Barbara Wien Wilma Lukatsch Galerie

Profile

Founded by Barbara Wien in 1988 as gallery and bookshop for artists' books. In the bookshop we especially offer writings by artists, rare books since 1960 (Fluxus, Conceptual Art, artists' movements since 1960), conceptual photography books, editions etc..

In the gallery we impart concepts of the younger generation (f.e. Haegue Yang , Nina Canell , Peter Piller , Mariana Castillo Deball , Alexandra Leykauf , Eva von Platen and others) and revolutionary art and book concepts of the 1960s and 1970s by artists like Tomas Schmit , Nam June Paik , Arthur Köpcke , Hans Peter Feldmann , Jimmie Durham , Michael Snow , Dieter Roth , and Ingrid Wiener .

We present two artistic positions dealing with possible connections between art and natural science. Our gallery has followed outstanding positions in this field from the very beginning, because we are intent on featuring artists who impart a new understanding of being an artist: they work as artists as well as, for example, researchers, writers, or theoreticians.

At Art Basel we combine Tomas Schmit's position with the sculptural work of Swedish artist Nina Canell (*1979), winner of the Art Basel Bâloise Prize 2009. Canell has prepared a special project for Art Feature, in which she will present an installation that furthers her interest in questioning the reliability and fixity of physical forms. She often makes use of found objects, neon light, water, and electrical devices, the resulting artworks typically forming precarious ad hoc constellations and minimal happenings that could be understood as a testing ground for empirical reasoning and speculation. Taking the idea of Schmit's very first work, zyklus for water-pails (or bottles) no. 1 (1962), as a point of departure, Canell's project considers the process of disappearing, or rather how something mutates from one thing into another.