Roman Ondák "Performance 4: Measuring the Universe"
The Museum of Modern Art
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The Museum of Modern Art presents the fourth installment of its Performance Exhibition Series with Roman Ondák’s (Slovakian, b. 1966) Measuring the Universe (2007). The work, a recent acquisition by MoMA, will have its North American premiere beginning on June 24, 2009. Measuring the Universe, which was first enacted in the Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich, in 2007, is a performance-based work in which the height of each visitor to the exhibition is recorded on the gallery’s wall by a Museum attendant, eventually creating a unique wall drawing and a visual record of thousands of museum visitors. The work is brought into existence by simple and minimal means: an empty white cube gallery, museum attendants who are equipped with black felt tip pens, and museum visitors. The interaction among these elements is scripted as follows: once a visitor enters the gallery, he/she is approached by a museum attendant who asks the visitors if he is interested in having his height measured. If the visitor agrees to participate, the attendant then marks the height with a black line onto the wall, and writes the visitor’s first name and the date the measurement took place. This procedure is repeated continuously with every visitor who enters the gallery for the duration of the exhibition. After a short period of time a distinctive wall drawing appears, consisting of the ghostly traces of thousands of visitors. The three dimensions of the gallery are eventually expanded by a fourth dimension: a recording of time.
[Image: Roman Ondák "Measuring the Universe (installation view)" at Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich (2007) performance and installation. Collections MoMA, New York, and Pinakothek der Moderne, Munich. Photo: Ernst Jank. Courtesy of the artist.]
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Schedule
from June 24, 2009 to September 14, 2009