No Show Museum, Zurich & South Africa 2016
LPM Projects presents a new collaboration with
THE WORLD’S FIRST MUSEUM OF NOTHING
presents
NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE
Exhibition
Thursday 25 August 2016
@ ENRICHED BREAD ARTISTS
951 Gladstone Ave, Ottawa
(45.4039272 N / 75.7154645 W)
Opening Reception 6 – 8 pm
Curatorial Introduction and Talks about Nothing 7 pm
In Cooperation with LPM Projects and PDA Projects.
Special Guests
BRENDAN A. DI MONTIGNY, Artist and Gallery Owner
DANA DANIELSON, Researcher in biochemistry and structural biology
ANDREW MORROW, Artist and Professor of Painting, Ottawa University
NORTH AMERICAN TOUR 2016 – PRESS RELEASE
“A breathtaking journey to the most remote regions of thinking” (Annabelle Nr. 06/15)
Following the success of last year‘s European tour with around 30 exhibitions in 20 countries and a closing show at the 56. Biennale di Venezia, the NO SHOW MUSEUM is now on tour across America, including exhibitions in art venues and galleries, in public spaces and in remote areas. The mobile museum has been shipped from Europe to America with the mission to spread NOTHING in the New World: The 80-day exhibition tour will lead from New York to Canada, then to the West Coast of the U.S., and finally down to Mexico.
The NO SHOW MUSEUM is the world’s first museum devoted to nothing and its various manifestations throughout the history of art. Its collection includes works and documents from over 120 renowned in- ternational artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, among them, Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren, Maurizio Cattelan, Marcel Duchamp, Hans Haacke, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Gianni Motti, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Santiago Sierra, Andy Warhol and Rémy Zaugg.
The NO SHOW MUSEUM has a mobile presentation space in a converted postal car. It currently hosts the new special exhibition entitled NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE, comprised of a selection of impossible artworks by 22 international artists.
SCHEDULE
8-17 New York – Fresh Window Gallery / in coorporation with the Consulate General of Switzerland in New York
8-22 Montreal – Public Space Exhibition – TBA
8-25 Ottawa – EBA Gallery / in cooperation with PDA Projects + LPM Projects
9-1 Toronto – Scrap Metal Gallery
9-7 Detroit – Spread Art Gallery
9-15 Chicago – T.B.A.
9-24 St. Louis – Fort Gondo Gallery
9-30 Denver – Ice Cube Gallery
10-6 Santa Fe – TBA
10-13 Las Vegas – TBA
10-20 San Francisco – TBA
10-30 Los Angeles – Monte Vista Projects Gallery
PARTICIPATING ARTISTS
Robert Barry (USA)
Vincent Bezuidenhout (South Africa)
Stefan Brüggemann (Mexico)
Lai Chih-Sheng (Taiwan)
Simon Gush (South Africa)
Stewart Home (England)
Piotr Jaros (Poland)
Raphaël Julliard (Switzerland)
Roxy Kawitzky (South Africa)
San Keller (Switzerland)
Donna Kukama (South Africa)
Stano Masar (Slowakia)
Tom Menzi (Switzerland)
Boris Mitic (Serbia)
Ghislain Mollet-Viéville (France)
Anthea Moys (South Africa)
Peter Nadin (USA)
Roland Roos (Switzerland)
Karin Sander (Germany)
Tza Va (Bulgaria)
James Webb (South Africa)
Ed Young (South Africa)
MORE INFORMATION
www.noshowmuseum.com
www.facebook.com/noshowmuseum
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nbk3CdZMO3w (Trailer)
CONTACT
Andreas Heusser
(+1) 917 497 5684
studio@andreasheusser.com
www.andreasheusser.com
The NO SHOW MUSEUM is the world’s first museum dedicated to ‘nothing’ and its various manifestations throughout the history of art. Its collection includes works and documents from more than 100 internationally renowned artists of the 20th and 21st centuries, among them, Marina Abramovic, Joseph Beuys, Maurizio Cattelan, Marcel Duchamp, Ceal Floyer, Hans Haacke, Yves Klein, Piero Manzoni, Gianni Motti, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Robert Ryman, Richard Serra, Santiago Sierra, Andy Warhol, and Rémy Zaugg.
A HUGE COLLECTION
On display are works, documents and artifacts of conceptual art, minimalist art, painting, performance art, photography, literature, theatre, film, and music. The collection extends over four floors, each floor consisting of two wings. The various tracts are thematically dedicated to different ways of approaching nothing.
A MOBILE MUSEUM
The museum does not only exist virtually, but has a real presentation space a converted postbus. The mobile museum is the result of the attempt to provide a mobile art context that can either be attached to established institutions or function autonomously. The mobile museum offers the possibility to discover new regions and spaces for nothing and for art. It works as a marking element in order to indicate any place as an exhibition area.
HISTORY OF THE ART OF NOTHING
In this age of information, where daily we are flooded with images and noise, moments of quietude, emptiness, and self-chosen silence become more and more important. Many artists respond to this mass-media sensory overload with a range of strategies that reduce, empty, decelerate, or take on an attitude of complete refusal that is more than just a mere artistic gesture. Better NOTHING than such a thing!
The engagement with nothing and the paradoxes of its (mis)representation has led to an astounding number of artistic approaches, methods, strategies, perspectives, and works throughout the 20th century.
Examples:
• Blank canvases or empty pictures frames are exhibited instead of paintings.
• Musical pieces are composed of loud pauses and silences.
• Installations and sculptures are created out of air and other invisible materials.
• Installations and sculptures are created out of air and other invisible materials.
• Empty rooms are exhibited instead of art objects.
• Galleries are closed for the entire duration of an exhibition or become sites of an active artistic inactivity.
In contemporary art NOTHING is also increasingly making its presence felt. The surprising thing is that in many of these cases the results are worth ‘seeing’. Even a brief tour through the museum makes it clear: to show nothing is not nothing! For this NOTHING differs according to its context and is set into play by the artists with various meanings and associations. The effects’ reductions and withdrawals create a particular attentiveness that makes phenomena visible, which, at first sight, were overlooked. Exactly this act of nothing shown—of the showing of nothing—opens up and sharpens our awareness for the peripheral, the hidden, and the evasive
MUSEUM HISTORY
Conceptually the founding father of the NO SHOW MUSEUM is the American artist Robert Smithson, who who presented in 1966 the first plans for the construction of a museum for nothing (“Museum of the Void”). Since then, artists from all over the world have added with numerous contributions and works to the development and establishment of the museum. The museum in its present form is run by the Society of Nothing (SON) based in Johannesburg. The museum’s current director is Swiss artist and curator Andreas Heusser.
ABOUT NOTHING
In the course of the 20th century, „nothing“ has become an equally distinctive aesthetic category like the beautiful and the ugly. The artistic examination of the (non) phenomenon „nothing“ has questioned traditional practices of art production and lead to new possibilities of spatial, temporal and material interpretation. „Nothing“ is usually understood as the negation of being and figuration, but strictly seen, it is not possible to define nothing. The fact that every attempt to describe, represent or materialize it is doomed to fail, inspired many artists of the 20th century even more to intensively deal with „nothing“ and the paradoxies of its (re)presentation. The result is a stunning number of artistic perspectives, avenues of approach, strategies, positions and works – which are collected by the NO SHOW MUSEUM, historically processed and presented at exhibitions and events. The aim is that the general public is able to experience and appreciate this highly divers and productive category of thinking and aesthetics.
NO SHOW MUSEUM presents works by:
A
Agnasi Aballi
Marina Abramovic
Akademia Ruchu
Alphonse Allais
Francis Alÿs
Paweł Althamer
Keith Arnatt
Art + Language
Michael Asher
B
David Batchelor
John Baldessari
Joseph Beuys
Irma Blank
Robert Barry
Mel Bochner
Marinus Boezem
Maurizio Bolognini
Georg Brecht
Marcel Broodthaers
Stanley Brouwn
Stefan Brüggemann
Chris Burden
Daniel Buren
James Lee Byars
C
John Cage
Lewis Caroll
Graciela Carnevale
Maurizio Cattelan
Lai Chih-Sheng
Christo
Jay Chung
Sebastian Cichocki
Nathan Coley
Martin Creed
D
Song Dong
Marcel Duchamp
Eric Doeringer
E
Maria Eichhorn
Elmgreen + Dragset
Cerith Wyn Evans
F
Robert Filliou
Spencer Finch
Urs Fischer
Henry Flynt
Ceal Floyer
Paweł Freisler
Tom Friedman
G
Ryan Gander *
Dora Garcia
Eugen Gomringer
Alexandre Gurita *
Simon Gush
H
Hans Haacke
Denis Handschin *
Noriyuki Haraguchi
Jeppe Hein
Michael Heizer
Knut Henrik Henriksen
Roger Hiorns
Carsten Höller
Stewart Home
Vlatka Horvat *
Tehching Hsieh
Douglas Huebler
Bethan Huws
I / J
Robert Irwin
Bruno Jakob
Ray Johnson
Raphaël Julliard
K
Roxy Kawitzky
Martin Kippenberger
Yves Klein
Imi Knoebel
Daniel Knorr
Christine Kozlov
Agnisezka Kurant
L
Sol LeWitt
Thomas Locher
M
Kazimir Malevich
Theresa Margolles
Walter de Maria
Agnes Martin
Gordon Matta-Clark
Francesco Matarrese
Piero Manzoni
Gustav Metzger
Ghislain Mollet-Viéville
Andrei Monastyrski *
Sarah Morris
Gianni Motti
Anthea Moys
Mark Mumford
N
Peter Nadin
Carsten Nicolai
O
Claes Oldenburg
Roman Ondak
Yoko Ono
Jean-Michel Othoniel
P
Nam June Paik
Laurie Parsons
Vincenzo Peruggia
Jack Pierson
Simon Pope
R
Robert Rauschenberg
Man Ray
Ad Reinhardt
Gerhard Richter *
Alexandr Rodschenko
Gerwald Rockenschaub
Roland Roos
Mark Rothko
Robert Ryman
S
Karin Sander
Gregor Schneider
Tino Sehgal
Richard Serra
Santiago Sierra
Mieko Shiomi
Herbert Schuldt
Matt Sheridan Smith
Robert Smithson
Lawrence Sterne
Hiroshi Sugimoto
Superflex
T
Rirkrit Tiravanija
Endre Tot
James Turell
U
Lee Ufan
Günter Umberg
V
Ben Vautier
Herman de Vries
Ben Vautier
W
Andy Warhol
James Webb
Ai Weiwei
Neil Wenman
Doug Wheeler
Y/Z
Ed Young
Rémy Zaugg
(* in progress)
CONTACT
Management und Administration
Society of Nothing
53 Main Road, Flat Nr. 8
Benoni (Johannesburg)
1500, South Africa
Andreas Heusser
NO SHOW MUSEUM: Director / Curator
info@noshowmuseum.com
www.noshowmuseum.com
www.facebook.com/noshowmuseum
Andy Warhol Sleep 1963