In radical Modernism, everything that had to that point only been painted, i.e. only represented, was replaced by reality, or by real things – so the premise of the exhibition to mark the new opening of the Neue Galerie in the Joanneum Quarter. As a response to the banishment of the objective world through abstract painting, Marcel Duchamp introduced real objects or “readymades” into art. Later, Actionism and Performance took the place of pictures of the human body, Land Art instead of the painted landscape, assemblages and installations instead of painted still lifes.
The Neue Galerie Graz reflects this fundamental shift from representation to reality with its own collections – with art from 1800 to the present day. The hypothesis is examined in ten chapters: Line – Colour – Light – Sound – Movement – Landscape – Still Life – Interiors – Bodies –– Interaction between Artwork and Viewer. All 400 works on show are illustrated in the catalogue (Publisher: Hatje Cantz), accompanied by an essay on principles and theoretical texts on the individual chapters by Peter Weibel, Christa Steinle, Gudrun Danzer.
