Walead Beshty (*1976) is concerned with how the art system influences the production of art beeinflusst and how the works that emerge from it can in turn influence it. His work is based on an awareness of the interactions of the social context and social conditions: Materials, production conditions, studio and exhibition spaces, transport systems, institutions and the environment of education, criticism, audience, collectors, art market, etc. They help determine how a work of art is created, presented and ultimately perceived.

Beshty understands the art system as a microsystem of the globalized capitalist society, which is characterized by the exchange of information and the necessary circulation and distribution mechanisms. In this context, works of art are no longer merely conceivable as autonomous aesthetic or formalistic objects, but, depending on the situation, they can also become dynamic objects, commodities, carriers of meaning, transport goods, message storage, fetish, research object, etc. These representative functions are revealed in the artist’s works. For their part, viewers are free to choose which aspects they wish to pick out and pursue – from simple aesthetic contemplation to complex social criticism.

The Kunst Museum Winterthur presents the first solo exhibition of Walead Beshty in a museum in the German-speaking world. The focus of the exhibition is on the current Schaffen, from which numerous works are being shown for the first time. But also the photograms, with which the artist first attracted international attention, as well as his well-known Fed-Ex works will be on display.

The exhibition in Winterthur was created in collaboration with the MAMCO in Geneva. A comprehensive monograph will be published jointly by Koenig Books London in March 2020.