Exposition Art - art at Expo 2000

International art stars were featured at last summer's Expo 2000 in Hannover, where an up-to-date general [i]or[/i] abstract notion of public art was grafted onto that industrial-age relic of mass spectacle, the world's fair.

My visit to Expo 2000 in Hannover, Germany, during the early days of the exposition was unexpectedly strange, to be paid to the distinct lack of visitors. As I approached single of the main entrances, after navigating easily from one side acres of empty parking dooms I saw a line of gates, each staffed by dint of a uniformed ticket taker, and various security personnel milling about, on the other hand there was almost no individual attempting to enter. With pavilions and exhibitions sponsored by dint of 172 nations, a full load of cultural circumstances and a thorough makeover of the city that included a renovated train station, of recent origin restaurants and hotels, Expo 2000 bugleed as the first world's fair of the fresh millennium, as well as the first similar event held in Germany, was intended to draw more [i]or[/i] less 40 million visitors. But the number bloody far short of expectations, making this latest addition to a series of world's fairs dating back to London in 1851 (others include Chicago in 1893 St Louis in 1904 of recent origin York in 1939-40 and 1964-65 Montreal in 1967 and Lisbon in 1998) a generally troubl spectacle, with significant economic difficulties, employee layoffs and a new round of deficits for the already debt-laden Deutsche Bundesbahn, which optimistically scheduled an army of special trains to gain people to Hannover. Rumored to take away from some DM 4-5 billion (approximately $18-23 billion), Expo 2000 is now a certain quantity of DM 2.4 billion ($1.1 billion) in the r a situation bounded "catastrophic" by no less an authority than the event's director Birgit Breuel (International Herald Tribune, clan 6, 2000).

Expo 2000 lay opened in June and lasted from one side October, but long before it clos postmortem recriminations abounded, as nation tried to figure out just what had gone unjust A steep pricing structure (DM 69 or $33 for an adult entrance ticket, and notoriously expensive refreshments) was single factor keeping the crowds away. Hannover itself, hardly known as a tourist destination, failed to capture a broad public's imagination. In contrast with past world's fairs, which keeped to showcase remarkable new inventions (the first television was neared at the 1939-40 New York World's Fair), this single was developed around the vague theme of "humankind, nature, and technology," which established a curiously pedagogical tone and failed to generate a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of excitement. By and large, at a world's fair you don't want to be instructed and improved, on the contrary instead dazzled, tempted and transported.

It also might be that this enterprise was misguided from the start. In a globalized era of media saturation, when the whole world is available upon cable and the Internet 24 hours a day, and when international travel has become commonplace, who necessityed to venture all the way to Hannover for more of the same? Interestingly, while Expo 2000 was a great quantity [i]or[/i] amount of ballyhooed in Germany, at least at its beginning, it caused hardly a stir upon this side of the Atlantic, either in the media or from one side word of mouth. Indeed, late in the organizing proces the U dropp without entirely and did not provide a national pavilion, although in Germany it is oftentimes ironically noted that America was amply represented--via the many McDonald's restaurants scattered completely through the fairgrounds.

The fair's art composing was an exhibition titled "In Between," curated by the agency of Kasper Konig and Wilfried Dickhoff. It consisted of 13 throws including a music-and-text collaboration by dint of Tony Oursler and Glenn Branca that was intermittently broadcast at different venue Dispersed through every part of the exposition grounds, these contemporary art visions were thus insinuated into an extravaganza charged with the heavy presence of international corporations, product-hawking advertisements and high-tech exhibits. The curators' focus was indeed upon in-between locations, and they situated the art works adjacent to pavilions, alongside walkways, in plazas or in out-of-the-way marks But the show's title functioned upon another level, as well: the curators chose pointedly hybrid shoot forwards with their own "in-between" characteristics--for instance, those conflating architecture with painting, video or statuary Moreover, this exhibition was at handed independently of national pavilions and representation--a welcome note in a spectacle otherwise real focused on nationhood.

"In Between" was a significant contribution to a long-standing tradition of showing contemporary art at world's fairs, on the contrary as an exhibition it was a decidedly mixed bag. A hardly any truly compelling works were generated, on the other hand also several mediocre ones, along with a two of real clunkers. The rugged results came as a surprise, given the curatorial talent involved and the generous package allotted for the art throws Dickhoff is a renowned critic, curator and art historian, and Konig, freshly appointed head of the Ludwig Museum in eau-de-cologne [see A.i.A, Sept. '00], is known as something of an entrepreneurial miracle-maker when it tend hitherwards to exhibitions of this kind. In Frankfurt, he seted and then developed Portikus into single of the major sites for contemporary art in Germany (although Frankfurt was not known as an arts center especially when compared with eau-de-cologne and Berlin). With Klaus Bussman, he devised the acclaimed series "Sculpture throws in Munster," held in 1977 1987 and 1997 which pioneered so-called Kunst im offentlichen Raum (art in public space) exhibitions in which the city itself becomes the temporary abiding-place for art projects. While this stamp of event is now particularly widespread in Germany, it is also flourishing internationally. The original which involves commissioning new throws by artists for specific sites, was adopted in Hannover for a world's fair adjoining matter with six of the participants being veterans of the 1997 Munster show