Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: Incidents (1996/7)

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: The Day Before Tomorrow (1999)

Svetlana Kopystiansky: Projects

Igor Kopystiansky: Projects

Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: Archive Documents

Video. Vimeo

Video. YouTube

Bibliography

Books by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky

Works by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky are represented in permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Metropolitan Museum and Whitney Museum of American Art  in New York, Art Institute of Chicago, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington D.C.; Henry Art Gallery in Seattle; Zimmerli Art Museum, Rutgers University, New Jersey; Musée National d'Art Moderne Center Pompidou, Paris; Musée d'Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole, France; Tate Modern, London; Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; Museo Nacional Reina Sofia; Folkwang Museum in Essen; Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen; Berlinische Galerie; Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main; MUMOK Vienna, Austria; Centre for Contemporary Art Luigi Pecci, Prato, Italy; Frac Corsica, France; MOCAK, Museum of Contemporary Art Krakow, Poland; Muzeum Sztuki Lodz, Poland.(Svetlana); Muzeum Sztuki Lodz (Igor); The Lithuanian National Museum of Art. Vilnius, Lithuania.

Archives by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky are located at the Centre Pompidou, Kandinsky Library.

Works by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky were exhibited at venues including: MoMA, New York; Center Pompidou, Paris; Tate Modern London; Metropolitan Museum, New York; Center Pompidou Metz; Smithsonian American Art Museum; Art Institute of Chicago; Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Texas; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne, France; Tate Liverpool; Whitechapel Art Gallery, London; Reina Sofia, Madrid; Henry Art Gallery, Seattle; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona; Fine Arts Center UMass, Amherst, Massachusetts; MMK Frankfurt/Main; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf;  Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf; Folkwang Museum, Essen; Sprengel Museum Hannover; Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel; Deichtorhallen Hamburg; Kunsthalle zu Kiel; Kunst-Werke; S.M.A.K. Gent; GAMeC, Bergamo;  Museum of Modern Art EMMA, Finland;  AGNSW, Sydney;  MARCO, Vigo, Spain; MUMOK, Vienna and others.

Igor and Svetlana participated in international exhibitions including Sculpture Projects Münster 1997 (Svetlana), Documenta 11 (2002) and biennials in Venice 1988 (Aperto curated by Dan Cameron), Sydney 1992 (curated by Anthony Bond), Sao Paulo1994, (curated by Nelson Aguilar), Istanbul  1995 (curated by René Block), Johannesburg 1997 (curated by Okwui Enwezor), Lyon 1997 (curated by Harald Szeemann), Liverpool  1999, Triennial of Small Sculpture” Fellbach, Germany 2004 (curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann), Triennial of Small Sculpture Stuttgart 1998 and others.

The Day Before Tomorrow (1999)

216 slides, two screen slide projection installation

Edition 1/3 is in the collection of the Whitney Museum of American Art. New York

Exhibition history of the installation "The Day Before Tomorrow"(1999):

1999 "Chronos & Kairos," (Curator René Block), Artists including: Darren Almond, Janine Antoni, Joseph Beuys, Barbara Bloom, George Brecht, Marcel Broodhaers, John Cage, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Marcel Duchamp, Hans Peter Feldmann, Robert Fillou, Dick Higgins, Christian Jankowski, Allan Kaprow, On Kawara, Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, Joseph Kosuth, George Maciunas, Tatsuo Miyajima, Mariko Mori, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Man Ray, Dieter Roth, Thomas Ruff, Sam Taylor Wood, Endre Tot, Rosemarie Trockel, Ben Vautier, Wolff Vostell, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Emmett Williams, Maaria Wirkkala, La Monte Young/Marian Zazeela. Kunsthalle Fridericianum, 5 Sept.-7 Nov. Kassel, Germany. (cat.)

2002 "Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky." Lisson gallery, London

2005 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky,” (Curator Loretta Yarlow). Fine Arts Center UMass, Amherst, Massachusetts. Catalog with an introduction by René Block and Loretta Yarlow and texts by Adam D. Weinberg, Barry Schwabsky, Andreas Bee, Anthony Bond, Kai-Uwe Hemken. (English and German), 

2005-6 “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky: The Day Before Tomorrow,” (Curator René Block). Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, Germany. Catalog with an introduction by René Block and Loretta Yarlow. Texts by Adam D. Weinberg, Barry Schwabsky, Andreas Bee, Anthony Bond, Kai-Uwe Hemken. (English and German), 

2007  "Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky," ESPOO Museum of Modern Art (EMMA),  Catalog with texts by Timo Valjakka, Anthony Spira, Barry Schwabsky, (English, Finnish, Swedish), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki

2008 “Taking Time,” (Curators Isabel Carlos and Iñaki Martinez Antelo), Artists: Ignasi Abali, Jorge Barbi, Fernando Bryce, Matthew Buckingham, Victor Burgin, Mircea Cantor, Tacita Dean, Mark Dion, Jimmie Durham, William Eggleston, Douglas Gordon, João Maria Gusmão, On Kawara, David Lamelas, Tatsuo Miyajima, Jonathan Monk, Allan Ruppersberg, Sam Taylor Wood. Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo. MARCO, Spain (cat.)

2010   “Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, ” Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole. 6th of February – 18th of April, France. Catalog with texts by John Hanhardt and Philippe-Alain Michaud.

Installation view: The Day before Tomorrow (1999). Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole. 6th of February – 18th of April, France. 

“Looking at these screens one experiences the disjunctive parallax of what appears to be, and in fact are, views from two cameras positioned feet apart. For this project, each of the artists indeed snapped an image of the same ‘event’ at a moment of their own choosing. What we see is a project conceived by the couple, executed as individuals and presented as a visual duet. For all its nonchalant, investigative meta-scientific positioning, The Day Before Tomorrow is a tender paean to their relationship – neither vision is dominant, neither more truthful, neither more revealing. In their work Igor and Svetlana are constructing themselves, constructing each other and we the audience don’t know whose work is whose, nor does it matter. The point may be summed up by Philip Roth when he wrote in his novel Counterlife, “We are all the invention of each other, everybody a conjunction conjuring up everyone else. We are all each other’s authors.” In as much as Igor is Svetlana’s author and vice versa, so too are we as much the authors as the viewers.”

An excerpt from “The Binary Method, Some Thoughts on Two Projects: Incidents and The Day Before Tomorrow." Adam D. Weinberg Alice Pratt Brown Director Whitney Museum of American Art, New York 2005

Installation view: The Day before Tomorrow (1999).

“Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, ” Musée d’Art Moderne de Saint-Etienne Métropole. 6th of February – 18th of April, France. (cat.)

  Works exhibited in Saint-Etienne:

Room 1: Fog (2000) video sound installation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/5754996151/in/photostream/

Room 2: The Day before Tomorrow (1999). Two screen slide projection installation. http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/5754946821/in/photostream/

Room 3: Incidents (1996/7). Video sound installation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/5754946465/in/photostream/

Room 4: Crossroad (2009) Three screen video/sound installation

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/5755489262/in/photostream/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/7591357302/in/photostream/

Installation view: The Day before Tomorrow.(1999) Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel. 2005 Installation view:

Invitation card. Kunsthalle Fridericianum Kassel. 2005

Works exhibited in Kassel:

Room 1: "Establishing shot." (2004/5) video installation at 8 monitors. http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/6577911583/in/photostream/

Room 2: "Incidents." (1996/7) video/sound installation

Room 3: "The Day before Tomorrow." (1999) two screen slide projection installation. 216 slide program. http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/6577909915/in/photostream/

Room 4: "526." Six screen slide projection installation (2005) http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/6577910279/in/photostream/

Room 5: "Yellow Sound." (2005) Video installation http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/6577909335/in/photostream/

The Day Before Tomorrow Svetlana und Igor Kopystiansky 21 December 2005 – 26 February 2006

The exhibition at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel, organised in collaboration with the gallery of the Fine Arts Center at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, focuses for the first time on video works and installations by Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky. In addition to early works like Incidents (1996-1997) or The Day Before Tomorrow (1999) and the recent work 526, the new video work Yellow Sound produced especially for the Kunsthalle will be on view. Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky are interested in the seemingly trivial aspects of life, in everyday situations, simple articles of daily use, unthinkingly discarded refuse – the leavings of our consumer society. They also make useless, forgotten things part of our world, cultural signs with abundant meanings and associations. Their works lend the seemingly valueless a new, artistic value. This places them in the artistic tradition of Duchamp and Tatlin, the Dadaists and the action artists, who abolished the boundaries between works of art and articles of consumption and engendered new evaluation categories. Whereas in her early performances, Svetlana Kopystiansky was concerned mainly with the medium of language, Igor Kopystiansky’s objects explore the art system and its underlying structures. The artist couple have been working together since the late 1970s chiefly on media installations. And although these works constitute joint products – from the idea to execution and presentation – the two artists retain their independence. One example is the 1999 slide projection The Day Before Tomorrow, which captures a random street situation in New York City. And even though the scene is one and the same, we are presented with two different ways of looking at it, that of Svetlana and that of Igor. Presented side by side, the minimal deviations become apparent which finally produce an inner unity. This is how their entire oeuvre is to be understood – a play between individuality and complementarity, a division that merges into a whole not only in the eye of the beholder. Selected group exhibitions: La Biennale de Venezia (Aperto), 1889; Sydney Biennial, 1992; Sao Paulo Biennial, 1994; Istanbul Biennial, 1995; Skulpture. Projects in Münster, 1997 (Svetlana Kopystiansky); Johannesburg Biennial, 1997; Lyon Biennial, 1997; First British Biennial, 1999, Documenta11, 2002, Selected solo exhibitions: Martin-Gropius-Bau, DAAD / Berlinische Galerie, 1991; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf 1994; The Art Institute of Chicago (Svetlana Kopystiansky), 1996; Kunstmuseum Düsseldorf, 2000; Sprengel Museum Hannover, 2002; The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, 2003; Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Arizona, 2005

Installation view: The Day Before Tomorrow (1999). Exhibition: "Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky,” (Curator Timo Valjakka). ESPOO Museum of Modern Art EMMA, Espoo Finland, 2007.

Installation view: "Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky,” Curator Loretta Yarlow. Fine Arts Center of the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA. USA. (cat.)

The Day Before Tomorrow reproduced in: Artist, work, Lisson. Lisson Gallery London, England.  "ARTIST WORK LISSON documents the history and legacy of Lisson Gallery over the past 50 years. Under the art direction of famed Dutch designer Irma Boom, the publication features an A-to-Z of every artist who has had a solo exhibition at the gallery. Distributed in North America by Artbook | D.A.P., 2017.

2010 Kopystiansky. Double Fiction/Fiction Double. Musée d"Art Moderne de Saint-Étienne. Texts by John G. Hanhardt, Philippe-Alain Michaud. Les Presses du Réel

http://www.lespressesdureel.com/EN/ouvrage.php?id=1817&menu=

The Day Before Tomorrow reproduced in: “Taking Time,” (Curators Isabel Carlos and Iñaki Martinez Antelo), Ignasi Abali, Jorge Barbi, Fernando Bryce, Matthew Buckingham, Victor Burgin, Mircea Cantor, Tacita Dean, Mark Dion, Jimmie Durham, William Eggleston, Douglas Gordon, João Maria Gusmão, On Kawara, David Lamelas, Tatsuo Miyajima, Jonathan Monk, Allan Ruppersberg, Sam Taylor Wood. Museo de Arte Contemporanea de Vigo. MARCO, Spain (cat.)

The Day Before Tomorrow reproduced in: Green, Charles. “The Third Hand: Collaboration and Contemporary Art”, EXIT, 7, p. 110-123 2002

2007 "Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky." Texts by Timo Valjakka, Anthony Spira, Barry Schwabsky, (English, Finnish, Swedish), EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art, Helsinki

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/sets/72157630877436830/with/7511261502/

2005 “Igor & Svetlana Kopystiansky: The Day before Tomorrow.” With introduction by René Block and Loretta Yarlow and texts by Adam D. Weinberg, Barry Schwabsky, Andreas Bee, Anthony Bond, Kai-Uwe Hemken. (English and German), Kunsthalle Fridericianum, Kassel and Fine Arts Centre of UMass, Amherst, Massachusetts.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/artexh/sets/72157630877436830/with/7511261502/

The first presentation of the work "The Day before Tomorrow."(1999) was in 1999 at:

"Chronos & Kairos," Curator René Block, including: Darren Almond, Janine Antoni, Joseph Beuys, Barbara Bloom, George Brecht, Marcel Broodhaers, John Cage, Hanne Darboven, Jan Dibbets, Marcel Duchamp, Hans Peter Feldmann, Robert Fillou, Dick Higgins, Christian Jankowski, Allan Kaprow, On Kawara, Igor and Svetlana Kopystiansky, Joseph Kosuth, George Maciunas, Tatsuo Miyajima, Maric Mori, Bruce Nauman, Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Man Ray, Diter Rot, Thomas Ruff, Sam Taylor Wood, Endre Tot, Rosemarie Trockel, Ben Vautier, Wolff Vostell, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Emmett Williams, Maaria Wirkkala, La Monte Young/Marian Zazeela. Kunsthalle Fridericianum, 5 Sept.-7 Nov. 1999. Kassel, Germany. (cat.)

1999, shooting "The Day Before Tomorrow."

1999. Working at "The Day Before Tomorrow." Studio in Chelsea

1999. Working at “The Day Before Tomorrow.” Studio in Chelsea

1999. Shooting "The Day Before Tomorrow."

1999. Shooting "The Day before Tomorrow."