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Discover the Michael Ashkin Exhibition at Secession: Sculptures of Urban Landscapes and Video Art

American artist Michael Ashkin's work explored sprawling settlements and the desert as a living space.

The Secession presented a significant exhibition showcasing Michael Ashkin's thought-provoking contemporary art. It featured sculptures crafted from recycled cardboard, vividly depicting urban formations and architectural structures. A compelling video installation also explored the desert as a physical habitat and spiritual experience, highlighting Ashkin's distinctive blend of realism and internalized forms.

About Michael Ashkin at Secession in Vienna

Read curatorial context and practical visitor information for Michael Ashkin at Secession in Vienna

Exhibition summary

This exhibition showcased the work of American artist Michael Ashkin, featuring a series of sculptures made from recycled cardboard depicting sprawling settlements, urban layouts, and prison architectures. It also included a video installation exploring the desert as a living space and spiritual experience.

Curatorial context

The exhibition at Secession featured American artist Michael Ashkin, known for his model-like topographies that blend documentary realism with subjective and internalized forms. His work draws from photographic studies of post-industrial landscapes and his previous participation in Documenta 11. In the Secession gallery, Ashkin's room-filling work, Untitled (where each new sunrise promises only the continuation of yesterday),... (2009), explored the logic of urban spatial organization, mediating between societal ideals, structural necessities, and unpredictable chance. This installation comprised an expansive, seemingly arbitrary accumulation of simple dwellings, barracks, and sheds, arranged without clear urban planning. The work reflects the explosive expansion of urban spaces and the dynamics of spatial appropriation and participatory architecture. The sculptures, including "Plaza" and "Prison" series, are based on abstractions of aerial views and built environments, possessing no specific spatio-temporal identity. The inherent distance from reality, amplified by monochrome materials and predetermined perspectives, draws the viewer's gaze towards a distant horizon. Complementing the sculptural work, the video installation Here (2009) poetically and metaphorically examines the desert as a habitat, a threat, and a spiritual experience through an interplay of spoken text and visuals of an empty interior, creating a projection space in multiple senses.

Admission and ticket notes

Tickets are available through the provided link. The Secession is open Tuesday to Sunday from 10 AM to 6 PM. General admission details may be found on the 'Information & Tickets' page or through the ticketing link provided by the venue (eventjet.at). However, specific pricing or booking requirements for this exhibition are not detailed on this page, only a general link to purchase tickets is available. The venue is accessible and offers information on accessibility. It also mentions 'Informationen & Tickets' and 'Veranstaltungen' which may provide further details not explicitly on this page but linked from the site navigation to this exhibition page for general access purposes.

Michael Ashkin key exhibition facts

Review exhibition status, schedule, venue context, and attribution details for Michael Ashkin at Secession in Vienna

Venue
Secession
Current status
Open now
Exhibition schedule
From Nov 20, 2009
Artist line / attribution
Michael Ashkin, born 1955 in Morristown, New Jersey, lives and works in Ithaca, New York.
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