Jonathan Monk: Less Is More...
20 June 2013
Jonathan Monk: Less Is More Than One Hundred Indian Bicycles (with words from Rirkrit Tiravanija and a Silver Shadow) at Kunstraum Dombim, Austria 20 June – 18 August 2013
What does it mean when the boundaries between art and life disappear? Does this free up new art-inducing spaces or does it lead to a dilemma because the sole responsibility is given over to the visitors for their actions? The bicycles that have been assembled on site together with a work appropriated by the Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija, as well as a Rolls Royce from the 1960s, make up the coordinates of this exhibition. Tiravanija is one of the major protagonists in the art movement of relational aesthetics that began in the 1990s and that is the conceptual starting point for Monk’s installation. After the opening on June 20th, one bicycle a day will be removed from the installation and placed at different sites in Dornbirn for their free use. The sculpture is in this way dispersed piece by piece into the infrastructure of Dornbirn. The artist gives up control over the fate of the bicycles to the new owners. They can decide for themselves whether they use, sell, exchange, or simply return the bicycles.
