Peter Downsbrough The Book(s) 1968–2013

Sin­ce 1968, Pe­ter Downs­b­rough (1940, New Bruns­wick, N.J., U.S.A., ba­sed in Brussels) has ma­de one hundred and one books. For the first time in Bar­ce­lo­na, the ex­hi­bi­ti­on THE BOOK(S) 1968–2013 of­fers an ex­ten­si­ve over­view of this im­pres­si­ve com­po­nent of his oeuvre.

Pe­ter Downs­b­rough be­longs to that first ge­ne­ra­ti­on of ar­tists —in­clu­ding col­le­agues such as Ro­bert Bar­ry, Sol Le­Witt, and Law­rence Wei­ner in New York; and John Bal­dessa­ri, Ed Ru­scha, and Al­lan Rup­pers­berg in Ca­li­for­nia— who use the book as a me­ans for pre­sen­ting their work. From the be­gin­ning he ac­cords the word, and al­so the book, an ob­ject­li­ke, spa­ti­al, if not sculp­tu­ral, qua­li­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, one could even con­sider that he ap­proa­ches the book as the ul­ti­ma­te ex­hi­bi­ti­on space, one in which he con­ti­nuous­ly re­groups re­flec­tions, images, as­so­cia­ti­ons, com­po­si­ti­ons, and pro­por­ti­ons. In­de­ed, Pe­ter Downs­b­rough re­fers to the book as a vo­lu­me, a space wi­thin which to work. Ge­ne­ral­ly, the hap­tic and com­po­si­tio­nal start­ing point of his books could co­me across as quite ri­gid, spar­se, and di­stant, but loo­king at the en­ti­re group of pu­bli­ca­ti­ons, in­s­tead of at a sin­gle one, reve­als a par­ti­cu­lar vir­tuo­si­ty and rich in­ter­ac­tion wi­th this ba­sic me­dia. wei­ter­le­sen

Fo­to von der Web­sei­te, Detail

22.02 – 19.05.13 in Bar­ce­lo­na, Fa­bra i Coats – Cent­re d’Art Con­tem­po­ra­ni de Bar­ce­lo­na, c/ Sant Adrià, 20. 08030 Bar­ce­lo­na. Mo­ritz Küng is the cu­ra­tor of the exhibition

8 Ti­tel im Ar­chi­ve Ar­tist Pu­bli­ca­ti­ons, Munich