PRESS RELEASE
Zucker Art Books is proud to propose the exhibition “Oil Painting is Finished” for The Armory Show 2017, a selection of works and artist books which emphasize the role of viewer as participant. The works date from a period of increasingly interactive art practices, sometimes known as “do it yourself” art, which had roots in the Dada and Fluxus movements ongoing at the time. DIY practices, which ranged from artist books to viewer manipulated work, is marked by an attempt at individual responsibility in creativity, rather than passive contemplation and consumption of main stream culture. With the rise in consumerism in the mid-1950s through the 1960s, artists responded to expanding choices in their art practices resulting in the radical move to invite audience participation in a work and allow them to decide a work’s outcome. The show’s title communicates this progressive departure from traditional art practice structures into a more democratic understanding of art. Oil Painting is Finished will focus on the interactive act. Known for specializing in works by Dieter Roth, Zucker Art Books is proud to show “Untitled (Puzzle)” (1961) by Roth, which was included in the MoMA retrospective of Roth’s work and has never before been offered on the market. Other Roth works will be the earliest known example of his hand cut book series, book aa (1960).
In addition to offering rare Roth works, the exhibition will also include Enzo Mari’s Struttura 495 and Oggetto a composizione autocondotta, 1959, a construction of squares, triangles, and rhombi with equal bases trapped inside of a box which, when turned or shaken, create new aesthetic formations in response to gravitational force. Bruno Munari is another early initiator in the art movement; Struttura Continua (1961-67) asks the audience member to create sculptures out of geometric metal pieces. Also on show will be one of Marcel Duchamp’s Rotoreliefs (1953), two dimensional images that give an optical illusion of movement when played with on a phonograph turntable. And I will also display many Edition MAT multiples, originated by Daniel Spoerri and Karl Gerstner, where by various artists engage in this moveable art to create infinite works in the cheapest way possible. One of these editions is a shoot it yourself painting by Niki de Saint Phalle and other works by Agam, Jean Tinquely, Karl Gerstner, Julio LeParc, Man Ray, Paul Talman, Robert Fillou, Jesus-Raphael Soto, Christian Megert and many others.
