Conceived as a visual résumé, Installation Views provides both a comprehensive overview of Charlotte Posenenske's solo exhibitions and a record of her numerous group shows.
In her Manifesto, Charlotte Posenenske stated: "I find it difficult to come to terms with the fact that art can contribute nothing to the solution of pressing social problems."
Developing her artistic practice throughout the 1960s, Posenenske produced a body of work that uniquely combined several strands of the art of the period: conceptualism, minimalism, and socially engaged participatory art. Her Manifesto, published in Art International in May 1968, lays out the social demands on art as well as the impossibility of fulfilling those demands. Shortly after its publication, Posenenske left the art world behind to pursue her studies in sociology, undertaking a new career in that field.
Conceived as a visual résumé, Installation Views provides both a comprehensive overview of Charlotte Posenenske's solo exhibitions and a record of her numerous group shows. The book features an essay written by curator Erlend Hammer on the role of documentary photographs in the circulation of works of art.
The book was published in conjunction with the eponymous show at the Haugar Art Museum in Tønsberg, Norway—the first full-scale presentation of the artist's oeuvre in Scandinavia. The exhibition showcased works from all the artist's major series of modular sculpture. Consisting of works made over the course of less than 12 months, between 1967 and 1968, preceding the abrupt end to Posenenske's career as an artist, the exhibition had the character of a snapshot. We are left wondering whether her withdrawal from the art world was a logical or necessary consequence of the development of the series. What are we to do with Posenenske's assertion that art is powerless to effectively change society for the better?
Charlotte Posenenske (1930–1985) worked as an artist for a mere ten years, between 1959 and 1968. During that time, she developed a radical body of work, exploring transitions from the pictorial surface to space, from sculpture to performance, and from sculpture to architecture. Posenenske was one of the few Europeans who adopted the principles of American Minimalism―seriality, delegation of production...―but her work stands apart from that movement nonetheless through its avowed social and participative dimension. Echoing the political demands that rocked the 1960s, it was this commitment that would lead her to abandon art for sociology.
