ART CITIES:Frankfurt-John M Armleder
John M Armleder is regarded as one of the most important concept, performance and object artists of the present day, known for an aesthetic that is distinguished by the absence of a characteristic style, John M Armleder’s work spans several different mediumsand is loosely connected by a non-hierarchical and democratic understanding of art based on the themes of appropriation, humor, and chance.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt Archive
For his solo exhibition “CA.CA.”, John M Armleder has developed new, expansive installations specially for the Schirn Kunsthalle, combining culture and everyday life, profundity and triviality to create an ambivalent and unique experience. Based on the formal repertoire of Modernism (Constructivism, Op-Art, Pop, gestural and abstract painting as well as design) the artist finds poetic and ironic commentaries on our current reality and the status of art. The artist actively explores the respective exhibition space; many of his works are created directly in situ. He often uses set pieces from earlier works and combines a wide range of media and materials. For the Schirn Armleder is creating an installation in the freely accessible Rotunda. Twenty disco balls mounted at different heights are multiplied in its windows covered with mirror film. Inside the Schirn, John M Armleder assemble further works and installations, including new Pour Paintings, wall paintings and sculptures such as an inverted double children’s slide that forms part of his “Furniture Sculptures”. From the very beginning of John M Armleder’s career, a playful and forthright approach, the inclusion of chance and of subversive and unplanned elements manifested themselves as the main characteristics of his interpretation of art. He presented his first exhibition in 1973 with the Fluxus group ECART (John M Armleder, Patrick Lucchini and Claude Rychner), which had been founded four years previously and for which he had written a manifesto. Central concerns included the denial of the concrete, the determinable, and a predilection for the process-based approach. This fundamental attitude of the artist lives on to this day and is also reflected in the title of the Schirn exhibition “CA.CA.”. The coincidence of the result is also characteristic of his large-format “Pour Paintings”, made of poured paint combined with other, sometimes incompatible elements. Beginning in the 1990s Armleder’s formal vocabulary changed to become the very opposite of Fluxus: instead of “poor materials” the works were dominated by brilliantly colorful reflective surfaces with a glamorous air. The artist confronts heterogeneous elements, poured paintings with geometric forms and objets trouvés in the tradition of Marcel Duchamp with set pieces from fashion, music and design. This mixture of high and low, and the combination of forms familiar from art history with everyday objects is a method which Armleder uses again and again. Among his best-known works are the “Furniture Sculptures”, created from 1983, in which he combines geometric painting with found or used furniture and everyday objects, thereby expanding the classic picture format into the space. Consequently, his patterns extend across the whole wall in an all-over process or occupy the entire exhibition space. Areas of color, stripes, rings and other geometric elements in Armleder’s works are familiar from Classic Modernism.
Info: Curator: Dr. Ingrid Pfeiffer, Assistant Curator: Rebecca Herlemann, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, Römerberg, Frankfurt, Duration: 7/7-1/9/19, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-19:00, www.schirn.de
