Lot 323 | Untitled (target)

ARMLEDER, JOHN MICHAEL
1948 Geneva

Title: Untitled (target).
Subtitle: Neoninstallation.
Date: 2001.
Technique: Nine coloured neon-circles, transformers and cable.
Measurement: Ø 300cm.

This light installation is a unique art work. It is fully functionable.

Provenance:
- Galerie Anselm Dreher, Berlin
- Museum der bildenden Künste, Leipzig (permanent loan)

Exhibitions:
- La Maison Rouge, Paris 2012
- me Collectors Room, Berlin 2013
- me Collectors Room, Berlin 2016/2017

Literature:
- O´Driscoll, Philippa/Stausberg, Anna-Antonia: PLAY - The Frivolous and the Serious, Berlin 2013, ill. p. 36
- Stiftung Olbricht (ed.): My abstract world, Berlin 2016, ill. p. 63

With his unusual and also innovative pictures, objects, installations and exhibitions John M. Armleder is one of the most influencial european concept- and performance contemporary artist. 1986 he manages his international breaktrough he with the design of the swiss pavillon at the Venice Biennale followed by the participation in the documenta in Kassen the following year. Since then he recieved many awards and presents his works in many exhibitions, lastly in the retroperspective due to his 70th birthday in 2018 in Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Donnaregina in Naples and in Museion Bozen.

Armleder coins the conventions in the art of the 20th century concerning the topic of his works. He constantly deals with the question: Can an artist still make enduring art despite the constant overwhelming amount of images and trivialization of the art due to mass media? Armleder deconstructs the art freely, changes directions and dedicated himself towards a subversive-analythical exam. Here he formally adapts the modern constructivism, the op- and pop-art as well as the gestural-abstract painting. Humorously but subtle he referes to artistic references and finds unconventional poetic and ironic formulations to our today's reality and to today's status of art wothout giving them any deeper sense. At the same time be combines advanced civilisation with everyday life in his works, profound and banal, planning and coincidence to an ambiguous and unique experience outside and inside inwhich we are often incoperated.
With his kinetic neon works to which the present work "Untitled (target)" belongs Armleder discuses a fundamental element in the art: The light. With different colourd, concentric circles arranged neon pipes Armleder investigates the interplay of colour. He uses the neon for his original use - visualising things but more percisely visualising circumstances. Conciously he takes this origiginal ides and transferes this into an artistic context. Lastly, the artist gives the viewer a certain kind of space. Due to Armleder's new contextualisation of the medium neon the artist generally deals with the perception and thus, disects the fundamental characteristics of art.