Tobias Rehberger

Anastasia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

TOBIAS REHBERGER
"Anastasia"
October 18 – November 29, 1997
Opening reception: Saturday, October 18, 6-8 pm

Friedrich Petzel Gallery is pleased to announce Tobias Rehberger's first solo exhibition in New York. The opening reception is Saturday, October 18, from 6-8 pm and the exhibition continues through November 29.

The exhibition addresses the esthetic of space as related to performance and video art. The first room has been remodeled after three set designs by the fashion designers Helmut Lang, Martin Margiela, and Walter van Beirendonk. "Performance (Frame Two)" incorporates a transparent pair of pants, a shirt and a coat by van Beirendonk. His clothes function as "performers" that activate the Rehberger's sculptures in the surrounding space. In "Performance (Frame Three)", Rehberger's intention is to isolate the concept of Margiela's proposal for deconstructivist fashion. This couch combines unlikely materials such as felt, leather, mahogany and a vase of flower stems.

The second part of Rehberger's installation "The Missing Colors" explores the structure of space through video art. The room is conceived as a bedroom, with a circular wooden couch in the center. Once the light is turned off, a video projection appears on the wall with a blue screen slowly crossing its color spectrum. The non-pictorial video functions as an invitation to sleep and consequently, dream, by shaping a specific physical and mental space. The surrounding color transforms the "bedroom" into a subliminal support for both a bleak narrative and video art.

"Rehberger is heading towards a new definition of what is understood by artistic production. He is not an artist intent on his own particular mode of expression, but rather a person who, through his art, wants to understand more about the structures and relations in which he works."

Rehberger's work has recently been exhibited in "Rooms with a View: Environments for Video" at the Guggenheim Museum Soho and he was awarded the Young Artist prize at the Venice Biennale this year. A substantial catalogue on the artist was published on the occasion of his exhibition at the Museum Fridericianum, Kassel and Portikus, Frankfurt.

For further information, please contact Sarah Cohen at (212) 334-9466