Rirkrit Tiravanija

Multiples

March 24th to September 1st, 2007
Linienstraße 160, Berlin
photos: Susanne Ullerich

Rirkrit Tiravanija (born 1961 in Buenos Aires, lives and works in Chiang Mai, New York and Berlin) has since the early 1990’s developed models of artistic procedure aiming at a dialogue with the spectator rather than a mere passive reception. He offers to utilize particulary developed situations for encounter and creative participiance. Rirkrit Tiravanija has installed temporary kitchens and bars with friends that invited visitors to socially interact; he has implemented theatre-projects with students and created a platform for other artists by architectually intervening into exhibition spaces. With his body of works compromising aspects of everyday life (like cooking, eating, sleeping) as well as utopic and potentially life-changing concepts, Rirkrit Tiravanija has advanced to be one of the internationally most important contemporary artists.

From 1993 on, Rirkrit Tiravanija has created a number of Multiples for Helga Maria Klosterfelde: Untitled (rucksack installation), 1993, Untitled (tent installation), 1995, as well as Atlas I-IV, 1995-97, a continuous body of works. All these Multiples deal with another subject of Tiravanija’s work: Travelling as a topos of continuous change and encounter.

The new Multiples exhibited emerged in relation to The Land, a project that has since 1998 taken an important part in Rirkrit Tiravanija’s opus: a former rice field in Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand is, by Rirkrit and artist friends, gradually and in a variety of aspects, transformed into an experimental place of social, economic and ecologic engagement (www.thelandfoundation.org). Untitled (jacket turns to tent), 2007 incorporates the subject of travelling: The rain coat, manufactured in Thailand, can be transformed into a flexible shelter and the enclosed map leads the bearer from Chiang Mai Airport to The Land, the logo of which appears embroidered to the back of the coat. „Untitled (solar cooker), 2007 consists of a meticulously fabricated stainless steel solar mirror, in which the enclosed traditional buddhist beggar-monk’s pot can be heated to cook a bag of rice harvested at The Land. Atlas V and VI, 2007 continue the series of portable references and directions that comprise a kaleidoscope of biographical ubiquity.

Please contact us for further information.
Click here for available artworks