Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art at Barbican Art Gallery on artrepublic.com
Exhibition running from Mar 06 2008
until May 18 2008
Martian Museum of Terrestrial Art presents contemporary art as if shown in a fictional museum conceived by and designed for extraterrestrials. This ambitious, playful and irreverent exhibition transforms the Barbican Art Gallery into an imaginary museum, with a mission to interpret and understand contemporary art. The project is in part inspired by the first chapter of Kant after Duchamp by Belgian art historian Thierry de Duve, in which an imaginary anthropologist from outer space sets out to inventory ‘all that is called art by humans’. Since Martians do not have art as a defined category in their culture, they classify and interpret their chosen objects without the ‘knowledge’ we know as art history. Instead, they treat works of art as artefacts: objects which serve a function, whether real or symbolic. The Martian perspective opens up contemporary art to fresh interpretations. Looking at contemporary art as though from outer space offers the potential to make the familiar strange and to the turn the dominant Euro-American art tradition into the ‘other’. It also raises pertinent questions about the use and value of contemporary art in human culture. The Martian Museum opens with a spectacular gallery conceived as the Great Hall of Ancestors. Presented within the category Kinship and Descent , works include totems, kinship diagrams, and various forms of ancestor worship. Thomas Hirschhorn ’s Musée Précaire Albinet (Lighter), 2004, is a four foot tall sculpture, in the shape of a cigarette lighter, featuring some of his artistic heroes such as Andy Warhol and Piet Mondrian. In Jay Heikes’, Family Tree, 2003, brightly coloured sport jackets hang from a suspended tree trunk, suggesting connections between social groups. Sherrie Levine pays homage to Marcel Duchamp by casting a urinal in bronze, a precious metal and traditional material for sculpture, and thereby amplifying the gesture of transforming a common object into a work of art. Magic and Belief includes works that involve the literal or metaphorical transformation of materials from one form to another. Joseph Beuys ’Capri Battery,1985, suggests that energy captured by the lemon from the Capri sun is magically transformed into a yellow bulb. Icons, relics and shrines also feature in this section. Andy Warhol ’s appropriation of the endlessly reproduced photograph of Mao Tse-Tung reinforces the Chinese political leader’s iconic status. OPENING TIMES: Mon - Sat: 09.00 - 23.00 Sun: 12.00 - 23.00 Image Credits: Image 1: 6. Dr. LakraUntitled (Cupido Lupita)2006, Courtesy KateMacGarry, London, Collection Juliette and Jason Spaceman. Image 2: Cornelia ParkerMeteorite Lands on BuckinghamPalace,1998, British Council, Photo Rodney Todd-White & Son. Image 3: Július Koller, Universal Futurological Question Mark (U.F.O.)1978, Kadist Art Foundation, Paris.  |
