MUNICH.- Kunstverein München announced the first comprehensive Solo show of upcoming artist Tobias Madison (*1985, Basel) in Germany.
His multidisciplinary working method is inspired by an artistic practice, that explores the borders between form, context and critique. The exhibition at Kunstverein München aims to provide an insight into Madisons eclectic body of work and the diverse processes of production, merging design and lifestyle with artistic identity. „Do it to do it“ takes its reference from a quote by US-American billionaire Donald Trump, which can be seen as an activating key to enter for Madisons dynamic working processes.
What makes Madison a crucial player in his generation of visual artists in Switzerland is that he has become the inspirational driver of numerous national and international collaborations that have come out of the artistic position that he embraces. He is co-founder of the basel based showroom New Jerseyy (Daniel Baumann, Emanuel Rossetti und Dan Solbach) and explores projects that have a more complex relation to the art world, such as initiating a conceptual museum for Italien Memphis designer Ettore Sottsass together with Emanuel Rossetti und Martin Jaeggi in 2009. The Ettore Sottsass Museum aims to establish a collection of objects and information related to Ettore Sottsass, the Memphis group and Sottsass Associati and is dedicated to its modes of presentation and distribution.
In his work „Yes I Can! The Movie: A Preview“ Madison combines overpainted flags and a shortfilm from 2009. This roadmovie records Madisons trip from Switzerland to Hong Kong. This project features a selection of “Yes I Can” flags, taking them from the facades of the Radisson hotels he passed on the way, as if the slogan was an invitation to do so. For his show at the Swiss Institute in New York, he stretched five flags like canvas, commissioning other artists to add painterly gestures to this readymade surface. Each canvas features the corporate colours of patrons, that sponsored the trip and finally lead to the production of his film. In this way „Yes I Can!“ becomes the slogan of a selfgoverning capitalism in which the involved parties establish the rules and change them at any given point.
To program an exhibition of Madisons work would not result in a solo-show in the traditional sense. On the contrary it would appear as fragmentary and dynamic as a group show. This is why Kunstverein München has approached Madison for his debut exhibition in Germany and asked him to ‘curate’ his exhibition as if it was a group show.
