25-02-2002, front-page column
Art in the SZ
A page freely designed by an artist is appearing for the first time in this edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung. Page 5 carries the signature of the artist Thomas Bayrle, who lives and teaches in Frankfurt, and his younger colleague Andreas Zybach. This is the beginning of a twelve-part series featuring artists which will appear in loose sequence in the SZ over the next nine months. This SZ art project, which is unique in Germany, is realised in cooperation with the cultural foundation of the Deutsche Bank, the Alfred Herrhausen Society for International Dialogue and the Vienna art association, museum in progress.
Article, p. 13
Artists design SZ pages
For the past eleven years museum in progress has been commissioning various curators to fill the public space of the media society with artists. On billboards or the facades of buildings, in newspapers and magazines, the contemporary art institution run by Josef Ortner has been creating space for art beyond traditional museum walls. In doing so, museum in progress reflects the fact that contemporary art is bound to the umbilical cord of the media – where art is not publicised, it is hardly noticed anymore.
This art project which begins today in the SZ is therefore especially important. For the first time in this newspaper artists will be able to freely design whole pages, i.e. without editorial intervention.
The series begins today on page 5 with Thomas Bayrle, who was born in 1937 and began work in advertising. Since the late seventies he has been creating art works in which numerous small motif cells combine into a single image like an organism.
During the next nine months the SZ, in cooperation with the cultural foundation of the Deutsche Bank, the Alfred Herrhausen Society for International Dialogue and the Vienna art association, museum in progress, is publishing a twelve-part series of works in which several functions overlap: since they appear in a publication and not a gallery, they are not only art works but also carry out public relations tasks on their own account and at the same time document themselves within the framework of the mass medium SZ.
Through the publication of art works, the short-lived medium of the newspaper is transformed into a virtual catalogue or a museum. The contributing artists are chosen by a jury consisting of representatives of the participating partners and the curators Kasper König, Daniel Birnbaum and Hans-Ulrich Obrist.
With an Open Mind