Source Codes
June 26–August 29, 2009
Berlin
Kenneth Anger
Richard Artschwager
John Baldessari
Bruce Conner
Richard Hamilton
David Lamelas
Richard Prince
Ed Ruscha
Lucas Samaras
John Stezaker
Paul Thek
Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are delighted to present Source Codes, the first group exhibition to be shown in their new Berlin gallery space since it opened in October 2008. Source Codes juxtaposes a selection of works by a number of artists and filmmakers from Europe and America who mapped essential conceptual groundwork in the 1960s and 1970s and whose work remains influential to many artists today.
By examining new ways to rethink and translate visual information and cultural codes in the gaps between Minimalism and Pop Art, and through an interest in process-based performative practice, their work has exerted significant influence on younger artists in a variety of ways. Their individual approaches are the result of a critical engagement with prevailing ideas in conceptual art and have become paradigms for several tendencies in contemporary art. In this sense, the work of these artists could be seen as precursors, or perhaps as a source, of today’s conceptual art practice. In spite of these artists’ impact in the long term, their conceptual practice has resisted topical and up-to-date labeling. They were and are less determined by predominant trends or transient genre classifications, but rather were driven by personal interests and necessities, deriving from a critical look at questions and changes of artistic production within their everyday environment, and tied intrinsically to their historical contexts.
