n°68

“Inspired by and dedicated to Július Koller of course. And the question remains.”

Born 1961 in Buenos Aires, Argentina
Lives and works in New York, Berlin, and Chiang Mai

The work of Rirkrit Tiravanija has not stopped questioning the format of artworks and the exhibition system. A mix of performance, sculpture, installation, and more, with Tiravanija, the artistic space transforms into a place of social interaction, often dotted with meeting points, encounters, and exchanges. Frequently immaterial, his work invents new connections in a world based on reciprocity, conviviality, and hospitality. Whether transforming art centers and galleries into banquets, printing workshops, or pirate radio stations, the artist enjoys overcoming the usual spatial and temporal limitations of the “white cube.”

With his ongoing project Rirkrit Tiravanija pays hommage to little-known Czechoslovakian conceptualist Július Koller, (1939-2007) who is both an inspiration and creative source for the artist. Based on Július Koller’s conceptual work, Rirkrit Tiravanija has developed since the early 2010 new works that reflect the subversion, irony and symbolic language of the Slovakian artist who dies in 2007.A question mark, a symbol which was frequently used by Koller, often as a subversive statement against the reality of life of the political system of the 70’s. Tiravanija restaged this question mark at Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Square with more than 100 participants or in Zocalo, Mexico City, as a recreation of Julius Koller’s 1970 performance, Universal Futurological Question Mark.