© Jason Rhoades

Installation view at the Hauser & Wirth Collection, 2004


Jason Rhoades
My Madinah
in pursuit of my ermitage...



"My Madinah" is the hitherto most important stage of an adventure which began some years ago in the United States, when Jason Rhoades traveled from Los Angeles to Mecca, east-south-east going towards Mexico. In this little place, not far from Salton Sea, Rhoades came up with a plan, namely to make a centre for his own art at this very spot, an "ermitage" comprising elements from various projects - both realized and as yet unrealized - from the visions, modus operandi and narratives that they generated, and from all those "propositions" that the new sign "Mecca" would offer in the future.


Last year preparations had reached the point where it was possible to present the exhibition "Meccatuna" in the David Zwirner Gallery, New York, in which a small group of forms was activated - including a Kaaba and a first series of "lights". The Roundhouse in St. Gallen is not only the setting for the next step. The old locomotive shed itself - as an example of ideal architecture - has been incorporated into the functioning of the plan; on its coordinates the roundhouse figures as a model of the structure to be built in the desert landscape by Salton Sea. Or to put it more precisely: the present exhibition projects it there.


Private Contractor: Roberto Ohrt


Exhibition: 13 June - 12 September 2004
Opening hours: Wed 2 - 8 pm, Thu/Fri 2 - 6 pm,
Sat/Sun 11 am - 6 pm
Closed Mondays and Tuesdays


Hauser & Wirth Collection
Grünbergstrasse 7
9001 St. Gallen
Telephone +41 (0)71 228 55 50
Fax +41 (0)71 228 55 59
Email info@hauserwirthcollection.org

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