One, No One and One Hundred Thousand
Curated by Luca Lo Pinto
Kunsthalle Wien 19.2 - 22.5.2016
handle with handles
How does one handle change and movement -two premises closely related with the mechanics of the machine called ‘One, No One and One Hundred Thousand’?
In this case they are handled with handles and with objects that one immediately recognises that they are meant to be carried.
The verbs handle and carry in this instance take the form of handles and water cooler bottles respectively and language becomes the stratagem that led to the production of this series of sculptures.
In carrying these renditions of the very familiar and quite universal object, one has to figure out the choreography suggested by the handles, one has to adjust their body accordingly, weigh their options and timidly test them. The choreography of the everyday is subsequently transported in the gallery space, yet these bottles are neither transparent nor resilient as the commonplace bottle they mimic. They are rendered in terracotta, a transition from the transparency of the plastic that makes them present and heavier, yet fragile, adding an element of danger in their relationship with the visitor, making the whole affair of carrying them a bit precarious and unpredictable. Therefore one is obliged to ‘handle with handles’ and of course, handle with care. p.k
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One, No One and One Hundred Thousand questions the idea of the possibilities of an exhibition. This notion of potentiality launched by the group Oulipo will be applied to the format of an exhibition – not as an assertion of what an exhibition should be, but as an attempt to uncover what it could be. An exhibition conceived as a “machine” that produces other exhibitions. Nine artists were commissioned to create new works, which will then be presented in a display. On the opening day, the positioning of curator Luca Lo Pinto will be seen in the room, which is then dismantled for the next day and ready on a table for the following exhibition views. In this sense, all visitors are invited individually to arrange the works of nine international artists inside the Kunsthalle Wien Karlsplatz space and shape their personal version of the show, which is then documented. The viewer becomes the main actor, the exhibition converts into a space of possibilities and the art develops as a means to explore the position and authorship of the curator