Artists: Xavier Aballí, Lutz Bacher, Nick Bastis, Cara Benedetto, Anna-Sophie Berger, Maurizio Cattelan, Claude Closky, DIE DAMEN, Jason Dodge, Robert Flack, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Adam Gordon, i ready made appartengono a tutti ®, Ann Veronica Janssens, Pierre Joseph, On Kawara, La Blonde, Dorothea Lasky, Eva Marisaldi, Franco Mazzucchelli, Matthew McCaslin, Elisabeth Mercier, Eileen Myles, Fabio Quaranta, Peter Rehberg, Willem de Rooij, Georgia Sagri, Julia Scher, Heji Shin, Mladen Stilinović́, Sissel Tolaas, Gavin Turk, Vipra, Chris Wilder
Exhibition title: Time Is Thirsty
Curated by: Luca Lo Pinto
Venue: Kunsthalle Wien, Vienna, Austria
Date: October 30, 2019 – January 26, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Kunsthalle Wien
Note: Exhibition booklet can be found here
The 1990s: Think raves, when sportswear hits high fashion and unisex styles became popular, when political activism grew in the wake of the global AIDS crisis, and the end of the Cold War signaled the reorganization of the world, think of the reunification of Germany, and how the mass-production and use of mobile phones came into being, as well as the prevalent spread of the Internet. Yet the nineties also appear to mark a point in history where the time horizon curves and the future and the past seem set in some kind of loop. From then on, there is seemingly nothing culturally significant that hasn’t existed before, albeit in slightly different guises.
Time Is Thirsty is a journey through time and space in the form of an exhibition: A complex ensemble of contemporary artworks and artefacts from the early 90s – more precisely from 1992, the founding year of the Kunsthalle Wien.
The exhibition conveys – and beyond that, triggers and challenges – the experience of time, its dynamics and stagnation, shaped by the manipulation of the present and the past, memory and perception.
Time Is Thirsty presents an immersive time- space in which the boundaries between the decades become unstable: Whether we are dealing with a relic from the 90s, a present-day phenomenon, what we encounter remains uncertain. Something that may perhaps be almost thirty years old, can be sewn almost seamlessly with the fabric of today.
In addition to the works of art and artefacts on display, atmospheric and ephemeral elements also feature to further heighten the senses of the years around 1990 in the exhibition. For instance, the Norwegian artist and smell scientist Sissel Tolaas reconstructs the scent of Vienna in 1992 to be dispersed in the exhibition hall. The British musician and founder of the independent label Mego, Peter Rehberg, and the Italian electronic music duo Vipra, each compile playlists that will acoustically accompany the exhibition. The designer Fabio Quaranta picks out an assortment of characteristic clothing from the nineties and contemporary garments of today to be worn by the visitor service team of Kunsthalle Wien.
Time Is Thirsty offers an expansive installation of art, language, scent and sound, artefacts and everyday objects, in which the timelines shift and the current past, as well as the speculative future, seem to merge into one another: a repertoire of gestures and emotions which can resonate physically and mentally as an MDMAdeleine to be swallowed. A kaleidoscope of signs between which one can lose oneself.
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Willem de Rooij, Body Warmer, Size S; Jacket, Size S; Jacket, Size L; Tracksuit, Size XL; Tracksuit, Size XL; 3-Part Track Suit (Jacket, T-Shirt, Pants), 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: On Kawara, Sept. 19 1992, 1992, Courtesy Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Georgia Sagri, Open Wound, 2018, Courtesy the artist & Collection 49 Nord 6 Est, FRAC Lorraine, Metz; i ready made appartengono a tutti ®, Pubblicità, pubblicità, 1988, Courtesy Jan Mot, Brussels
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Jorit Aust: Nick Bastis, Old Work, 2019, Courtesy the artist, Ermes-Ermes, Vienna, & Regards, Chicago
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Kunsthalle Wien: Willem de Rooij, Tracksuits, Size XL, 2015, Courtesy the artist and Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Berlin/Cologne/New York
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Kunsthalle Wien: Jason Dodge, Courtesy the artist; 1. SMS, 3.12.1992
Installation view: Time Is Thirsty, Kunsthalle Wien 2019, Photo: Kunsthalle Wien: Anna-Sophie Berger, time that breath cannot corrupt, 2019, Courtesy Galerie Emanuel Layr, Vienna/Rome, and JTT Gallery, New York
On Kawara, Sept. 19, 1992, Courtesy Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin, Photo: Christian Schwaber, Winterthur
Maurizio Cattelan, Project 1, 1992, © the artist and Air de Paris
Franco Mazzucchelli, Bieca Decorazione, 2017, Courtesy the artist and ChertLüdde, Berlin