Beijing, 2008, 35 mm film/Magic Pixel Box, 86 min., Filmstill.
MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main
Sarah Morris: Gemini Dressage
May 30 - August 30 2009
Opening: Friday, May 29, 7 p.m.
MMK MUSEUM FÜR MODERNE KUNST
FRANKFURT AM MAIN
Domstr. 10
D – 60311 Frankfurt
http://www.mmk-frankfurt.de
As part of the current presentation of the Collection Yellow and Green featuring the masterworks of Pop Art and Minimalism from the former Ströher Collection, the MMK is showing a comprehensive solo exhibition of American artist Sarah Morris (born 1967). In her work, which encompasses film and painting, Morris takes up the formal language of Pop Art and Minimalism, expands it medially and places it in a new debate as regards content.
Sarah Morris creates images and films in which she traces contemporary urban and social typologies. She explores the psychological and societal codes of the modern city and the formal language in which they are reflected in architecture. In the endless variations of complex color and formal analyses in her paintings, which modify the appearance of our urban environment, and the rhythmically structured sequence of images in her films, Morris attempts to filter out what lies hidden behind the facades of architectural and urban structures.
Sarah Morris' latest film Beijing is being shown for the first time in Europe in the MMK exhibition. The film centers on what was the nation's most complex undertaking last year in terms of organization and possibly its most ambitious: The 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing. Her film is the spectacular portrait of a neo-Capitalist state in an extreme phase of self-stylization and the compulsive need to control. Beijing reveals an authoritarian country previously closed in many areas, in a moment of seeming openness.
The exhibition in the MMK also showcases a comprehensive selection of paintings produced in connection with Morris' films. In addition, especially for the exhibition in the MMK, the artist developed a wall painting, which extends over two floors and responds to the symmetry of the museum's architecture.
In collaboration with MAMbo - Museo d'Arte Moderna di Bologna and the Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art in Rotterdam the MMK has produced a large-format publication with extensive images on Beijing.