This international group exhibition featured the work of twenty three established and emerging contemporary artists for whom travel is the basis of their art.
Featured artists: Vito Acconci, Franz Ackermann, Bas Jan Ader , Francis Alÿs, Heike Baranowsky, Sophie Calle, Peter Fischli and David Weiss, Andrea Fraser, Hamish Fulton, Andrea Geyer, Graham Gussin, Martin Kippenberger, Richard Long, Gordon Matta-Clark, Yoko Ono, Catherine Opie, Gabriel Orozco, Martha Rosler, Edward Ruscha, Robert Smithson, Rirkrit Tiravanija, and Richard Wentworth.
The human journey, both physical and imaginary, is one of the most long-standing themes in art, literature and mythology. From Homer’s Odyssey to the Grand Tour to space travel, the journey has been a source of inspiration to artists and writers throughout time. The artists in En Route use their own movement in the world as the basis of their artistic practice, and many make their work in response to their travels.
The exhibition included works of photography, painting, sculpture, video, installation and drawing. American conceptual artist Vito Acconci presented Service Area, 1970, in which the artist had his mail forwarded by the US Postal Service to the Museum of Modern Art in New York. The work documents his travel on foot and by subway to the Museum to collect his mail. Films in the exhibition included Gordon Matta-Clark’s Substrait (Underground Dailies), 1976, which documents his journey through the hidden, subterranean spaces of the New York subways. Thai artist Rirkrit Tiravanija’s untitled 1994 (Baragas to Paracuellos de Garama to Torrejon de Ardoz to San Fernando or Cosalda to Reina Sofia) a record of the artist’s walk from the airport in Madrid to the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, during which he prepared meals, for himself and people he met along the route, on a table attached to his customised bicycle. German-born Martin Kippenberger’s drawings on hotel stationery revealed his philosophy of a nomadic experience.
Curated by Rochelle Steiner.