The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place

176 Zabludowicz Collection are pleased to present an exhibition of works from the Zabludowicz Collection guest curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers.

As part of the Zabludowicz Collection’s curatorial residency, Anna-Catharina Gebbers was given complete freedom to create an exhibition from the over 2,000 works in the Zabludowicz Collection. The result is a dramatic contrast to former presentations of works from the Collection.

With over 200 works exhibited, The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place will be the largest ever showcase of works from the Zabludowicz Collection. Anna-Catharina Gebbers invites us into a salon-style exhibition, a format which emphasises the deliberately overwhelming amount of contemporary works of art including painting, photography, sculpture and video.

Inspired by Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges’ short story ‘The Library of Babel’ (1941) where inhabitants of an infinite library search for the absolute interpretation of the information around them, The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place encourages the visitor to embark on a similar quest for meaning.

While Anna-Catharina Gebbers generously empowers the visitors to draw their own conclusions from the Collection, seemingly incongruous works belie carefully disguised threads of meaning waiting to be uncovered and interpreted.

Anna-Catharina Gebbers on the exhibition:
’The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place questions my role as it places every visitor in the role of curator; the sheer number of works forces the visitor to chose which works will receive attention. I am interested in how these decisions are made.’

The exhibition will be accompanied by an extensive public programme where invited professionals and visitors alike are offered the chance to become Guides, conducing tours for the public. Discussing how and why our attention and perception is guided and exposing different ways of creating meaning within the exhibition.

There will be an accompanying series of lectures and panel discussions with experts including scientists and theorists from backgrounds as wide-ranging as neurology, psychology, sociology, philosophy, linguistics and literature; plus an illustrated publication with specially commissioned texts designed by Joff + Ollie.

Anna-Catharina Gebbers is a curator and writer based in Berlin. Since 2004 she has curated some 50 exhibitions with over 300 artists. Gebbers also acts as editor for several cultural magazines and is the author of books about artists including Thomas Scheibitz, Paloma Varga Weisz and Thomas Schütte. Her non-profit project space ANNA-CATHARINA GEBBERS | BIBLIOTHEKSWOHNUNG in Berlin presents transdisciplinary collaborations with artists, curators, cultural activists and other institutions.

In and Out of Place, is the umbrella title for exhibitions and events associated with Anna-Catharina Gebbers’s guest curatorship with the Zabludowicz Collection. The title is borrowed from an essay about Louise Lawler written by Andrea Fraser. The exhibition is the culmination of the residency and features the work of 167 artists.

The Library of Babel / In and Out of Place
Kurator: Anna-Catharina Gebbers

Künstler: Rita Ackermann, Mark Alexander, Guy Allott, Helene Appel, Nobuyoshi Araki, Hope Atherton, Jimmy Baker, Uta Barth, Christiane Baumgartner, Luca Bertolo, Richard Billingham, Steve Bishop, John Bock, Martin Boyce, Robert Buck, David Burrows, Gillian Carnegie, Helen Chadwick, Spartacus Chetwynd, Colin Chillag / David Quan, Ross Chisholm, Larry Clark, Oliver Clegg, Dan Colen / Nate Lowman, Mat Collishaw, Gregory Crewdson, Russell Crotty, Aaron Curry, Sean Dack, Jose Damasceno, Gerald Davis, Kate Davis, Amie Dicke, Kim Dingle, Tomory Dodge, Giles Eldridge, Tracey Emin, Saul Fletcher, Richard Forster, Helen Frik, Tom Früchtl, Marcius Galan, Anna Galtarossa / Daniel Gonzalez, Ryan Gander, Anna Gaskell, Adrian Ghenie, Sebastian Gögel, Nan Goldin, Melissa Gordon, Andrew Grassie, Anthony Green, Brian Griffiths, Andreas Gursky, Wade Guyton, Falk Haberkorn, Neil Hamon, Anne Hardy, Alexander Heim, Uwe Henneken, Candida Höfer, Craigie Horsfield, Barnaby Hosking, Matthew Houlding, Thomas Houseago, Lora Hristova, Graham Hudson, Thomas Hylander, Takaaki Izumi, Noel Jabbour, Sveinn Fannar Johannsson, Sven Johne, juneau/projects/, Steffen Junghans, Tillman Kaiser, Mary Kelly, Rachel Kneebone, Terence Koh, Paul Kooiker, Skafte Kuhn, Friedrich Kunath, Alicja Kwade, Dr. Lakra, Jim Lambie, Luisa Lambri, Michael Landy, Louise Lawler, Edgar Leciejewski, Glenn Ligon, Nathan Mabry, Fabian Marti, Eline McGeorge, Melissa McGill, Josephine Meckseper, Deborah Mesa-Pelly, Tracey Moffatt, Gareth Moore, Vik Muniz, Matthew Musgrave, Tomoko Nagai, Yoshitomo Nara, Mike Nelson, Ben Nicholson, David Noonan, Rupert Norfolk, Arnold Odermatt, Albert Oehlen, David O´Kane, Gosha Ostretsov, Silke Otto-Knapp, Djordje Ozbolt, Adrian Paci, Nam June Paik, Bradley Peters, Paul Pfeiffer, Jack Pierson, Lari Pittman, Richard Prince, R.H. Quaytman, Marc Quinn, Timm Rautert, Clare Richardson, Gerhard Richter, Damien Roach, Kirstine Roepstorff, Peter Rostovsky, Michal Rovner, Luke Rudolf, Jason Salavon, Michael Samuels, Oskar Schmidt, George Shaw, Jim Shaw, Dan Shaw-Town, Cindy Sherman, Pablo Siquier, Florian Slotawa, Melanie Smith, Jill Spector, Christopher Stevens, Dirk Stewen, Hiroshi Sugimoto, David Thorpe, Tim Trantenroth, Kon Trubkovich, Keith Tyson, Francis Upritchard, Sara Vanderbeek, Adriana Varejao, Chris Verene, Banks Violette, Sophie von Hellermann, Christian Ward, Matthias Weischer, Paloma Varga Weisz, Nicole Wermers, Kehinde Wiley, Simon Willems, Rebecca Wilton, Masao Yamamoto, George Young, Lisa Yuskavage, Tobias Zielony, Alex Zika, Jakub Julian Ziolkowski