Inventur

After the Barcelona exhibition, the Collection was shown once more, this time in the Kunsthaus Graz am Landesmuseum Joanneum. There too the exhibition opened with a symposium, this one centring on the role collections play in the preservation and transmission of knowledge. Participants this time included Dan Graham, John Baldessari, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Sophie Richard, Jan Debbaut and Lawrence Weiner.

The Kunsthaus Graz’ futuristic architecture required a special exhibition approach. That is why director Peter Pakesch invited artist Heimo Zobernig to organise the exhibition. Together with the Vienna architect Niels Jonkhans, he came up with a very distinct solution. Kunsthaus Graz consists of an exhibition space which is stretched out over two floors. The rooms are connected by an escalator which, in both directions, drops visitors at the very centre of the rooms. The building’s strong architectural statement called for a sober exhibition arrangement.
Because the gallery spaces were entirely open and did not have straight walls, raw wooden partitions were used to hang the works on.

The Herbert Collection’s temporal framework acted as the guiding principle for the exhibition’s arrangement. A rippling historical line was drawn from the oldest work in the Collection, Carl Andre’s Henge on 3 Right Thresholds (Meditation on the Year 1960) (1960 – 1970), to the most recent one, Mike Kelley’s Memory Ware Flat # 18 (2001). By choosing a chronological exhibition arrangement over a traditional art-historical sequencing, unexpected connections arose between the works, opening up new display opportunities for the Collection.

This unique exhibition was the focus of a catalogue that documented not just the end result but also the thought process behind the show.

Publication
Inventur: Werke aus der Sammlung Herbert
Editing and design: Lichtwitz – Büro für visuelle Kommunikatio
2006