Good Timing

Franz Ackermann, Clegg & Guttmann, Martin Dammann, Mark Dion, Herbert Hinteregger, Chris Johanson, Herwig Kempinger, Elke Krystufek, Thomas Locher, Inés Lombardi, Allan McCollum, Meuser, Matt Mullican, Bruce Nauman, Raymond Pettibon

REVIEW: Summer of 1998: With the exhibition Review, the newly adapted gallery space at Schleifmühlgasse was  presented to the public for the first time. Intended as an accrochage, it was to introduce the gallery profile.

PREVIEW: Summer of 2005: With Bad Timing, Koenraad Dedobbeleer stages the first exhibition in the second gallery  space BOX, newly opened in April.

Good Timing is the spontaneous response, an impulse devoted to the extended programme of the gallery - extended in terms of space and scope of content - to be reflected in an accrochage again. The exhibition seeks to present the character of a complex structure encompassing a multitude of flexible positions. The established opinion that gallery work is primarily devoted to trading in art has long become obsolete. Art is no  longer traded as a saleable commodity – the point is to present an idea, an expanded notion of plurality based on a clearly defined programme.

If a gallery focuses on international contemporary art in its programme, it is, as an institution, a major contributor to the development and promotion of current art production. In-depth engagement with the artist via constant dialogue, questioning, intermediary action and interest in the artist's oeuvre are the parameter of successful cooperation. "Networking" is the point of departure when it comes to bringing the positions of young art into circulation along with  internationally established artists. From this angle, the artist cannot do without the institution of the "gallery" as an area of presentation and projection. The chronology of exhibitions shows that, apart from the targeted presentation of  individual positions, there has always been a higher system of deliberate interlocking and interaction via group exhibitions revolving around specific themes.

In Good Timing, the programme is the theme. The point is not to formulate a final statement via a bracket of content  but to trace the specific image of the gallery via a CROSS OVER of a wide variety of artistic positions. After all, a successful accrochage thrives on primarily on the plurality, the gestures of far-sightedness and its feel for changes. Presenting the profile of the gallery means conveying a clear and conclusive programme via the widest variety possible. Subjectivity itself is the foundation.

Good Timing shows artists connected with the gallery in many different ways. Without the linearity of a chronology, the selection of artists runs the gamut of various approaches, intention and forms of expression in contemporary art: drawing, painting, photography, sculpture and installation by those artists involved in a continuous dialogue with the gallery as well as by those others, who enrich the collection by individual works and positions. The curatorial concept  renounces to organise them collectively along thematic lines, deliberately looking for a dialogue of individual gestures. Favoured by the specificities of the gallery space, zones emerge, providing impulses for new connections and associations by way of an intentionally subjective scenography. The conclusiveness of the composition in its entirety is derived from the power of the individual artistic statements. Narrative, poetic relations arise, overcoming classifications of art history.

Good Timing is the documentation of a dynamic structure which eventually can only be read as part of a whole. It is a fragmentary way of taking stock seeking to trace the idea and ideology of the gallery as an institution. The individual fragments form a picture, the subjective message of which describes an authoritative position in the field of contemporary art.