BONN.- Bonner Kunstverein presents Yield, a major new installation by London-based artist Jack O’Brien. For his solo exhibition, O’Brien grounds the show’s conception, material form, and organisation in a state of transience: everything utilized is loaned or borrowed.
Drawn from the aesthetics of global logistics, O’Brien orchestrates selected bodies of work by artists Horst Egon Kalinowski, Edgar Knoop, Elisabeth Marx, Herbert Press, and Eva-Maria Schn from the estates in the care of the Knstler:innenarchiv der Stiftung Kunstfonds. O’Brien brings these distinct systems of preservation and circulation into relation with contemporary forms and conditions of valorization. Here, visibility is institutionally negotiated: the procedures that preserve the works and materials also regulate the gestural framework of the show. Structures designed to carry or organize other things acquire a sculptural presence, while the artworks become components within larger configurations. The distinction between object and its support becomes unsettled as seemingly autonomous elements reveal their mutual dependence.
Through a series of material agreements, Yield establishes a rhythm, a restriction, an interval. To yield is to give way under pressure, to relinquish a position, or to allow something else to pass. It also names what is produced: an output, a harvest, a return. As an exhibition, Yield suspends these meanings, evoking the question of what a material can withstand in order to fulfil its expected purpose.
Jack O’Brien (b. 1993, London) has had recent solo exhibitions at Kestner Gesellschaft, Hanover; Ordet, Milan; Camden Art Centre, London; and Between Bridges, Berlin. His work is currently on view at the British Art Show, and the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, and has recently been included in group exhibitions at the Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven; Luma Westbau, Zurich; Fondation CAB, Saint-Paul de Vence; CAPC muse d'art contemporain de Bordeaux; Kunsthaus Zrich; and Kunsthalle Bratislava. He was the recipient of Camden Art Centre’s Emerging Artist Prize at Frieze in 2023.
Curated by Viktor Neumann.
In cooperation with the Knstler:innenarchiv der Stiftung Kunstfonds.
