No Show Museum is the first museum in the world, entirely devoted to nothing and its embodiments in the history of art [1] . The museum was created in 2013 by a Swiss conceptual artist and curator Andreas Heusser . It presents the works of such world-famous artists of the XX — XXI centuries as Marina Abramovich, Joseph Beuys, Daniel Buren , Maurizio Cattelan , Marcel Duchamp, Hans Haacke and others. In total, the collection includes about 400 exhibits [2] .
The museum exists in two forms - as a virtual exposition and as a mobile space located in the bus, adapted to accommodate a temporary exhibition, which annually organizes tours, making stops in museums, galleries and public places in different countries.
Content
Nothing like an aesthetic category.
During the XX century. nothing has become recognized as an independent aesthetic category. Interest in this phenomenon prompted artists and critics to rethink the traditional practices of creating works of art [3] . As a result, new ways of interpreting space, time and matter have emerged. It is almost impossible to define “nothing” [4] , any attempt to describe “nothing” or give it a material form is doomed to failure in advance, and it was this that pushed the artists to work with this concept and the possibilities of its representation, which resulted in the creation of numerous works, the center of which somehow turns out to be "nothing."
Examples of how “nothing” can be understood in a work of art:
- empty canvases or picture frames exhibited instead of paintings
- musical compositions consisting of pauses and silence
- installations and sculptures from the air and other invisible materials
- empty rooms instead of exhibits
- galleries that are closed for the duration of the exhibition [5]
Museum concept
The virtual exposition reproduces the traditional structure of an art museum. It is conventionally divided into four "floors", on each of which there are two wings. Each part of the museum represents one of the ways of interpreting "nothing" in art. In total, the exhibition presents eight different categories of nothing: Nothing as failure, Nothing as destruction, Nothing as emptiness, Nothing as invisible, Nothing as reduction, Nothing as lacuna, Nothing as saying and Nothing as a concept. Each section is accompanied by a brief comment.
Nothing like failure.
Nothing like failure is defined by the curator as “the art of creating nothing” (pun: nichts tun) can be translated as “doing nothing” and literally as “doing nothing”). The works in this section are connected with the motive of deliberate renunciation of any activity: for example, the artist’s refusal to create paintings (See eg: Ed Young, Can't paint, 2012 ).
Nothing like destruction
This section contains works combined with the motive of disappearance or destruction. Here is the famous work by Robert Rauschenberg “The erased drawing by de Kooning” (1953), as well as photographs documenting Santiago Sierra’s “The Burnt Gallery” (1997) in the Art Deposit Gallery, Mexico City.
Nothing like emptiness
Emptiness is probably the most frequent association with nothing. The curators of No Show Museum define emptiness as “absence”. This is one of the largest departments of the museum, occupying the entire "first floor" entirely. The most famous artist who turned to the idea of emptiness is Yves Klein . Here are several of his works: The Void Room ( 1961), Zone de Sensibilité Picturale Immatérielle (1959) and Le Saut dans le Vide (1960).
Mobile Exposure
In July 2015, the No Show Museum launched the first exhibition tour. The traveling exhibition made stops in 20 countries of Central and Eastern Europe . The tour ended with an exhibition and presentation in Venice as part of the 56th Venice Biennale [6] , organized with the support of the Pro Helvetia Foundation.
As part of the tour, the museum made a one-day stop in Russia . The presentation of the exhibition and the meeting with the curator were held in the LUDA Gallery in St. Petersburg on September 3, 2015. The exhibition featured 24 invisible works by Yves Klein [7] .
Notes
- ↑ Art in Berlin: Dem Nichts Raum geben .
- ↑ Andreas Heusser. Ongoing projects .
- ↑ Lucy R. Lippard. Six Years: The dematerialization of the art object from 1966 to 1972. - New York: Praeger, 1973. - P. 40.
- ↑ Ludger Lütkehaus. Nichts. Abschied vom Sein, Ende der Angst. - Zürich: Haffmans Verlag, 1999.
- ↑ The No Show Museum: About Nothing .
- Th 56th International Art Exhibition - la Biennale di Venezia 09 May - 22 Nov 2015 .
- ↑ Just for one day in St. Petersburg will open the exhibition of Yves Klein "Nothing" .