Contemporary art on show

Each of the essays in this book originally served as the introduction to a thematic exhibition, as an explanation of the exhibition concept and the criteria for the selection of the participating artists. At the same time, the essays were, in fact, intended to be independent of the respective exhibitions to a certain extent in that they attempted not only to analyze the presented artworks and to describe and interpret the styles, methodologies and aesthetic approaches of the selected artists, but also to communicate the underlying ethical, historical and anthropological considerations behind the exhibition concept. Hence, in some of the essays, the reader will find hardly any of the artists that were actually represented in the respective group exhibition or specific references to the individual, exhibited works of art which, in the specific constellations of the thematic exhibitions, were illustrative of certain issues and ethical, aesthetic and historical considerations. In choosing to present these particular thematic exhibitions of the past thirteen years as paradigms of a specific interpretation, a specific exhibition function, namely discourse, the curator worked on the basis of his general approach to art, which reflects the fundamental conceptional and functional changes that have taken place in artistic practice over the last three to four decades.

The book features over one hundred contemporary artists, including among the others, worldwide famous names as Marina Abramovic , Maurizio Cattelan, Tony Cragg, Jan Fabre, Katarzina Kozyra, Bertrand Lavier, Mario Merz, Richard Nonas, Dennis Oppenheim, Gabriel Orozco, Roman Opalka, Mimmo Paladino, Giuseppe Penone, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Robin Rhode, Andres Serrano, Lois Weinberger, Italo Zuffi.