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Markus Muntean and Adi Rosenblum,
who live in Vienna, have been collaborating since
1992 in the art business. Their work concerns
itself with traditional genre limits both from a
media and methodical point of view, inasmuch as
these are in the process of shifting, overlapping
and dissolving. Painting forms one of the focal
points of their artistic production, but one that
eschews traditional classification and does not
conform to academic criteria or, indeed, those of
an avant-garde notion of anti-painting..
Adi Rosenblum and Markus Muntean react in their
installation "Where else" to the nimbus
of the two exhibition spaces in the Secession.
The Graphic Cabinet on the first floor and the
Gallery space in the basement are contrasted with
one another: although the aesthetics of the
former are more of the classic museum type, the
space of the latter glitters in its all-round
functionality, with the exhibition as such being
just one of a number of possible uses. Another
would be the installation of fast-food restaurant
- and that is exactly what Muntean/Rosenblum do:
they furnished this space with all the essential
prerequisites of the lounge of a fast-food
restaurant: in other words, with benches, tables,
plastic greenery and fluorescent lighting that
exude both cheapness and anonymity, just as much
as they appear both inviting and repelling. This
lack of individuality and arbitrariness that
characterizes uniform spaces the world over is
reflected by "Where else" in manifold
ways. |
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Muntean /
Rosenblum,
untitled, 1999
acrylic
on canvas - 115 x 85 cm. |
Muntean /
Rosenblum,
Needless To Say, 1999
installation
view at Galerie George Kargl, Vienna |
Muntean /
Rosenblum,
Where Else II, 1999
photo
- 130 x 100 cm. |
The
furnishings in the exhibition space
maintain a precarious balance between art
and artifice: the tables, and chairs were
fashioned from thin plywood expressly for
this occasion and are made to resemble
models more than actual furniture.
Practically unusable, they become part of
a stage set: reproductions of paintings
and photos by artists hang in cheap
frames that match to the decoration. Some
of their originals hang in the Graphic
Cabinet.
The paintings link these separate parts
of the exhibition by bringing both parts
together with the aid of images. They are
formed in the classic materials and
techniques of panel painting and feature
motifs that reflect the iconography of
commercial photography produced by the
lifestyle industry and are imbued with
elements from comics, in other words a
form of graphic art that now enjoys a
certain amount of attention in art
discourse, but that is seldom regarded as
a recognized art form. The protagonists
of Muntean's and Rosenblum's pictures,
who are never denounced as losers or
yuppies, illustrate details from
anonymous times in anonymous spaces, and
reflect an atmosphere that characterizes
the 'nineties as a new fin de sìécle.
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The exhibition at Secession will be
accompanied by a catalogue with texts by
Dominic Molon and Beatrix Ruf. |
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(Holland)
lives in Berlin and Amsterdam - Nato a Zwolle,
Olanda, nel 1957, lĠartista vive |
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