The Complete Parkett Collection
A Chronicle of Contemporary Art
March 8-31, 2024
Featuring a talk with Bice Curiger: The Art of Collaboration
Thursday March 7 2024
4-5pm
RSVP here
Ikkan Art and STPI Creative Workshop & Gallery cordially invite you to the opening of the exhibition The Complete Parkett Collection: A Chronicle of Contemporary Art at Artspace @ Helutrans, presenting the Parkett project in its entirety for the very first time.
Parkett, a beacon in the world of contemporary art publications, has been an influential force in shaping and documenting the landscape of international contemporary art since its founding. This retrospective exhibition, presented chronologically, offers a unique opportunity for visitors to delve into the rich history of Parkett, exploring its evolution over the course of four decades.
The exhibition will feature a comprehensive display of all 101 volumes of Parkett magazine as well as all 270 editioned artworks, made in direct collaboration with contemporary artists from all over the world from 1984 to 2017, including El Anatsui, Andy Warhol, Louise Bourgeois, Cao Fei, Tracy Emin, Anish Kapoor, Yang Fudong, Gerhard Richter, Beatriz Milhazes, Danh Vo, Trisha Donnelly, Urs Fischer, Theaster Gates, and many more.
Based in Switzerland and New York, Parkett created a new and groundbreaking model for how an art publication could collaborate with artists. Each issue, published in both English and German, presented a deep dive into artists’ work, featuring texts by internationally distinguished art critics, art historians, authors, poets, curators, and artists. Like a Kunsthalle on paper, the editorial collection acted as a bridge between disparate circles of art – beginning with Europe and the United States, and eventually extending in directions across the globe. With a spirit of experimentation and collaboration, the anthology of over 1500 texts contains not only critical insights into contemporary artistic practices, but conversations between artists, poetic ruminations, and celebrations of the plurality of art within its highly designed spreads.
Working in close collaboration with Parkett, the featured artists were commissioned to create editioned artworks that took on many forms, ranging from prints, photographs, and sculptural objects, to installations, videos, and multi-media works. By working within the format of a multiple, artists created works that encapsulated their practice, or were propelled to experiment and create something entirely new. Early works were bound directly into the pages of Parkett in ‘Deluxe Editions’, such as etchings by Jannis Kounellis (1985) and Mario Merz (1988) – the very first etchings either artist had ever done, and Meret Oppenheim’s handstitched pair of light blue goatskin gloves with blood red veins, which were tucked away into the magazine itself (1985 - realized from a 1936 design). As time went on, the artist’s projects jumped from Parkett’s pages into an expansive array of media and scale – from Felix Gonzalez Torres 8-meter-long outdoor billboard Untitled (1994), to Nicolas Party’s 6cm tall bronze sculpture Cat’s Head (2017).
The one-on-a-kind collection has been presented in museums on three continents including MoMA/New York, Whitechapel Art Gallery/London, Centre Pompidou/Paris, Kunsthaus/Zurich, Kanazawa/Japan, SAC/Seoul, UCCA/Beijing, TFAM/Taipei, and will finally be on view in its entirety in Singapore. This will be a first and rare opportunity to get up close and personal with this unique, dynamic, and diverse survey of contemporary art history.
Presented jointly by:
Ikkan Art LLC and STPI
Supported by:
Parkett, Zurich & New York
Sponsored by:
Helu-Trans (S) Pte Ltd
Venue:
Artspace @ Helutrans, Tanjong Pagar Distripark, 39 Keppel Road, Singapore 089065
Public exhibition (free admission):
Friday, 8 March to Sunday 31 March 2024, 10 am to 7 pm