Video Still in black and white showing a man and a woman as seen from a spiral staircase inside a building in front of the glazed entrance and looking into the room. David Claerbout, Sammlung Goetz Munich

ZKM | Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe

Imagination Becomes Reality: Conclusion

February 16 – April 30, 2007

The age-old medium of painting has reinvented itself repeatedly over the past 150 years, alongside and sometimes in conflict with new media such as photography, film and digital imaging.

With Franz Ackermann, Olaf Breuning, André Butzer, James Casebere, David Claerbout, Nigel Cooke, Brice Dellsperger, Peter Doig, Inka Essenhigh, Barnaby Furnas, Julian Göthe, Wade Guyton/Kelley Walker, Eberhard Havekost, Mathilde ter Heijne, Thomas Helbig, Lothar Hempel, Barnaby Hosking, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, William Kentridge, Jochen Kuhn, Mark Leckey, Zilla Leutenegger, Rosilene Luduvico, Loretta Lux, Fabian Marcaccio, Ivan Morley, Frank Nitsche, Jacco Olivier, Hans Op de Beeck, Raymond Pettibon, Lari Pittman, Magnus Plessen, Michael Raedecker, Jörg Sasse, Wilhelm Sasnal, Thomas Scheibitz, Dana Schutz, Markus Selg, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Thaddeus Strode, Hiroshi Sugito, Tal R, David Thorpe, Veron Urdarianu, Jeff Wall, Matthias Weischer and Xia Xiaowan.

The age-old medium of painting has reinvented itself repeatedly over the past 150 years, alongside and sometimes in conflict with new media such as photography, film and digital imaging. At the same time, the newer media have themselves adapted many of the methods, techniques and concepts of painterly imaging. This productive and creative relationship between different methods of visually portraying our reality was the thematic mainstay of the Sammlung Goetz’s five-part exhibition series Imagination Becomes Reality. Divided into five separate chapters – Part I: Expanded Paint Tools, Part II: Painting Surface Space, Part III: Talking Pictures, Part IV: Borrowed Images, Part V: Fantasy and Fiction – shown between 2005 and 2007 at the building of the Sammlung Goetz in Munich, the Imagination Becomes Reality series culminated in a focused Conclusion at the ZKM.
Conclusion showed a selection of works by 39 artists presented at the Sammlung Goetz, complemented by an additional eleven positions. Conclusion explored the relationships between the individual chapters of the series and sought a critical evaluation of the broad range covered by today’s expanded concept of painting in all its media diversity.
Following fast forward. Media Art Sammlung Goetz 2003/04, this was the second joint exhibition project by the ZKM in collaboration with the Sammlung Goetz.

Imagination Becomes Reality
Conclusion

224 pages, 80 ill., hardcover
German/English
2007, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg/ZKM Karlsruhe
ISBN 978-3-939894-03-2
€ 15,00

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Imagination Becomes Reality
(Special limited slipcase edition)

On the occasion of the exhibition at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe, a limited special edition has been published in a slipcase. It comprises all five exhibition catalogues of the exhibition cycle Imagination Becomes Reality, shown in the Munich rooms of the Sammlung Goetz, the sixth catalogue of the Karlsruhe exhibition, and a graphic work specially produced and signed for this edition.