MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst

Tino Sehgal’s art is based on a categorically different concept of the artwork. For he breaks with the most fundamental convention of the visual arts, namely the material object. Indeed, Sehgal’s works are realized as actions and movements, as language spoken or sung, and are temporarily materialized by the body of the person performing and interpreting them. It may be museum guards or other persons involved, who then present a predefined choreography, embroil the visitor in a discussion about the market economy, or start to sing »This is propaganda« in a high voice whenever a visitor enters the room. Although Sehgal carefully rehearses the respective actions, the performance of his instructions for action still leaves much scope for the unforeseen. This quality of the chance is intensified above all by the response of the audience. That said, Sehgal’s works affirm all the other social conventions of art as only in this manner can they exist as artworks in the first place: They are exhibited, are on view during the entire opening hours and for the entire duration of the particular exhibition; they are bought/sold by galleries and collected by museums and private individuals. In this way, they fulfill all the criteria customarily applied to the visual artwork, with the exception of its object–like material character. Seghal juxtaposes his constructed situation to the permanence of the material object, a situation that is experienced, embodied, repeated, and in this way passed on. In a visionary manner, he thus devises the model of a different form of art production that can exist in the long term and is economically viable. Above all, he transforms art, which is traditionally defined as a place of work in the relationship between man/object, into a place of intersubjective, interpersonal and social work. Tino Sehgal will be realizing a new work to mark the opening of the new exhibition room in the former Main Customs Office.Radikalisierung.