Einige Ereignisse werfen lange Schatten. Lang sind sie vorüber – und doch ahnt man ihre Gegenwart, besonders rückblickend. Welche Ereignisse diesem Jahr Schatten spenden könnten, orakelt die fünfte Ausgabe der Kolumne «Pick a Piece» anhand der Ausstellung The Premise of a Better Life des Amerikaners Sam Pulitzer (*1984) im Kunsthaus Glarus, die am ersten Januar 2020 endete. Gleichzeitig steht die Kolumne im Schatten ihrer eigenen Erstausgabe: dem «Pick a Piece»-Jahresrückblick auf Sam Pulitzers Soloshow Shadow of the Problem as Such in der Galerie Francesca Pia in Zürich vor zwei Jahren. 

The question posed by this column (which single work of a mega exhibition may capture best its overall idea?) is particularly challenging for the Venice Biennial – not just because of the urge to not comply with the lion share of visibility/capital and to not take sides for any of the by now more nostalgically embraced rather than officially dubious nationalist propaganda. The challenge, according to curator and critic Julia Moritz, is to look at the international group exhibition from a point of no return, the point of view of the one work – not necessarily the best work – that captures the exhibition «May You Live in Interesting Times» most poignantly, regarding its response to the location and context, for whatever that’s worth.

Imagine a biennial or other kind of art festival featuring just a single work. Unthinkable? Curator and critic Julia Moritz flexes your thinking muscles in her «Pick a Piece» series of experimental reviews by attempting to capture a large-scale group exhibition through the lens of only one of its artworks – not necessarily the ‹best› one, mind you, but the work best suited for pointing towards the overall aim of the overarching context. For this third review, the project that structurally and repeatedly overwhelms viewers (in all the best ways) and that Moritz seeks to unpack through subjective selectivity is this year’s edition of Les Urbaines, the annual performance art festival in Lausanne.

Is it possible to grasp a large-scale group exhibition based on a single artwork? This is the question posed by curator and critic Julia Moritz in her series of experimental reviews titled «Pick a Piece.» To Moritz, responding to the mushrooming of mega-exhibitions with the sturdy format of the art review means radical choice: to (en)counter the explosion of exhibitions with the implosion of inspection, with the selection of just one piece – this time from this summer’s art fairs and biennials in Basel, Palermo, and Berlin.

Einige Ereignisse werfen ihren Schatten voraus, sagt man. Noch passiert nichts – man ahnte es aber schon, zumindest rückblickend. Welche Ereignisse es in diesem neuen Jahr sein mögen, sei vorerst dahingestellt. Was im vergangenen Jahr 2017 hingegen hätte geahnt werden können, das lesen wir nicht aus dem Satz des Silvesterkaterkaffees, sondern aus der Soloshow Shadow of the Problem as Such des jungen Amerikaners Sam Pulitzer (geboren im omenhaften 1984) in der Galerie Francesca Pia in Zürich.