Plato’s book Kratylos serves as the basis for Markus Keibel’s “The Organon Experiment” exhibition. In this work the word and consequently the language are defined as an organon, that is to say an instrument. Aristotle moves along the same lines in the “Organon” collection of writings, in which the art of logic is described as an instrument of science. Francis Bacon expands, in his major work “Novum Organon“, the power of the mind, laying the foundations for the century of the Enlightenment. The maxim Sapere Aude (have the courage to know) of the Enlightenment is the starting point of the approach of Markus Keibel.
He distributed 250 handwritten letters to the inhabitants of the Blenio Valley by asking questions about their favorite color and book. Their answers form the main part of the exhibition and are applied as color and ashes of the books on 25 stones, which stand on a silver grid in the great hall of the Chocolate Factory, as a composite sculpture directly related to the questions asked.
In the video “Molotow” Keibel testifies to the beauty and destructive potential of fire showing in Super Slow Motion the explosion of a bottle full of gas. The burning of books is, for the German artist, a provocative approach that is linked to the sadly famous Index librorum prohibitorum of the Roman Catholic Church or to the infamous fires of “evil” books perpetrated in Germany in 1933 by the National Socialist authorities.
Keibel’s work opens a discussion on censorship, as a concrete constrictive act of political power. At the same time, however, there is also another danger hanging over the printed book: that of the affirmation of an increasingly digitalized world that alters its reading. Thus, in an era of simplification and irrationality, independent thought represents the basis of a new coexistence and art is the field of experimentation for the development of new visions.
Markus Keibel
1964 born in Stuttgart
1971-1984 Waldorfschule Uhlandshöhe, Stuttgart
1984-1988 Professionel Skateboarder and Snowboarder
1988-1993 Study at the Merz Akademie
Prof. Julio Rondo, Prof, H.v. Wedel, Diplom
1996-1998 Study Philosophy, Universität Tübingen
1998-2000 Assistent from Thomas Locher
2000 Teaching at the Merz Akademie, Stuttgart
2002 Working with the artist group Microbo,
Grant from the Bundeslandes Baden-Württemberg, Kunststiftung
2004-2005 Teacher for Art and Arthistory for upper school at the Michael Bauer Schule, Stuttgart
2011 working at the Hospital Charite, Berlin, with anorexic young people
2015 Teaching at the architectural University, Düsseldorf
Lives and works in Berlin
Einzelausstellungen
2019 The Organon Experiment, Coma Norma, Torre, Switzerland
2018 Molotow, Epicentro Art, Berlin Dust, with Markus Schaller, Alexander Plaza, Berlin. 2017 Declaration of Independence, Corner, Berlin. 2016 UltraUtopia, Anna Jill Lüpertz Gallery, Berlin -UltraUtopia2, Space for Artistic Research, Düsseldorf. 2015 Galerie Nuke, Paris, with David Fryer. 2014 Brute Force, AJLArt, Berlin. 2013 Zehn Fragen zur Freiheit, Schloss Genshagen, Genshagen. 2012 Mind on Fire, Artary Gallery, Stuttgart . 2011 A&O, AJLART, U37-Raum für Kunst, Berlin – conscious minimal, Preview Messe, Berlin. – Wie oben, so unten, Artary Galerie, Stuttgart. – Inside Complexity, Arch 402 Gallery, London. 2010 Freiheit, Özgürlük, Goethe Institut, Izmir. 2009 Das Unmögliche Denken, Artary, Stuttgart. 2008 one evolutionary point of view, Galerie Magnusmüller, Berlin. 2007/2008 Das sichtbare und unsichtbare Herz, Bernhard Knaus Fine Art, Frankfurt/Main. 2007 Elf Tage und mehr, Kunstclub Hamburg. – Winter re, Art Biesenthal, Biesenthal . 2005/2006 Freiheit und Gnade, Bernhard Knaus, Mannheim. – Vom Ansich zum Fürsich zum Wirsich, müllerdechiara, Berlin. 2005 Die Unruhe des Werdens, Kunstverein Reuchlinhaus, Pforzheim. 2004 sunday, Galerie Joao Ferreira, Cape Town, (mit R. Penkwitt). 2003 plans for another world, Galerie R. Hauff, Stuttgart . 2002 52, Galerie Joao Ferreira, Cape Town, (mit R. Penkwitt). 2000 wir/sie, Peripherie, Tübingen. 1999 in between, Galerie R.Hauff, Stuttgart. 1998 see, Galerie Urs Meile, Luzern. – ich wir/wir ich, St. Agnes Kirche, Köln. 1997 Zirkulation, Galerie R.Hauff, Stuttgart. 1996 Zeit, Oberwelt, Stuttgart . 1994 Innen wie Aussen,Galerie Achim Kubinski, Stuttgart.
