EXHIBITION CONCEPT NOTES

DESTRUCTION / CONSTRUCTION
One important aspect of ‘time’ is the fact that it leaves traces, adding things or taking them away; not only does the passage of ‘time’ break things down, ‘time’ also creates. For this reason, an artist like Lucio Fontana has a central role in this exhibition with his Concetto spaziale, which reveals sharp slashes through the canvas. He tried using destruction to create something new, to reach an unknown dimension. After World War II, destruction became an important tool for other artists like Alberto Burri, Shozo Shimamoto, Günter Uecker, Yves Klein and Arman. Other works that fall into this category are a seldom-exhibited broken mirror by Marcel Duchamp and an oxidation of piss painting by Andy Warhol, as well as the work of the Chinese artist Cai Guo-Qiang, who draws with exploding fireworks, and of the Flemish artist Peter Buggenhout, who makes strange dust objects from household junk. The fear of loss plays an important role here.