Large Scale Picture

Ed Ruscha's two works, "17th Century - 20th Century", for the facades of the KUNSTHALLE vienna and Hall B of the Museumsquartier in 1993 were the first in the "Large Scale Picture" series of exhibitions organised by museum in progress. The KUNSTHALLE vienna, the temporary "exhibition box" situated beside the very busy Karlsplatz traffic node in the centre of Vienna remained the location for the "Large Scale Pictures" which followed, "20 Fleck" by Walter Obholzer (Dec.'94 - March '95), "River" by Gerhard Richter (Dec.'95 - March '96), "raise the dead" by Douglas Gordon (Aug.'96 - Nov.'96) and "There is no place like home" by Ken Lum (Dec. 2000 - Jan. 2001).

The enormous formats (KUNSTHALLE vienna: 10m x 54m, Museumsquartier: 10m x 40m) were produced using the Computer Aided Large Scale Imagery (CALSI) system: the motif was sprayed onto plastic panels and the colour mixed in the air so that the scanning of the conventional printing process was made unnecessary.

Hans-Ulrich Obrist, who together with Kasper König put forward the idea for the first "Large Scale Picture", remained curator of the project. The first four "Large Scale Pictures" were made possible in co-operation with Markus Brüderlin - curator commissioned by the Austrian Minister for Science, Research and Art. Ken Lum's "Large Scale Picture" was realised in cooperation with the Canadian Embassy to the Republic of Austria, the Viennese Fund for Integration, the Austrian League of Human Rights and the sponsoring group art pool. All "Large Scale Pictures" were produced by BEKO.

17th Century - 20th Century raise the dead River There is no place like home 20 Fleck

Texts: Vienna Strip. The Starting Point, Hans-Ulrich Obrist