The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place

Image: Oskar Schmidt, "Girl with Book", 2005. C-print, framed 100 x 128 cm. ©The artist. Courtesy: Zabludowicz Collection.

THE LIBRARY OF BABEL / IN AND OUT OF PLACE

curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers

25 February - 09 May, 2010

Private View: 25 February , 07:00 pm - 09:00 pm

176 / Zabludowicz Collection

176 Prince of Wales Rd

London NW5 3PT

www.projectspace176.com

As part of 176 / Zabludowicz Collection’s curatorial residency, Anna-Catharina Gebbers was given complete freedom to create an exhibition from the over 2,000 works in the Zabludowicz Collection. The result is a dramatic contrast to former presentations of works from the Collection.

With over 200 works exhibited, The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place will be the largest ever showcase of works from the Zabludowicz Collection. Anna-Catharina Gebbers invites us into a salon-style exhibition, a format which emphasises the deliberately overwhelming amount of contemporary works of art including painting, photography, sculpture and video.

Inspired by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story The Library of Babel, (1941) where inhabitants of an infinite library search for the absolute interpretation of the information around them, The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place encourages the visitor to embark on a similar quest for meaning.

While Anna-Catharina Gebbers generously empowers the visitors to draw their own conclusions from the Collection, seemingly incongruous works belie carefully disguised threads of meaning waiting to be uncovered and interpreted.

“The Library of Babel: In and Out of Place questions my role as it places every visitor in the role of curator; the sheer number of works forces the visitor to chose which works will receive attention. I am interested in how these decisions are made.” Anna-Catharina Gebbers

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive public program where invited professionals and visitors alike are offered the chance to become Guides, conducting tours for the public. Discussing how and why our attention and perception is guided and exposing different ways of creating meaning within the exhibition.

There will be an accompanying series of lectures and panel discussions with experts including scientists and theorists from backgrounds as wide-ranging as neurology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, linguistics and literature; there will also be an illustrated publication with specially commissioned texts designed by Joff + Ollie.

Anna-Catharina Gebbers has been Guest Curator from 2009-10. This exhibition is the culmination of In and Out of Place, her project for the Zabludowicz Collection which examines the idea of collecting and collections from various perspectives. In August 2008, 176 / Zabludowicz Collection and Gebbers invited over 100 artists to be part of The Krautcho Club: In and Out of Place, a collection-based project exhibited in both Berlin and London. In September 2009 the second part of the residency took place at ANNA-CATHARINA GEBBERS | BIBLIOTHEKSWOHNUNG. Entitled V-Effekt / In and Out of Place it contained an archive of moving image works from the Zabludowicz Collection for visitors to browse alongside an installation of works from the Collection.

Artists:

Rita Ackermann, Mark Alexander, Guy Allott, Helene Appel, Nobuyoshi Araki, Hope Atherton, Jimmy Baker, Uta Barth, Christiane Baumgartner, Luca Bertolo, Richard Billingham, Steve Bishop, John Bock, Martin Boyce, Robert Buck, David Burrows, Gillian Carnegie, Helen Chadwick, Spartacus Chetwynd, Colin Chillag and David Quan, Ross Chisholm, Larry Clark, Oliver Clegg, Dan Colen and Nate Lowman, Mat Collishaw, Gregory Crewdson, Russell Crotty, Aaron Curry, Sean Dack, José Damasceno, Gerald Davis, Kate Davis, Amie Dicke, Kim Dingle, Tomory Dodge, Giles Eldridge, Tracey Emin, Saul Fletcher, Richard Forster, Helen Frik, Tom Früchtl, Marcius Galan, Anna Galtarossa and Daniel Gonzalez, Ryan Gander, Anna Gaskell, Adrian Ghenie, Sebastian Gögel, Nan Goldin, Melissa Gordon, Andrew Grassie, Anthony Green, Brian Griffiths, Andreas Gursky, Wade Guyton, Falk Haberkorn, Neil Hamon, Anne Hardy, Alexander Heim, Uwe Henneken, Candida Höfer, Craigie Horsfield, Barnaby Hosking, Matthew Houlding, Thomas Houseago, Lora Hristova, Graham Hudson, Thomas Hylander, Takaaki Izumi, Noel Jabbour, Sveinn Fannar Jóhannsson, Sven Johne, Juneau Projects, Steffen Junghans, Tillman Kaiser, Mary Kelly, Rachel Kneebone, Terence Koh, Paul Kooiker, Skafte Kuhn, Friedrich Kunath, Alicja Kwade, Dr Lakra, Jim Lambie, Luisa Lambri, Michael Landy, Louise Lawler, Edgar Leciejewski, Glenn Ligon, Nathan Mabry, Fabian Marti, Eline McGeorge, Melissa McGill, Josephine Meckseper, Deborah Mesa-Pelly, Tracey Moffatt, Gareth Moore, Vik Muniz, Matthew Musgrave, Tomoko Nagai, Yoshitomo Nara, Mike Nelson, Ben Nicholson, David Noonan, Rupert Norfolk, Arnold Odermatt, Albert Oehlen, David O’Kane, Gosha Ostretsov, Silke Otto-Knapp, Djordje Ozbolt, Adrian Paci, Nam June Paik, Bradley Peters, Paul Pfeiffer, Jack Pierson, Lari Pittman, Richard Prince, R.H. Quaytman, Marc Quinn, Timm Rautert, Clare Richardson, Gerhard Richter, Damien Roach, Kirstine Roepstorff, Peter Rostovsky, Michal Rovner, Luke Rudolf, Jason Salavon, Michael Samuels, Oskar Schmidt, George Shaw, Jim Shaw, Dan Shaw-Town, Cindy Sherman, Pablo Siquier, Florian Slotawa, Melanie Smith, Jill Spector, Christopher Stevens, Dirk Stewen, Hiroshi Sugimoto, David Thorpe, Tim Trantenroth, Kon Trubkovich, Keith Tyson, Francis Upritchard, Sara VanDerBeek, Adriana Varejão, Chris Verene, Banks Violette, Sophie von Hellermann, Christian Ward, Matthias Weischer, Paloma Varga Weisz, Nicole Wermers, Kehinde Wiley, Simon Willems, Rebecca Wilton, Masao Yamamoto, George Young, Lisa Yuskavage, Tobias Zielony, Alex Zika, Jakub Julian Ziolkowski

Events:

EVENING SALONS

THURSDAYS, 7–9PM

25 MARCH

Attention and Recognition

Why do we recognise some things and not others? How does the power of attention work?

Join Nilli Lavie, specialist in psychology and brain sciences, philosopher Mike Martin, and artist Christopher Stevens in examining these questions.

15 APRIL

Collecting and Knowledge

Why do we collect and how does collecting help us understand the world around us?

Sue Pearce, expert in museum studies, sociologist Sarah Thornton, and Anne Welsh, specialist in cataloguing and classification, explore practices of collecting.

29 APRIL

Jorge Luis Borges and The Library of Babel

Expert in Latin American literary studies and Evelyn Fishburn discusses Borges’ short story with theologian and Pascal scholar Dr John McDade.

ARTISTS’ TOURS

SATURDAYS, 3PM

27 FEBRUARY

Kate Davis

6 MARCH

Giles Eldridge

13 MARCH

David Burrows

20 MARCH

Anna-Catharina Gebbers with Tracey Emin, Alexander Heim, and Sophie von Hellermann

27 MARCH

George Young

10 APRIL

Helene Appel

17 APRIL

Juneau Projects

24 APRIL

Lora Hristova

8 MAY

Anne Hardy

VISITORS’ TOURS

SUNDAYS, 3PM

Each week, we invite you to take the lead in interpreting the exhibition by guiding a tour of works that have particular significance for you. To find out how to participate, please ask at the front desk. Which works would you select for a tour? Create your own Show Within A Show by filling out a tour sheet. Enter our prize draw for a chance to win an exclusive 176 Zabludowicz Collection edition. The winner will be announced on 9 May and contacted by email. Tours will be uploaded to our Facebook page. To view your tour online, visit 176 / Zabludowicz Collections’ page on www.facebook.com

Moving Image Works from the Zabludowicz Collection at Anna-Catharina Gebbers | Bibliothekswohnung, Berlin

Image: Susanne Bürner, "50,000 can't be wront", 2006. Digital video, sound, 6min 24sec, looped and stage. Dimensions variable. Courtesy Zabludowicz Collection and Galerie Giti Nourbakhsch, Berlin

From 22 until 27 September 2009 Anna-Catharina Gebbers | Bibliothekswohnung is pleased to present for the first time in Germany a selection of works from the Zabludowicz Collection, London. The show is curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers and 176/Zabludowicz Collection.

The selected moving image works thematize narratives of history and take their inspiration from different existing aesthetic contexts. Art historical references, found footage or traditional rituals act as initiators which, during the creative process, are objects to shifts that obscure the source and unveil a more complex critical situation. Comparable to the Brechtian V-effect the attention of the viewer is drawn towards on the modality of the narration instead of giving way to the illusion, the self-evident and the obvious. The collection of historical facts and their interpretive exposure rather become subjects themselves. History and its narration prove to be a collection of things that undergo changing orders and stagings.

176/ Zabludowicz Collection collaborates with guest curators and artists, enabling them to realize projects with the Zabludowicz Collection and the exhibition space at 176 Prince of Wales Road, London. Anna-Catharina Gebbers is the current guest curator at 176 and this exhibition makes up part of In out of Place her ongoing project for 176 / Zabludowicz Collection which examines the idea of collecting and collections from various perspectives. In August 2008 Catharina Gebbers and 176/Zabludowicz Collection invited about 120 artists to be part of Krautcho Club / In and Out of Place a collection based project exhibited both in Berlin and London