INTRODUCTION

Why not? brings together a group of works which have been produced since 2016 and indicate a surprising, new direction in Elina Brotherus’ creative output. With humorous lightness and delight in experimentation, Brotherus reacts to artistic statements by various colleagues, appropriates them in different ways and restages them – works from the 1960s and 1970s from the realm of Fluxus and Concept Art, but also works by contemporary artists. In her mixture of reenactment and reinterpretation, Brotherus occasionally includes the original creators: for example, when she poses with VALIE EXPORT or, together with Erwin Wurm, performs one of his One Minute Sculptures. Brotherus’ creative exchange with the oeuvre of others is never mere reproduction. Her response is instead marked by her perspective. She brings older concepts of art up to date and makes them freshly available in altered form.

Why not? accompanies Elina Brotherus’ exhibition of the same title at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, 2020-21. Including her latest series Sebaldiana. Memento mori (2019) in the footsteps of W.G. Sebald in Corsica, and photographs made at Alvar Aalto’s Maison Louis Carré, the book traces all the important sources from which Elina Brotherus’ art derives its inspiration: art history, literature, architecture – and, again and again, the artist herself. (Museum Director Janneke de Vries in the preface of the book)

In their essays, curator of the exhibition Ingo Clauss discusses in depth my use of event scores and other art instructions, whereas Guido Boulboullé writes about my series Sebaldiana. Memento mori, its relation to Corsica, to W. G. Sebald and to romantic painting.

SPECIFICATIONS

Photographs: Elina Brotherus
Design: Sven Lindhorst-Emme, studio lindhorst-emme
Hardcover
22,5 x 30 cm
98 color photographs + 9 illustrations
Illustrations: Nobuyoshi Araki, John Baldessari, George Brecht, Caspar David Friedrich, Edward Hopper, On Kawara, Yoko Ono, Francesca Woodman
160 pages
Essays: Guido Boulboullé, Ingo Clauss, Janneke de Vries
German / English
Publisher: Hirmer Verlag and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst, Bremen 2020. 
Publication date: October 2020
ISBN: 978-3-7774-3684-5