Fast Forward 2. The Power of Motion

The exhibition »fast forward 2. The Power of Motion« at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art will show a representative selection of new acquisitions in video and media art from the internationally renowned collection of Ingvild Goetz from Munich. Whereas the selection of works for the previous exhibition »fast forward« in 2003 focused on the changed viewing habits of our »accelerated« society, »fast forward 2. The Power of Motion«, seven years later, aims to exam movement and acceleration, but also the potential for deceleration. Today’s society—which seems to move and communicate almost exclusively and increasingly in »fast forward«—inhabits a world that is shaped by a high degree of mobility, global trade via day-trading, mobile workplaces, permanent networking through virtual communication structures, and streaming on demand—everything seems available everywhere and always. And people, too, are forced by economic and/or political conditions to set themselves in motion: between cities, countries, and continents.

With her impressive collection whose origins can be traced back to the 1960s, Ingvild Goetz has compiled a museum-level panorama of contemporary art that is as extensive as it is personal. As one of the few private collectors, she was an early and consistent supporter of the medium video. Thus, over the years she has compiled a collection of media art that is among the most important of its kind internationally. The spectrum of her collection activities corresponds with the diverse media used in today’s artistic expression. In addition to drawings, prints, paintings, and photographs, she sets a clear focus on video and film works, site-specific installations, and multiple projections.

The Sammlung Goetz has expanded significantly since the exhibition »fast forward« in 2003 at the ZKM | Media Museum. ZKM will now show a selection of the collection’s recently acquired media works that deal with movement and dynamics in their content as well as at social, political, and formal aesthetic levels—and in doing so, simultaneously refer to the opposite: deceleration. Presented will be approximately 50 videos, video installations, and films from 35 artists. The works exhibited focus on current productions from 2000 to today, and offer an ensemble of well established, internationally renown positions and young artists, in part, new discoveries, as it is a personal concern of the collector to also show works from emerging artists.

On the one hand, the works in the exhibition will thematize dynamics and movement (as the title indicates), while on the other hand, right from the start the Sammlung Goetz was set up as an internationally oriented collection. Present as a loaded symbol at the interface of dynamics and a global world is the standard sea freight container. For this reason, an unusual »exhibition architecture« will be created: 19 containers in which video installations can be viewed has been set up in the two atria of the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art. There will also be associations with containers at the level of content, as several videos are set on ships, deal with them, or have plots revolving around lakes or oceans.

»fast forward 2. The Power of Motion« will show installations and films in the context of the thematic arc of dynamics and movement by, for example, artists such as Matthew Barney and Jochen Kuhn who allow a form of private myth to arise in their work. While for Paul Chan, narrative, among other things, is at the forefront in his animated videos; in the works by Christoph Brech, movement becomes a poetic gesture. In the work by Fiona Tan, on the contrary, the energy of the movement can be sensed only in the tension. A special highlight is certainly also the installation by Nathalie Djurberg, which could be seen at the Venice Biennale in 2009: here, through their own movements in the installation, viewers create a connection to the production process in the stop-motion technique of video. Since several artists represented in the Sammlung Goetz do not produce their works exclusively for the white cube of the museum, but also for the cinema, the exhibition will be accompanied by a film program in July.