Michael Asher

Description

Publicatie analyseert de totstandkoming van de installatie van de Amerikaanse conceptueel kunstenaar Michael Asher in de Kunsthalle Bern in 1992, bestaande uit een relocatie van de radiatoren van het verwarmingssysteem. Studie analyseert de installatie tegen de achtergrond van het werk van vroege minimalisten als Dan Flavin en conceptuele kunstenaars als Daniel Buren en Maria Nordman en betrekt ook de resonantie in het werk van de jongere generatie (o.a. Andrea Fraser en Maria Eichhorn). - Michael Asher (born in 1943), one of the foremost installation artists of the Conceptual art period, is a founder of site-specific practice. Considered a progenitor of institutional critique, he spear headed the creation of artworks imbued with a self-conscious awareness of their dependence on the conditions of their exhibition context. In the work Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Asher removed the radiators from all the museum's exhibition spaces and reassembled them in its entryway gallery. Metal pipes connected the relocated radiators to their original sockets; these tubular conduits, coursing in linear fashion along the Kunsthalle's walls, kept the steam heat flowing and endowed the installation with directional lines of force. This "displacement of givens" offers a perfect example of site-specific practice, one that took the gallery space and the institution itself as its subject. In this detailed examination of Kunsthalle Bern 1992, Anne Rorimer considers the work in the context of Asher's ongoing desire to fuse art with the material, economic, and social conditionsof institutional presentation. She also considers the installation in the context of other works by Asher that have used non-art, functional elements, including walls, or that have investigated museological issues