth means inventing it.’ (L.T.). Addition-ally, the title, which references a song by the German music

material studies conducted at the Bauhaus in the early 20th

century, to engage in dialogue with the forerunners that alsoprovided an important foundation for the work of Gio Ponti.

“When he was commissioned to create an artwork in theMuseo di Santa Giulia (as part of the exhibition ‘Novecentomai visto’, staged by the Daimler Art Collection in Brescia2013) Luca Trevisani quickly concentrated on the DomusOrtaglia part of the complex. In particular, the artist was

Luca Trevisani, Die Befindlichkeit des Landes [The mental state of the land],2013, 5 parts, UV ray print on plastic mirror foil, installation view, ›Novecentomai visto‹, Daimler Art Collection in Museo di Santa Guilia, Brescia, 2013


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group ‘Einstürzende Neubauten’ (‘collapsing new buildings’),reveals the political dimension in Trevisani’s work: it is acriticism of the zeitgeist or spirit of the times and of theway the Italy’s cultural heritage is currently beingtreated.”12

Applied languages There are a number of additional contemporary art mediaand metaphors that go hand in hand with the issues of‘translation’ and ‘the circulation of forms and ideas’ thatwere introduced in the last chapter: language, mobility oftheme and content, the overcoming of fixed classes and categories. Within our exhibition, ‘Conceptual & Applied III’,language is present in a number of forms as a raw materialfor art: as reproductions of literary or poetic texts (Czech),as pictorially descriptive title/text compositions (Issa), aseditorial praxis or critical-theoretical praxis (Bo Bardi, Ponti), as an abstract language of symbols (Trevisani, Efrat,Hefuna). Nicolas Bourriaud has coined the term “semio-nauts” to describe the representatives of “transportablepractices” in art. Rather than trying “to pile up heteroge-neous elements in their works”, the artists of today are

Benni Efrat, Adding to Subtract, 1969-70Ink on squared paper

Susan Hefuna, Untitled, 2010Ink on two layers of tracing paper


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trying “to create significant connections within the infinitetext of world culture. In a word, to produce itineraries in thelandscape of signs by taking on the role of semionauts, in-ventors of pathways within the cultural landscape, nomadicsign gatherers. […] What I am calling altermodernity thusdesignates a construction plan that would allow new inter-

cultural connections, the construction of a space of negoti-ation going beyond postmodern multiculturalism, which isattached to the origin of discourses and forms rather thanto their dynamics. It is a matter of replacing the question oforigin with that of destination. ‘Where should we go?’ Thatis the modern question par excellence.”13

Natalie Czech, A poem by Repetition by Bruce Hainley, 2013, pen (lightfast) on 2 color-prints


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“Natalie Czech uses the medium of photography to investi-gate the multi-faceted interaction of pictures and texts, re-vealing new levels of meaning in her search for inherentpoetic potential. She finds the raw material of her poeticconcept photographs in found material from old papers,magazines and illustrated volumes; she reveals the poemshidden within the flow of the text. In her ongoing photo-graphic series Hidden Poems, which she embarked upon in2010, Czech works with illustrated pages from magazinesand books, bringing to the fore individual letters or wordswithin passages of text by underlining them or highlightingthem in color and thereby delineating the poems whose existence within the text had previously been concealed.These interventions provide Czech with a model for herphotographs. When put together, the marked sectionsstrategically scattered throughout the original text form atext in their own right, which can then be read alongsidethe already existing textual material, interacting with it andpermitting a number of different readings. Czech uses visualart as a tool to reveal the hidden possibilities inherent inlanguage and to set words in motion, releasing them fromthe established directional conventions of text reading sothat their meaning can no longer be established in a linear

Natalie Czech, A poem by Repetition by Gertrude Stein, 2013 Pen (lightfast) on 2 color-prints


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sense. Instead of running always in the same direction, theinterrelated meanings in the text develop a life of their own,one that can move in any direction.”14

“Iman Issa’s series Material, 2010-11, updates these con-cepts for the 21st century. The artist, who is Egyptian bybirth, creates clear forms without any clearly defined mean-ing—the antithesis to set-in-stone ideological monuments.She uses a minimalist vocabulary of forms to create herproposed and alternative public memorials. Each of theseartworks (described by Issa as a “display”) consists of acollection of objects combined with a vinyl text on a nearbywall, and relates to an existing monument in Issa’s homecity of Cairo. These very long, informative titles are an inte-gral part of each of Issa’s display. The descriptions interactwith the referenced monument, but without giving details orthe location of the memorial.”15

Synchronizations of geometric and organic abstractionFor his commissioned artwork for the Daimler Art Collec-tion exhibition at the Museum Santa Giulia Brescia, 2013,Luca Trevisani, whose work has already been discussed

Iman Issa, Material for a sculpture commemorating the life of a soldier whodied defending his nation against intruding enemies, 2011, mixed media


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: f.l. John M Armleder, Egon Eiermann, Eero Aarnio, Henrik Olesen, Tapio Wirkkala


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Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Oskar Schmidt, Georg Winter


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above, had five hanging banners printed. They showed thecharacteristic abstract ornaments from the Roman mosaicfloors of the Domus Ortaglia (2nd century BC), translatedinto a bronze or silver pattern on semi-transparent reflectivefoil. Trevisani has enriched the two-dimensional, ornamen-tal latticework by adding curved forms in the form of snake-like bodies of different sizes. These transport the ancientmotifs into the present day and a contemporary artistic in-terpretation, but they also bring these abstract forms de-rived from natural shapes back into ’synchronization’(Bourriaud) with emblems of organic nature.16

Luca Trevisani, Design for Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014

Nets for the cultivation of sea shells


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For the ‘Conceptual & Applied III: Surfaces and Pattern’ ex-hibition, we, in our turn, asked Luca Trevisani for a space-related commissioned work. His design is based on anornamental, abstract/organic grid of individual elementsmade of the material Corian that meander over the floorand height of the exhibition space. This net-like structure isinspired by the structure of maritime nets used for raisingmussels in the sea or for conveying them. When one looksat Trevisani’s spatial/urban interpretation, one is put inmind of the minimalist structures of a Japanese Zen gar-den—gardens that one traverses only with the eye and thatinvite one to imagine and to meditate. At the same time,the artwork is conceived in such a way that the elements,made from stone-like Corian material, can be walked on:the viewer, balanced on the unstable web elements, is morelike an active dancer than a passive user. The structureplays over the right angle between the floor and the wall,putting one in mind of an abstract choreography, a terracedtopography or a field of oversized, abstract rice grains.“It’s the empiricism that leads me to play with things,” explains Luca Trevisani, “somehow, for my own personal development, I’ve never limited myself to the sphere of images and art because I don’t think that there are inert

Luca Trevisani, Sieb [Sieve], 2014, corian (detail)


40

materials and maybe there are no rejects in the world. Imean that everything also depends on what light you lookat it in. […] For me, it’s important to start with things thatare important to me, which I choose, but have their own in-trinsic quality, which somehow I have the presumption tothink of as objective. […] It’s fundamental to believe in yourown fallibility, doubt, modifiability and openness towardsothers and towards things. These days, as ever, I think it’simportant to repeat that others may be more right than usand we must always be modified by the world around us. Itis an exercise in humility, but also in real breathing, youcould say. […] I’ve recently realized that for me true re-search is never-ending research, a laboratory that’s not put-ting up results. What’s important, in my opinion, in order toavoid a waste of time, is to elaborate your own rules andregulations. A settled operating system.”17

The image of the ‘laboratory’ occupies a central place inNicolas Bourriaud’s book ‘The Radicant’. The book’s titlerefers to a plant shoot (which occurs, for instance, in straw-berry plants), which, depending on the ground available toreceive it, puts down secondary roots. “Contemporary artprovides new models for this individual who is constantly

putting down new roots, for it constitutes a laboratory ofidentities. Thus, today’s artists do not so much express thetradition from which they come as the path they take be-tween tradition and various contexts they traverse, and theydo this by performing acts of translation. Where modernismproceeded by subtraction in an effort to unearth the root,or principle, contemporary artists proceed by selection, ad-ditions, and then acts of multiplication. They do not seek anideal state of the self or society. Instead, they organizesigns in order to multiply one identity by another.”18

A quality of synchronization between geometric and organicabstraction close in spirit to that of Trevisani occurs in thedrawings of Susan Hefuna and the photographic collages ofBojan Sarcevic.

“In her drawings, performances, videos and photographicworks, Susan Hefuna works with opposites and with transi-tions, with series, layerings and penetrations. In this way,the Egyptian-German artist reflects cultural conventionsand addresses the constructs of history and of identity. Theink drawings by Hefuna that have been acquired by theDaimler Art Collection are based on dots, grids and linesystems on two layers of transparent paper that create


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1954/C, 2004both: Bojan Sarcevic, offset print, collage

1954/D, 2004

Susan Hefuna, Untitled, 2010, ink on two layers of tracing paper


42

Lina Bo Bardi, Bowl Chair, 1951, steel, leather, mixed media

Eero Aarnio, Tomaatti Armchair, 1971Fiberglass

Angelo Mangiarotti, Eros, occasionaltable, around 1971, Carrara marble

Mathieu Matégot, Bagdad, lamp, 1954Painted and perforated steel sheet


43

reticulated, abstract/geometrical structures; these couldbe seen as subjective architecture designs, as elements inurban cartography, as design drafts or as biological organ-isms. This began with Hefuna’s interest in structures foundin the physical sciences, such as molecules, DNA and mod-ular elements; she later discovered their similarity to themashrabiya—the ornamental, abstract window screens,made from turned wood and permeable to breezes, whichcan still be seen everywhere in Egypt.”19

Issues of the 100-year old architecture magazine ‘baumeis-ter’ dating from 1954 provided the basis for Bojan Sarcevic’sblack-and-white offset prints, to which he has added ab-stract pictorial ornaments. The crystalline structures or meandering bands add an attractive, second visual layer tovarious austere entrance halls, living rooms, staircases andclassrooms. They begin to break the images up into fractaldetails, like a jigsaw puzzle that has been put togetherwrongly. These living rooms and homes, furnished and decorated in what was then the advanced spirit of the day,must have been photographed immediately after they werecompleted, when they were in impeccable condition. In

Sarcevic’s series of 76 collages called 1954, 2004, they ap-pear in a state of artistic destruction. A clear look at historygives way to the view through a kaleidoscope. Sarcevic’s or-namental insertions create historical empty spaces, and thedocumentary significance of the photos is diminished.

On that note, let us conclude by taking a brief look at the1960s/1970s design objects that were chosen for our ‘Con-ceptual & Applied III: Surfaces and Pattern’ exhibition,based on discussions with Luca Trevisani. All of them arecharacterized by the previously mentioned synchronizationof geometric and organic abstraction: as a synthesis offractured crystalline forms derived from the circular and up-right triangle forms (a primal symbol for the union of femi-nine and masculine energies) in the Bagdad lamp, 1954, byMathieu Matégot; as combinations of vertical-conical andhorizontal-round forms with similar connotation, as demon-strated by the Eros, 1971, stone table by Angelo Mangiarotti;as a synthesis of rising swirl and horizontal surface, ascharacterized by the wonderful Pyörre [Whirl] table, 1954,by Tapio Wirkkala; as a coordinated design of delicate sup-port and well-padded bowl like the Bowl Chair design, 1951,


44

Oskar Schmidt, The American Series I-XII, 2011Museo Silver Rag Print

by Lina Bo Bardi; or, finally, implemented in the organic-erotic fusion of triangle and circular forms seen in the orange-red ‘Armchair’ design, 1951, by Eero Aarnio.

To finish by quoting Nicolas Bourriaud once again: “The altermodernity emerging today […] is fueled by the flow ofbodies, by our cultural wandering. It presents itself as aventure beyond the conceptual frames assigned to thoughtand art, a mental expedition outside identitarian norms. Ultimately, then, radicant thought amounts to the organiza-tion of an exodus. […] Translation, which collectivizes themeaning of a discourse and sets in motion an object ofthought by inserting it into a chain, thus diluting it’s originin multiplicity, constitutes a mode of resistance against thegeneralized imposition of formats and a kind of formalguerilla warfare.”20


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1 Nicolas Bourriaud, The radicant, New York, 20092 Luca Trevisani, L.T. in conversation with Stefano Ariente,Becky Beasley, Martino Gamper, Daniela Lotta, in: Catalogueof Museo Carlo Zauli, Residenza d’Artista, VIII Editione, Work-shop Di Ceramica nell’Arte Contemporanea, 2009, no pagegiven (p. 74). 3 Ibid., no page given (p. 64).4 Bourriaud (as with note 1), p. 43.5 Trevisani (as with note 2), no page given (p. 71).6 Ibid., no page given (pp. 78, 80).7 Rachel Sara, The architecture of Transgression AD, WileyJohn + Sons, London 2013, Introduction.8 Cf. Catherine Veikos, Lina Bo Bardi: The Theory of Architec-tural Practice, Routledge, Taylor & Francis, Oxford 2014.Zeuler Rocha Mello de Almeida Lima / Barry Bergdoll, LinaBo Bardi, Yale University Press, New Haven/London 2013.Olivia de Oliveira, Lina Bo Bardi—Built Work (2G Books), Gustavo Gili Publisher, 2nd Revised Edition, São Paulo 2010.9 Cf. the remarks of Noemi Blager, curator, on the touring ex-hibition ‘Lina Bo Bardi Together’: http://linabobardito-gether.com/it/2012/07/17/about/.10 Egon Eiermann, quoted from: E.E. 1904–1970. Die Konti-nuität der Moderne, HatjeCantz, Ostfildern 2004, p. 16.

11 Julia Müller, exhibition text ‘Conceptual & Applied III’.12 Christian Ganzenberg, exhibition text ‘Novecento maiVisto’. Daimler Art Collection at Museo Santa Giulia Brescia2013.13 Bourriaud (as with note 1), p. 38 f.14 Friederike Horstmann, exhibition text ‘Conceptual & Applied III’.15 Friederike Horstmann, exhibition text ‘Conceptual & Applied III’.16 For photographs of important details see: http://com-mons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Ancient_Roman_mo-saics_in_the_Domus_dell’Ortaglia_(Brescia).17 Trevisani (as with note 2), no page given (p. 71, 75, 67).18 Bourriaud (as with note 1), p. 51–52.19 Friederike Horstmann, exhibition text ‘Conceptual & Applied III’.20 Bourriaud (as with note 1), p. 77, p.131.


Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin: Oskar Schmidt, Georg Winter

46


47

Eero Aarnio(*1932 in Helsinki, FIN, lives in

Kirkkonummi near Helsinki, FIN)

Tomaatti Armchair, 1971

Fiberglass

69 x 140 x 113 cm

On loan from Modernity, Stockholm

John Armleder(*1948 in Geneva, CH, lives in

Geneva, CH)

EE (Furniture Sculpture), 2004

Canvas and 3 stools „EH 23“,

rattan, natural finish and lacquered

in white (design: Egon Eiermann,

1957, producer: Heinrich Murmann,

Johannisthal, Deutschland)

190 x 200 x 40 cm

On loan from gallery Mehdi

Chouakri, Berlin

Avec les deux lustres (FS), 1987-1993

Acrylic on canvas, 2 lamps

Painting: 300 x 200 cm, lamps:

ø1,35 cm, overall: 300 x 425 cm

Acquired 2003

Daimler Art Collection

Lina Bo Bardi(1914 Rome, I – 1992 São Paolo, BR)

Bowl Chair, 1951

Bowl: ø 89 x 42 cm

Frame: ø 65 x 31 cm

Steel, leather, mixed media,

Ed. 500

On loan from Arper SPA, Monastier

di Treviso


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Natalie Czech(*1976 in Neuss, D, lives in

Berlin, D)

A poem by Repetition by BruceHainley, 2013

Pen (lightfast) on 3 Color-Prints,

framed

3 parts, each 84,6 x 60,1 cm,

Ed. 3/5 + 2 AP

A poem by Repetition by GertrudeStein, 2013

Pen (lightfast) on 2 Color-Prints,

framed

2 parts, each 101,8 x 49,1 cm, Ed.

1/5 + 2 AP

Both: Acquired 2014


Benni Efrat(*1936 in Beirut, LB, lives in Israel)

2 Drawings

Adding to Subtract, 1969-70

Ink on grid paper

45 x 58 cm

Acquired 2014


Egon Eiermann(1904 Potsdam, D – 1970 Baden-

Baden, D)

Floor work, 1959-62

Ceramics

House Eiermann, Baden-Baden,

Krippenhof 16-18, 1959-1962


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Haris Epaminonda(*1980 in Nicosia, CY, lives in

Berlin, D)

Untitled #06 o/g, 2012

Four old chinese monochromatic

glazed porcelain vases, metal

vitrine with wooden base

Overall 140 x 90 x 65 cm

Acquired 2014


Untitled #03 o/g, 2012

Wall, framed found image

Overall dimension variable, image

35,2 x 29 cm

On loan from the artist

Susan Hefuna(*1962 in Düsseldorf, D, lives in

Düsseldorf, D and Cairo, ET)

3 Drawings

Untitled, 2010

Ink on two layers of tracing paper

48,5 x 61,2 cm

Acquired 2012


Iman Issa(*1979 in Cairo, ET, lives in Cairo,

ET und New York, USA)

Material for a sculpture commem-orating the life of a soldier whodied defending his nation againstintruding enemies, 2011

Mixed Media, Ed. 1/3

Overall 86 x 200 x 50 cm and

60 x 38 x 9 cm

Acquired 2014



50

Alicja Kwade(*1979 in Katowice, PL, lives in

Berlin, D)

Bordsteinjuwel [Curb stone jewel]

(Brunnenstraße), 2007

Cut pebble, pedestal

Pebble: 2 x 3,8 x 2,6 cm, pedestal:

92 x 26 x 25 cm

Watch (2 x TN), 2009

2 clocks, metal, mirror,

atomic watch

32 x 32 x 14 cm

Both: Acquired 2010


Gegen den Lauf [Counterclock-wise], 2014

Found clock, photosensor, micros-

processor

9 x Ø 30 cm, unique object

On loan from:

Gallery Johann König, Berlin

Sol LeWitt(1928 Hartford, Connecticut, USA

– 2007 New York, New York, USA

Lines of One Inch in Four Directions and All Combinations,1971

Lithograph on Magnani paper

Ed. 35/50

16 parts, each 60 x 60 cm

Acquired 2014


Angelo Mangiarotti(1921 Milan, I – 2012 Milan, I)

Eros, Occasional table,

around1971

Carrara marble

45 x 75 x ø 18 cm

On loan from Furniture Gallery,

Milan


51

Mathieu Matégot(1910 Tápió-Sully, HU – 2001

Angers, F)

Bagdad, lamp, 1954

Painted, perforated sheet steel

27,5 x 17 x 27 cm

On loan from Vitra Design

Museum, Weil am Rhein

Jasper Morrison(*1959 in London, GB, lives in

London, GB)

Glo-Ball Basic Zero, 2009

16 x ø 19 cm

Glo-Ball Basic 1, 1998

27 x ø 33 cm

2 Glo-Ball Basic 2, 1998

36 x ø 45 cm

All: Aluminum, blown glass,

plastic

On loan from Flos, Bovezzo

(Brescia)

Bruno Munari(1907 Milano, I – 1998 Milano, I)

Concave-Convex, 1949

Wire gauze, 70 x 80 x 40 cm

In-house production based on the

publication: Bruno Munari, “Design

as Art”, 1966

George Nelson(1908 Hartford, Connecticut, USA

– 1986 New York, New York, USA)

Bubble Lamps, 1947 (Design)Ball

Size M: 39,4 x ø 48,3 cm

Size L: 59,7 x ø 6 cm

SaucerSize L: 35,6 x ø 88,9 cm

Size M: 25,4 x ø 63,5 cm

CigarSize L: 83,8 x ø 38,1 cm

All: Plastic coating over a steel

wire-frame, brushed, nickel-plated

steel

On loan from Dopo-Domani, Berlin


52

Henrik Oleson(*1967 in Esbjerg, DK, lives in

Berlin, D)

Intervention in to an ideologicalsystem (After Cildo Meireles),2003

Eggshell, letraset, paper

7 x 9,5 x 5,5 cm

On loan from:

Helga Maria Klosterfelde Edition,

Berlin/Hamburg

Helga Philipp(1939 Vienna, A – 2002 Vienna, AU)

Kinetisches Objekt, 1971

Acrylic glass, mirror

120 x 80 x 30 cm

Seating furniture, around1965

7 parts, 45 cm x ø 100 cm

and 45 x 50 x 1,20 m

Foam plastic

Untitled, 1970

Silkscreen

6 parts, each 60 x 60 cm

All: Acquired 2014


Tula Plumi(*1980 in Kreta, GR, lives in

Berlin, D)

2 works

Untitled (Lines and circles series),2012

Spray paint on metal

110 x 156 x 100 cm

and 80 x 25 x 27 cm

Acquired 2014



53

Gio Ponti(1891 Milan, I – 1979 Milan, I)

Tavolino [Tea Table] D.555.1, 1954-55

Metal, clear crystal, hand-painted

metal grid

37 x ø 80 cm

Poltrona [Armchair] D.153.1, 1953

103 x 77 x 80 cm, seat 35 cm

Leather, brass

Tappeto [Rug] D.754.1, 1954

Pony leather, various colors

240 x 245 cm

All:

On loan from Molteni&C,

Giussano, I

Bojan Sarcevic�(*1974 in Belgrad, SRB, lives in

Berlin, D and Paris, F)

1954/C, 2004

Offsetprint, Collage

7 parts, 11,7 x 8,4 to 18 x 12 cm

1954, D, 2004

Offsetprint, Collage

8 parts, 11,2 x 9 to 18 x 13,2 cm

Both: Acquired 2005



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Oskar Schmidt(*1977 in Erlabrunn, D, lives in

Berlin and Leipzig, D)

The American Series I-XII, 2011

Museo Silver Rag Print

7 parts, picture 29 x 22,9 cm,

passepartout 46 x 38,4 cm, Ed.

5/12 + 3 AP

Chair, 2011

Museo Fine Art Print

116 x 93 cm, Ed. 1/5 + 2 AP

All: Acquired 2014


Carmelo Tedeschi(*1978 in Sicily, I, lives in Berlin, D

and Fez, MA)

Untitled (black & silver), 2012

Molded and hand stitched vegeta-

ble tanned leather, 47 x 53 x 62 cm

Erworben 2014


Untitled (black & silver), 2014


ble tanned leather

47 x 37 x 25 cm

Bracelets, 2008-2012

Leather and pigments

10 parts, various dimensions

Untitled (black & raw), 2012

Molded and hand stitched leather

47 x 58 x 65 cm

Untitled (natural & silver), 2014


ble tanned leather

34 x 67 x 110 cm


55

Prototype (black & silver), 2012

Molded and hand stitched leather

47 x 37 x 25 cm

All: On loan from:

xavierlaboulbenne, Berlin

Luca Trevisani(*1979 in Verona, I, lives in

Berlin, D)

Sieb [Sieve], 2014

Space installation made of

60 Corian elements

Each 65 x 100 x 1,9 cm

overall 320 x 358 x 810 cm

Acquired 2014


Seven Boards of Skill, 2008

Copper, aluminum, cork, foil,

metal bracket, 51 x 35 x 9 cm

Acquired 2010


Die Befindlichkeit des Landes [The

mental state of the land], 2013

5 parts, UV ray print on plastic

mirror foil

Each about 152 x 271 cm

Acquired 2013



56

Georg Winter(*1962 in Biberach, D, lives in

Stuttgart, D)

Psychotektonische Prozesse:Black Out, 2013

Mixed media

Dimensions variable

Acquired 2014


Tapio Wirkkala(1915 Hanko, FIN – 1985 Helsinki,

FIN)

Golden Bowl, 1971

2,5 x Ø 31 cm

Design for Rosenthal

On loan from:

Kari Kenetti, Kippes, Berlin

Pyörre [Whirl], 1954

Plywood, laminated birch

140 x 159 x 70 cm

Photographic Reproduction

Installation view ‘Conceptual & Applied III’, Daimler Contemporary, Berlin 2014: Lina Bo Bardi


Documents

conceptual applied III - Daimler Art Collection · 2 Installation view ‘Minimalism and Applied II’, Daimler Contemporary Berlin, 2010 01_kat_dts_engl_kor07_conceptual_applied_III