Fly Me to the Moon at Kunsthaus Zürich
On April 4, curator Cathérine Hug introduced the newest exhibition in the Kunsthaus Zurich: “Fly me to the Moon. The Moon Landing: 50 Years On“. On July 20, 1969 the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle landed on the Moon with astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, effectively extending human civilization beyond Earth and onto its closest cosmic neighbor which also became a cultural event that was simultaneously shared by millions around the world.
The exhibition, which spans almost 300 years of artistic exploration, is a journey through humanity’s fascination with the Moon. Beginning with the perception and portrayal of moonlight in both historical and contemporary artworks, the selected artworks depict the Moon’s influence on our moods and feelings, the Cold War between the US and the U.S.S.R. that stimulated the race to the Moon, the global consciousness that emerged after seeing images of our blue planet from the perspective of space, artworks that were sent to the Moon, as well as the extraterrestrial sensation of being in a microgravity or zero gravity environment. Indeed, Cathérine Hug’s own personal microgravity experience on a parabolic flight in 2012, provided additional inspiration for her to curate an exhibition about an event which changed the world.
Knud Andreassen Baade
Stormy Night at Norwegian West Coast
Oil on canvas, 1856
99 x 86 cm
Photo: Kunsthaus Zürich
Paul Van Hoeydonk
The Fallen Astronaut
David Scott (Apollo 15 Astronaut)
Commemorative Plaque
Photo: Wikipedia
Cosmic Dancer, 1993
Zero-G art on the
Mir space station
www.cosmicdancer.com
Kunsthaus Zürich
Heimplatz 1
8001 Zürich
Tel. +41 (0)44 253 84 84
www.kunsthaus.ch
Kunsthaus Zurich Press Communication
The first artwork awaits visitors already in the entrance hall, in the form of a furry rocket by Sylvie Fleury. Created in 1997, it offers the first hint that this show, marking 50 years since the first Moon landing, tackles its subject with both humour and an acutely critical eye. The 200 objects on display at the Kunsthaus explore themes as diverse as topography, moonlit night and the Moon’s shadow, the Moon as mass media phenomenon during the Cold War and beyond, and zero gravity.
THE VIEW FROM THE MOON – A JOURNEY INTO THE UNKNOWN
The Moon landing on July 20, 1969 gripped audiences around the world and delivered the first-ever images of the Earth from space. Some of the artists in our exhibition were euphoric, and responded by producing heroic images that symbolized the faith in technology and progress prevalent at the time. Others identified a threat to humanity. Seen from a distance of 384,000 km the Blue Planet appears small and vulnerable – in stark contrast to the opportunistic egos of its inhabitants. Curator Cathérine Hug has conceived an exhibition that skilfully explores these tensions. Visitors will encounter star charts, romanticized paintings, the propaganda of rival political systems during the Cold War, documentary photographs and fictional film clips. They will make their way through installations in an associative learning experience that explores the many ways in which artists have engaged with the Moon and its relationship to our Earth. A number of them hold up a mirror to the denizens of the Earth.
QUIRKINESS AND RARITY, UTOPIA AND REALITY
There are new pieces by Liam Gillick, Nives Widauer and Anna Meschiari and additions to existing work by Lena Lapschina. Quirky objects – such as the tiny ‘Moon Museum’ (1969) by Forrest Myers featuring contributions by Andy Warhol, Claes Oldenburg, David Novros, Robert Rauschenberg and John Chamberlain, and Katie Paterson’s automated grand piano – meet rare items such as the plaque containing the names of deceased astronauts and cosmonauts reproduced in Amalia Pica’s ‘Moon Golem’ (2009) which, along with Paul Van Hoeydonck’s ‘Fallen Astronaut’, was actually placed on the Moon in 1971 and remains there to this day.
FROM DAHL AND MUNCH TO WARHOL AND FLEURY
Liam Gillick – who normally gets attention rather with his paintings, sculptures and conceptual works – has created the audioguide for visitors to help them navigate through the various themes: from celebrated and fallen heroes, moonlight and the staging of space travel to media hype – the buzz that greeted Neil Armstrong’s one small step as it morphed into a giant leap for mankind but actually began in the Soviet Union, with the shock launch of Sputnik and Yuri Gagarin’s first trip into space. Along the way visitors encounter Fuseli, Munch and Werefkin – consummate artists who could only dream of the conquest of space – and eyewitnesses such as space walker Alexei Leonov, whose subjective view is juxtaposed with a documentary perspective. From a distance of several decades, Turner Prize winner Yinka Shonibare revisits the forces of attraction and repulsion at work between different worlds, ironically interrogating the white quest for lunar hegemony and parallels with colonization through his Afronauts clad in Motown fabric prints. Another Turner Prize recipient, Darren Almond, is prominently represented by three cycles of works in which he examines the significance of the Moon for humanity right back to the Stone Age.
AN AUDIO FIRST: A DIALOGUE BETWEEN ASTRONAUTS
Research, technology and culture come together for this anniversary presentation, bringing loans to the Kunsthaus Zürich from all over the world. They include previously unshown items such as the artistic reutilization by Sonia Leimer of the recording of two Russian cosmonauts discussing the Blue Planet from their remote viewpoint and photographs of the Earth taken by the astronaut William Anders who could have since reinvented himself as an artist but didn’t. Lenders include major institutions such as the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ARAS), the Berlinische Galerie, the Max Ernst Museum Brühl, Tate, the UBS Art Collection, the Zabludowicz Collection in London, and numerous private collectors.
ARTISTS IN THE EXHIBITION
Darren Almond, Pawel Althamer, Kader Attia, Knud Andreassen Baade, John Baldessari, Peder Balke, Hans Baluschek, Rosa Barba, Guido Baselgia, Marc Bauer, Oliver van den Berg, Nuotama Frances Bodomo, René Burri, John Chamberlain, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Johan Christian Dahl, Robert Delaunay, Vladimir Dubossarsky, Marcel Duchamp, Albrecht Dürer, Sǿren Engsted, Max Ernst, Nir Evron, Sylvie Fleury, Lucio Fontana, Agnes Fuchs, Johann Heinrich Füssli, Galileo Galilei, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Romeo Grünfelder, Ingo Günther, Michael Günzburger, Richard Hamilton, Hannah Höch, Paul Van Hoeydonck, Philipp Keel, Albert von Keller, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Yves Klein, F.H. König, Kiki Kogelnik, David Lamelas, Fritz Lang, Lena Lapschina, Sonia Leimer, Alexei Leonov, Zilla Leutenegger, René Magritte, Hiroyuki Masuyama, Meister der Darmstädter Passion, Georges Méliès, Pierre Mennel, Anna Meschiari, Cristina de Middel, Jyoti Mistry, Edvard Munch, Forrest Myers, Friedrich Nerly, David Novros, Claes Oldenburg, Katie Paterson, Amalia Pica, Robert Rauschenberg, Man Ray, Hans Reichel, Giovanni Battista Riccioli, Thomas Riess, Pipilotti Rist, Ugo Rondinone, Michael Sailstorfer, Niki de Saint Phalle, Peter Schamoni, Yinka Shonibare CBE, Roman Signer, Andrej Sokolov, Nedko Solakov, Edward Steichen, Nikolai Mikhailovich Suetin, Pamela Phatsimo Sunstrum, Ilja Tschaschnik, Konstantin Vialov, Alexander Vinogradov, Zhan Wang, Andy Warhol, Marianne von Werefkin, Nives Widauer, Arthur Woods, Konstantin Ziolkowski.
The exhibition is a collaboration with the German Aerospace Center. It is supported by Swiss Re – Partner for contemporary art, by the Truus and Gerrit van Rimsdijk Foundation and the Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.
PUBLICATION
The catalogue (German/English, 372 pp., 400 ill.) published by Snoeck Verlag, Cologne) contains essays on the Moon and its ‘conquest’ from the perspectives of cultural studies, technology, ethnology and art by James Attlee, D. Denenge Duyst-Akpem, Walter Famler, Liam Gillick, Cathérine Hug, Ulrich Köhler and Tristan Weddigen.
DISCOURSE PROGRAMME: FILMS, DISCUSSIONS, GUIDED TOURS
‘Space law: what does the future hold?’ Discussion with Prof. Kai-Uwe Schrogl, Head of the Strategy Department at ESA (Paris) and other guests.
Thursday 9 May 2019, 6 p.m.–8 p.m. In German.
Location: Kunsthaus Zürich, auditorium
‘Operation Avalanche’ (2016, directed by Matt Johnson, 94 min.). Film screening followed by a discussion with Ulrich Koehler (planetary geologist, German Aerospace Center, Berlin) and Cathérine Hug.
Wednesday 15 May 2019, 8 p.m.–10 p.m. In German.
Location: Kosmos cinema, Lagerstrasse 104, 8004 Zurich
‘From a Bernese solar sail to the exoplanet’. Talk and discussion with Prof. Willy Benz, head of the ESA mission CHEOPS and President of the ESO Council.
Thursday 23 May 2019, 7 p.m.–8.15 p.m. In German.
Family day: painting workshop, build your own rocket, lunar library, guided tours and stories for adults and children (aged 4 and over).
Sunday 26 May 2019, 11 a.m.–5 p.m.
‘From an astronaut’s dream to the vision of a Swiss Space Museum’. Guided tour in the form of a dialogue with Guido Schwarz, founder of the Swiss Space Museum, and Cathérine Hug (curator, Kunsthaus Zürich).
Thursday 6 June 2019, 6.30 p.m.–7.45 p.m. In German.
‘The power of fortune has the guise of the Moon’. A conversation on the historical influence of night between Prof. Elisabeth Bronfen and participating artist Zilla Leutenegger, moderated by Cathérine Hug, with an introduction by Carlotta Graedel Matthaï (art historian). Part of Zurich Art Weekend.
Sunday 9 June 2019, 11 a.m.–12.15 p.m. In German.
‘Architectural utopias for Spaceship Earth’. A conversation between Wolf D. Prix (Coop Himmelb(l)au, Viennese architect and exhibition participant) and Cathérine Hug (curator, Kunsthaus Zürich).
Thursday 13 June 2019, 7 p.m.–8.15 p.m. In German
MOON BALL: AN EXTRATERRESTRIAL PARTY
Martians and moon goddesses should make a note in their diaries now for our Moon Ball on 11 May. Advance sales open in February.
After Zurich, ‘Fly me to the Moon’ will be shown at the Museum der Moderne in Salzburg.
Curator: Cathérine Hug
