The Hirsch-Index. The Art of Quotation

“A picture is a tapestry of quotations from countless corners of culture.” (Sherrie Levine)

The exhibition The Hirsch-Index. “The Art of Quotation” (22.10.2011-29.04.2012) at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art investigates, by way of a selection of characteristic works, the ways in which artistic creativity and strategies of artists have evolved over the foregoing decades. What happens to earlier artistic, social or political ideas and objectives which connoted or still connote the work of art?
As part of the discourse on the claim to originality of works of art and the role of the author, numerous exhibitions took place during the 1970s that dealt with such topics as the original, the after-image, the quote and the copy. In view of a flood of images and the simultaneous intensification of the use of quotation in contemporary art, the ZKM | Karlsruhe offers unique and novel insights into this theme.
However, the aim of the exhibition is not concerned with investigating how often, for example, Kasimir Malevich’s ‘Black Square’ has been cited in art. The focus of the presentation is far more a presentation of the different modes of artistic appropriation of styles: forms of motifs, the use of materials, of models drawn from popular culture, from the world of commodities, from politics etc.