Felipe Mujica’s installation at message salon is the first in a series of exhibitions and collaborations by the Chilean artist in Europe, with mostly Latin American artists and international curators with whom Felipe Mujica has worked in the past.
Wall-high, hand-painted strips of paper in monochrome colours, in yellow, green, black and grey, hang loosely attached to the walls in the message salon. Against the backdrop of the conceptual decoration that defines the exhibition space, the art audience at the vernissage becomes a complementary element in the spatial installation. The same strips of paper are used again by Felipe Mujica a week later in London, again as surroundings and background, but for a group exhibition with another four artists (in collaboration with the curator Pablo Leon de la Barra, London). In both scenarios, in Zurich and in London, Felipe Mujica’s work is only completed by the audience present or by the art installed by the other artists.
The title of the exhibition, “Kidnapping a Sculpture”, refers to an action by the American artist Vassilakis Takis, who marched into the New York Museum of Modern Art on 3 January 1969, dismantled his own kinetic sculpture “Tele-Sculpture” (1960) and left the building with it in his hand through the MOMA garden. This act was a protest against the power structures in the art world. At the time, many artists were questioning the museum’s collection policy and the hidden alliances between the museum and private companies that supported the Vietnam War.
Felipe Mujica (Chile/NYC) was first invited to message salon Rigiplatz in 2005 with the artist collective “Galeria Chilena” and showed a solo exhibition at message salon, in Perla-Mode, in 2008.
Exhibition supported by DIRAC, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Chile.