18 Oct 2010

Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig: Class of Installation and Space at Jakopic Gallery in Ljubljana, Slovenia

Fabian Bechtle, Karl-Heinz Bernhardt, Chris Bierl, Corentin Canesson, Zaida Guerrero Casado, Liviu Dalateanu, Franziska Faust, Jay Gard, Sebastian Helms, Katya Lachowicz, Tobias Löffler, Anna George Lopez, Denis Luce, Tobias von Mach, Andreas Miller, Inga Martel, Wolf Konrad Roscher, Danny Schulz, Adrian Sievering, Ronny Szillo

curatorial work by Joachim Blank / Andreas Grahl

In architectural terms, a pavilion is a free-standing, open structure with various functions. Although already known and used in the Ancient World, the use of the pavilion in European architecture rose during the era of Absolutism, and featured often as an outbuilding of a castle, or in the parks and gardens of the aristocracy. Built either as a place of rest, a vantage point, or purely as a decorative element, pavilions became equally popular later on in the gardens of the affluent middle class for the same purposes. Music pavilions were then integrated into the public grounds of spa towns, and today, in contemporary architecture, most sport arenas display elements of pavilions.

In the context of art, the word pavilion is associated with those in the Venice Biennale, where every two years over 70 nations re-design their idividual pavilion with contemporary art. Already in 1907 the Belgian pavilion began the idea of representing a single nation with a single artist in an individual pavilion. The idea of combining national representation with the pavilion typology within a global art scene, is a controversial and often discussed exhibition context. It is in many ways described as a reactionary, nation-orientated idea, which does not fit with a consolidated globalised world. Moreover, the German Pavilion was redesigned in 1938 by the German architect Ernst Haiger, who replaced Greek ionic columns for rectangular pillars onto which he placed a flat architrave. In this way the pavilion, with its broad monumentality, became a reflection of The Third Reich itself. Ever since, the German Pavilion has been a ideologically impregnated building, providing a significant contextual framework not only through the structural language of the building, but equally through the consciousness of its purpose and past history. Even the British artist Liam Gillick's take on the German Pavilion in 2009 showed that no exhibition or artistic contribution is possible, without it being seen as a commentary on the building itself and to its past.

The exhibition Pavilion X in the Le Corbusier-influenced Jakopič Gallery in Ljubljana, with young artists from the Academy of Arts in Leipzig, tries to explore issues of context, connotation, and representation in reference to themes surrounding the German Pavilion. Through the installative and space-orientated works, the aim is not a sociological, or political re-processing of the issue, rather a sublime-associative, formal and poetical approach, allowing for multiple readings and opening a new space for reflection.