Sammlung - Collection

This exhibition has been organised to mark the 30th anniversary of the Migros-Genossenschafts-Bund’s collecting activities, and has involved a three-year overhaul of the entire collection. A large number of old and new works from the collection is being displayed, encompassing all the various collection periods – from Minimalism and Conceptual Art in the 1960s and 1970s to contemporary works setting socio-political, performative, glamorous or surreal strategies off against each another. The integration of the collection, which looks at contemporary art production directed at a broad-minded public and provides continual exposure to new and different thematic points of view, into a lively environment, is the central concern of the exhibition. With this purpose in mind, exhibition architecture by Markus Schinwald is being used, which gives the observer the opportunity to have a “new view” of the works.

The exhibition architecture of this comprehensive collection presentation has been created by a further development of the display form of Markus Schinwald’s exhibition, which was on view in the museum from 16th February to 18th May 2008. Schinwald, who oriented his spatial design to that of Friedrich Kiesler (1890–1965), has achieved more than a mere arrangement of the works; he has furthered the concept of holistic Correalism, which opposed the dominating advocacy of Functionalism in Kiesler’s time. It is the individual requirements of people or the works themselves that figure in the foreground and for which flexible designs have to be created. In this way the exhibition of the collection works fuses different periods and conceptual foci – whether socio-political approaches, the phenomenon of the “uncanny”, subcultures in music, or the discourse of glamour. The exhibition display uses the “Trager and Leger (T and L) system”, which integrates the spectator into the spatial and temporal context. Kiesler developed the so-called “T+L System” in 1924 for the Internationale Ausstellung neuer Theatertechnik in Vienna. It comprises a flexible, free-standing construction for the presentation of objects and pictures. Within it the spectator is made conscious of his role as “active see-er” (aktiver Sehender), and can follow and develop his/her own analogies and narrative strands. Kiesler described his concept of this architecture in the following terms: “Contact, not separation and resignation. They are set up for participation not isolation.”

Curated by Heike Munder and Markus Schinwald