post_modellismus – models in art - krinzinger projekte - Galerie ...

than with art history without a beginning
and without an ending. It is characterized
by the fact that the epochs mark the end
of preceding ones, so as to declare themselves
a new one – and generally in a rhetorically
effective mix of something both
disconcerting and natural.
Even if post-modernism comes to mind,
its inflationary use in language is not the
issue here. It should only be noted that
something has to lie in the past for us to
be able to say that another one follows it.
Incidentally, in this case the reverse argument
is always correct. Also what follows
the post must also have had a prior,
something pre-ceding it. Taking this into
account, the title only seeks to make clear
that the exhibition assembles artworks
that come after others. Our attention is first
directed to the fact that the precursors
are interesting not just because of their
expiry date, but also a historical rupture
becomes tangible, a departure, a separation
or dissolution. If one takes this into
account it becomes clear to what extent
the dash whose graphic function consists
in linking the two parts of the word, actually
separates them. For the dash, the
underscore, which Sabine Dorscheid
places between post and modelism, actually
signals a de-connection, precisely the
cut between before and after. The unusual
spelling show that this rupture is particularly
important to the curator. It is a spelling
that is also both disconcerting and
completely natural. The line in the heading,
which clearly refers to the digital transmission
of news, does not seem to form a
link but to underline the blank in between.
It seems as if the base line were opening
the crack in the center of reflection so that
not the words and their meaning but
rather the relation and networking is foregrounded.
Like an open placeholder the
space is placed between beginning and
end. The fissure that emerges actually designates
the still vacant center and calls
for the logic of in-between besides the
before and after.
But lets go back to the beginning. It has
been established that the word post alludes
to a temporal shift. As long as a
temporal post is being implied it also refers
to an after and can be replaced by this
word. To this extent post_modelism is
analogous to post-modernism, as an art
movement or epoch which follows another
one, cited second. Now of course
post_modelism is not the same thing as
post-modernism. Modernism was certainly
an epoch in which models played an
important role. The idea of something serving
as a proxy was something related
and important to it. In the meantime – in
retrospect - modernism has become a
concept that is taken for granted. ‘Modelism’
– and here it is thus in quotation
marks – is waiting to be established as the
designation of an epoch and as a standard
term. Be that it as it may, we can
already say today that there are many
models in modern art, and that modelism
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