Notation

»Notation. Calculation and Form in the Arts« is dedicated to the multifaceted spectrum of artistic process existing between concept and work. The exhibition places works from all areas of art from 1900 until today in relation to one another: sign systems in literature, music, painting, choreography, architecture, photography, film and in media art. Over 450 positions by more than 100 artists and drawn from international collections, the ZKM and the archive of the Academy of the Arts are to be presented. The show will be on display at the ZKM from mid February, 2009.

During the 20th century, artists have repeatedly made visible new realities through the connection between scientific calculation and artistic form. Morphic resonances, serial structures and sound waves: Modernity has rediscovered the intellectual aspect of existence as a field of research for art. John Cage, Etiénne-Jules Marey and Walter Benjamin, Edgard Varèse and Iannis Xenakis, Mary Wigman and Robert Walser, Oskar Fischinger and Marcel Broodthaers, Allan McCollum and Mel Bochner, and Pierre Boulez: 20th century artists have designed fields of relations in notations, (in the words of György Ligeti) either as directions for play, as means of communication or as an autonomous work.