Detail

In 1968 US American artist Paul Thek made objects in his studio in Rome specifically for the exhibition “A Procession in Honour of Aesthetic Progress: Objects to Theoretically Wear, Carry, Pull, or Wave”, in the M. E. Thelen gallery in Essen. Unfortunately the works arrived at the gallery in Essen severely damaged. Instead of cancelling the opening, Thek developed his first so-called ‘work in progress’ from this coincidence. During the exhibition he carried out repairs on the exhibits and thus posed the question as to when an artwork can really be said to be ‘finished’. The work ‘Untitled’ from the mumok collection was part of this Essen exhibition. Two shoes sit on a white base. The right shoe, however, has a lifelike, recreated lump of flesh made of wax stuck to it. Between the shoes there is a frame with two photographs showing the artist’s feet wearing the exhibited shoes. On a small wooden batten there are a series of contact sheet photographs ordered one after another. They show a private performance by the artist in the gallery space in Essen during the exhibition. At the top end of the wooden batten there is a stuffed buzzard hanging upside down with extended wings. It is held in place by strings hanging down from above. If one looks at the composition as a whole, one is reminded of the form of a Christian cross. This object collage is special because it is here, for the first time, that the artist integrates photographs into his work –– his own, taken during the show and documenting the changing states. In this show, Paul Thek, who died of AIDS at only 55 in 1988, used the gallery as both exhibition space and studio at the same time. He was thus successful in breaking down the division between production and presentation: “The show I did in Germany in 1968 (...) changed from day to day by necessity because the pieces had all arrived broken. That taught me how important process was; there was no point at which you could logically say “now it’s finished.”