In Module 1, we explore the affinity between the medium of photography and the strategy of staging. Exciting new realities can be created, but how? To pursue this question we look closely at the photographs of Cindy Sherman, as well as Jeff Wall’s large-format transparencies mounted in lightboxes. How do these artists engineer their works and how do they handle their models? In what way do their works address us as viewers standing in front of them?

In Module 2, we explore how artists, starting from either reality or other models, arrive at new images or objects through a process of imitation. The focus here will be on Tisch (1992–1993) by Fischli/Weiss and the photograph Clearing (2003) by Thomas Demand. In what way do these artists engage with the things that make up our world? What kind of objects and images are we actually looking at?

The growing presence of digital databases and the Internet applies to the art world as well where practices of collecting, storing and showing receive ever greater attention. We address this issue in Module 4 from the perspective of works by Tacita Dean, Fiona Tan, Christian Boltanski, Matthew Barney and others. What constitutes a collection? What is part of it, what is left out of it and why? What forms of presentation are chosen for a collection? And how do collections contribute to our experience and reading of the world?

Grease, felt, wax, vaseline, chocolate, cardboard, plaster, iron, concrete, chalk, unfired clay, textiles, wood, neon tubes, plastic – these are just some of the materials that artists single to best suit the design and implementation of their ideas. In this module we look at such works as Monika Sosnowska’s Concrete Ball or Jean-Frédéric Schnyder’s cardboard pieces and explore the relationship between material and idea. Chicken or egg: did the material inspire the idea or did the idea necessitate the material?

In Module 6, we examine the sculptures Rat King (1993) by Katharina Fritsch and the upside-down hanging Leaping Foxes (2018) by Bruce Nauman. What artistic processes are involved until works like these can be installed in a room? How do Fritsch and Nauman create the impact of their works on the viewer? How do they deal with myths, fictions, legends or stories that shape our collective unconscious?

In Module 7, we expose ourselves to the immersive situations of Bruce Nauman's multimedia installation Shadow Puppets and Instructed Mime (1990) and Jane and Louise Wilson's video installation Gamma(1999). We test how they make our sensory experiences productive with their arrangement of light, darkness, sound and image in space. How do we deal with the situations they deliberately create? How do they manipulate our perception when we move there in the space?

In Module 8, we look at works of art that involve books, for example, Dieter Roth’s Das Meer, Teil 1 (The Sea, Part 1, 1968), made with the help of chocolate and a poem, or Paul Chan’s Volumes (2012), an installation consisting of 1005 book covers. We also discover silkscreens by Andy Warhol, Christopher Wool or Katharina Fritsch. In the library, we encounter artists’ books – some oversized, others tiny. How do artists expand the boundaries of such a familiar medium?

How can identities be constructed, identified and compared? Is there such a thing as a genuine self or a true likeness? What can an image say, what can’t it say? In our mediatized world, we rely more and more on such devices as selfies to create an identity, which we then communicate on social media or other platforms. In Module 9, we learn how Andrea Zittel, Mark Wallinger, Dennis Oppenheim, Cindy Sherman, Bruce Nauman and others exploit themselves as role models in their artistic study of such issues as identity, the self and the ego.

Andreas Blättler
T +41 61 335 32 26
kunstvermittlung@schaulager.org