The bicycle takes the spotlight in Rainer Ganahl’s exhibition I wanna be Alfred Jarry. Utopian means of transportation, instrument of perception, body prosthesis and object of desire – ever since the late nineteenth century, the bicycle has revolutionised the mobility of the masses; for the avant-garde it embodied the mechanised modern age. The concept artist Rainer Ganahl (born in 1961 in Bludenz) who now lives in New York is one of the most successful Austrian artists of his generation. Especially for the tresor of the Bank Austria Kunstorum he has designed a kaleidoscopic cabinet of curios full of associations evoked by the bicycle, including historical and topical political references. The core identification figure he has chosen is Alfred Jarry (1873-1907) – bicycle enthusiast, proto-Dadaist and inventor of pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions.
 

www.ganahl.info

Curator: Heike Eipeldauer