KUNSTHALLE TIROL Autobahnauffahrt Hall
Mitte A-6060 Hall in Tirol
Tel.: +43 5223 523 220 Fax: +43 5223 523
229 [email protected]
www.kunsthalle-tirol.at
Press Release
Exhibition
YOUR PRIVATE SKY - R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
26 February 2000 � 14 May 2000
R. Buckminster Fuller
and
Christoph Blum, Frankfurt
Carsten Hoeller, Cologne
I/O/D, www.backspace.org/iod
N55, Copenhagen
Mathias Poledna, Vienna/Los Angeles
[email protected]
Students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich:
Carolin Haecker, Cornelius Hofmeister, Joachim
Kaiser, Michael Matthes
Opening:
Friday, 25 February 2000, 19:00
Exhibition Duration:
26 February � 14 May 2000
The KUNSTHALLE TIROL presents from 26 February to 14 May 2000 the exhibition
YOUR PRIVATE SKY - R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER:
R. Buckminster Fuller (1895-1983) belongs to the most significant
American thinkers of the
20th century. His field of action was architecture and building as
shaping the environment, but
the background of his work is much more comprehensive: they weave together
basic artistic,
historical, sociological, economic and ecological connections.
In his way of thought Buckminster Fuller introduced expressions like
�spaceship earth� or
�synergy� into the discourse of architecture and cultural sciences.
Many of his maxims � think
global, act local � have become part of the common way of thinking.
With the Expo-Pavillion
of the USA for the World Exhibition 1967 in Montreal the utopian input
of his thoughts about
design achieved exceptional popularity. Fullers view of the world
made him an interesting
discussion partner for the leadership of the US army; a few years later,
he was nothing less
than a guru for the hippie-generation. Towards the end of his life,
he held the Norton Chair for
Poetry in Harvard. Fuller paved the way for a process oriented, dynamical
perception of the
world which is still very substantive today, especially in the framework
of the arts and of nano-
technology.
Symbol and real place of the merging of intellectual energy was the
Black
Mountain College in
North Carolina, where Buckminster Fuller lived in the late Forties.
The Black Mountain College
was the early model of a University oriented towards the arts which
was as a magnet for an
artistic and intellectual avant-garde and showed how a rich universe
could crystallize in one
place.
The mobile exhibition YOUR PRIVATE SKY shows R. Buckminster Fuller
as a brilliant borderliner
between natural sciences and humanities through models, pictures, photographs,
maps, film
sequences and other documents. The KUNSTHALLE TIROL introduces new
foci on the logistics
of the exhibition, Fuller�s concept of the �World Game� in connection
with interactive internet-
projects and the weaving together of the documentary part with positions
of contemporary
artists, whose concepts draw connections to Buckminster Fuller�s interdisciplinary
way of
thinking. further focus with models, pictures,
The KUNSTHALLE TIROL is throughout Europe the only station where
the comprehensive
material of the Buckminster Fuller Archive in Santa Barbara, California,
is shown.
A symposium with international leading researchers on Buckminster
Fuller (28 April � 1 May
2000 in Hall) and 'In Bucky�s Footsteps in New York', an excursion
to the north-American
metropolis to, among other events, to the Whitney-Biennal (end of May
2000) complement the
exhibition YOUR PRIVATE SKY.
Accompanying the exhibition, Lars Mueller, Baden/Schweiz, has produced
a two volume catalog.
The first volume �Your Private Sky: R. Buckminster Fuller � Design
als Kunst einer Wissenschaft�
(edited by Joachim Krausse and Claude Lichtenstein) has already appeared
in english and german.
The second volume �Your Private Sky: Discourse� will appear during
the exhibition in the
KUNSTHALLE TIROL. Both volumes are available from the KUNSTHALLE TIROL.
Institut für Bilderzeugung (Institute for the Production of
Images at the KUNSTHALLE TIROL)
Collaborative Hypertext: Bucky City > in the Internet-Café of
the KUNSTHALLE TIROL:
The Storyspace Hypertext �Bucky City� gives a surprising introduction
into Buckminster Fuller�s
world on the one hand and is a tool for thinking that invites and integrates
the visitors of the
Kunsthalle Tyrol on the other hand. In the Internet-Café, visitors
can find their personal way
through a virtual city which is inspired by Buckminster Fuller. More
interestingly, they can
write their own part of the city or comment on what others have written.
Different links
between the single texts show surprising relations and make new connections
possible. A
document evolves which is not subject to the hierarchies of printed
text but rather a net of
communication. The Storyspace hypertext is on the homepage of the Kunsthalle
Tyrol via
Internet in the Form of a website. Visitors of the Homepage can send
their texts via e-mail to
[email protected], to be
included in the hypertext.
Areas of the exhibition
YOUR PRIVATE SKY � R. BUCKMINSTER FULLER
KUNSTHALLE TIROL, Hall in Tyrol
26 February � 14 May 2000
1. Buckminster Fuller Navigator
2. Biography
3. Lightful house / 4-D house
4. Dymaxion house
5. Avant-garde in Greenwich Village
6. Dymaxion Car
7. Dymaxion bathroom
8. DDU, Dymaxion Deployment Unit
9. Wichita house
10. Pre-Production
11. Fortune magazine
12. World map
13. Fuller Research Foundation
14. Architecture out of the laboratory
15. Geodesic Domes
16. Tensegrity
17. Whole earth catalogue & dome builders
18. World Game
19. Tetrascroll
20. Predecessors and students
21. Nano / like nature builds
22. Bucky & friends
23. Models
24. Curtains
The documentary exhibition is a project of the Kunsthalle
Tyrol together with the Museum für
Gestaltung Zürich, the Design Museum London, the
Stiftung Bauhaus Dessau, the Zeppelin-
Museum Friedrichshafen and the publishing house Lars
Müller, Baden/Switzerland, in
collaboration with the Buckminster Fuller Institute /
Buckminster Fuller Archive, Santa
Barbara, California
25. works by contemporary artists:
Christoph Blum, Frankfurt am Main >
) (, 2000
Carsten Hoeller, Cologne > series 'Spieltafel',
1998
I/O/D, www.backspace.org/iod (London) > I/O/D
4.0 'The Web Stalker', 1998
N55, Copenhagen > Dynamic Chair, Lamp and
Dispenser, 2000
Mathias Poledna, Vienna/Los Angeles > 'Whole
World Catalogue', 2000
[email protected], Innsbruck > 'FFWD', Fernfahrer-Projekt
(truck driver project), 1999-2000
Students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich:
Carolin Haecker > 'etwas bleibt immer außer
betracht...', 1999
Cornelius Hofmeister > 'Seilschaft', 2000
Joachim Kaiser > 'Zweipol' (two pole), 2000
(beehive-installation)
Michael Matthes > 'Empfangseinheit, Hall'
(receiving unit, Hall), 2000
Christoph Blum, Frankfurt am Main
The situate artwork by Christoph Blum focuses on the logistics of the
mobile exhibition YOUR
PRIVATE SKY: the temporary situation of construction in the Kunsthalle
Tyrol is � in the form
of different crates and packing materials not, as usual, hidden and
stored away, but left in its
purpose-oriented arrangement � itself visible part of the exhibition.
A model of the actual exhibition architecture (scale 1:50), which shows
in the hall of the
Kunsthalle Tyrol the objects of the exhibition as a map of the situation,
but contains their
wrappings true to detail, turns around the content-form-relation of
the objects.
Carsten Hoeller, Cologne
The series �Spieltafel� (�gameboard�) by Carsten Hoeller, who calls
himself a �Bucky-Fan�, takes up
the topic of the game and the with Buckminster Fuller central idea
of a sensible use of
resources of an existent system. The games by Höller have in common,
that no material � like
dices, paper etc. � is used for playing.
Carsten Hoeller: �Try to smile symmetrically without a reason: both
corners of the mouth should
be drawn up equally high. Most people can move the right corner of
the mouth better than the
left, maybe because it is controlled by the left �rational� half of
the brain. A crooked smile with
the right corner of the mouth is easy to achieve but looks �wrong�
whereas the corner of the
mouth which is harder to control � and so the symmetrical smile � stands
for �true feelings�.
I/O/D, www.backspace.org/iod
The London group of artists I/O/D (Simon Pope, Colin Green and Matthew
Fuller) uses methods
of deconstruction. The latest version of their internet-browser, �The
Web Stalker� (I/O/D 4) is
one of the most complex art projects on the topic of the internet browser.
Since 1998, it can
be downloads freely. �The Web Stalker� softens the borders between
art and software. In
opposition to Netscape navigator or Microsoft internet explorer, �The
Web Stalker� presents
www-pages not analogue to the source code, but shows links between
different homepages.
The relations are visualized cartographically, the evolving structures
correspond with the
constructions and the way of thinking of Buckminster Fuller.
I/O/D are currently working on an update of the �Web Stalker�; the
new version will be
presented during the Buckminster Fuller Symposium at the KUNSTHALLE
TIROL in late April
2000.
N55, Copenhagen
The group of artists N55 (Jon Sørvin/DK, Rikke Luther/DK, Cecilia
Wendt/S and Ingvil
Aarbakke/N) based in Copenhagen make �art for daily use�. The basis
of the production of pieces of
furniture is an esthetic and theoretical reflection upon existing concepts.
The background of
their interest in solving problems in concrete and significant situations
of everyday life is the
synergetic way of thinking of Buckminster Fuller. In the Kunsthalle
Tyrol, N55 exhibit three
objects: dynamic chair � a mobile seating object, lamp � a light object
and dispenser 2000 � a
box which dispenses brochures to topics of art and ethics.
Mathias Poledna, Vienna/Los Angeles
The contribution of Mathias Poledna deals with the historicity of strategies
of self-
empowerment and concepts of �the alternative�. Point of departure is
the �Whole Earth Catalog�,
first published in 1968 and influenced by the ideas of Buckminster
Fuller. The �Catalog�, in
design and concept an alternative version of the classical American
mail order catalog �Sears &
Roebuck�, introduces products for the individual self-empowerment and
education about
alternative ways of living. During the complete duration of the
exhibition, a step-by-step
�shopping basket� of products which were presented in the original
catalog of 1968 and are
still available today in the same or a modified form. Mathias Poledna
works as artist and free
author (among others Texte zur Kunst, Springerin). He has edited
�The making of�
(Generali Foundation/Walther König 1998) and co-edited �Sharawadgi�
(Felsenvilla/Walther König 1999).
[email protected]
Thomas Thaler and Christoph Hager, students of architecture from Innsbruck,
present the
project �FFWD oder das entstehen einer temporären gemeinde� (�FFWD
or the development of a
temporary community�).
Recent stages:
neighborhood: this expression was significant for the planned development
of a new
�temporary� community of truck drivers, who drive with their �home�
across the Brenner pass,
and residents of the village Gries am Brenner.
1st contact by letter: Yellow postcards, addressed to residents of
Gries am Brenner, were
distributed among the truck drivers with the request to send them back
to Gries from their
route through Europe.
2nd contact by picture: through a photo of each truck driver with �his�
postcard, a picture
joined the name. On a large poster board on the main square, the Griesians
saw the face to
�their� postcard.
3rd contact physical: in a small soccer game, truck drivers played
against Gries am Brenner
residents. The single �community members� of FFWD came into personal
contact.
In the presentation of the work in the Kunsthalle Tyrol, the development
of the temporary
community will be continued. The visitor is invited to send a yellow
postcard to any resident of
Gries am Brenner as a personal invitation and to be included in the
second stage of the project
by being photographed with the postcard.
Students of the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich (Prof. Res Ingold):
Carolin Häcker
�etwas bleibt immer außer betracht...� (�something is always
left out of consideration�) by
Carolin Häcker is a light installation which focuses on
source of light and reflection. In
keeping with Fuller�s way of thinking, she makes the perception of
the observer by changes of
the way of looking or the point of view her theme.
Cornelius Hofmeister
�Seilschaft� (�rope team�): Columns make up the central axis of the
KUNSTHALLE TIROL. The
columns are entwined by a rope and joined tightly. From two of these
columns, the rope leads
to a doorknob.
Joachim Kaiser
�Zweipol� (�two pole�), is a viewing case on a wall of the KUNSTHALLE
TIROL which joins inside
room with outside room. Bees use the case during the exhibition as
their living space.
Joachim Kaiser: �Fuller�s way of thinking is described as having two
poles: Fuller always
opposed his passionate pursuit of architecture and natural science
with the question of the
meaning of his work and its relation to the people and the environment.
The similarity in
structure between Fuller�s architecture and the way of building and
living in a beehive brings
inorganic and organic together.�
Michael Matthes
�Empfangseinheit, Hall� (�receiving unit, Hall�), focuses on Fuller�s
conception of spaceship
earth. The installation of an antenna on the roof of the KUNSTHALLE
TIROL in relation with the
workplace of the artist opens communication possibilities by satellite.
----------------------
KUNSTHALLE TIROL
Autobahnauffahrt Hall Mitte
6060 Hall in Tirol, Austria
[email protected]
www.kunsthalle-tirol.at
T +43 5223 523 220
F +43 5223 523 229
Opening Hours:
Monday, Wednesday 14:00-18:00
Thursday, Sunday, Holidays 11:00-20:00
Friday, Saturday 11:00-23:00
Clubbings on the following Saturdays, 22:00:
DYMAXION BEAT > 4 March 2000
BEIGE RISING > 8 April 2000
SYNERGY DOME > 13 May 2000
Art Communication:
Guided Tours: Fridays, Saturdays, 17:00 and 19:00; Sundays 15:00
and 17:00
and by arrangement ([email protected],
T +43 5223 523 220)
Art Information: Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, 17:00
Art Communication for school groups by arrangement
([email protected],
T +43 676 605 7880)
Program for children: every Sunday, 15:00 and by arrangement
([email protected],
T +43 676 605 7880)
Introduction to the Internet in the Internet-Café of
the Kunsthalle Tyrol:
Fridays and Sundays, 15:00-18:00