Talk over Skype (with Robert Wilhite)
Guy de Cointet (1934–1983) was a typical “artist’s artist”: a little-known figure from Los Angeles who inspired numerous present-day artists. De Cointet created a kind of “expanded theatre” in which the boundaries between art and trivial culture, performance, sculpture, theatre, and everyday life became blurred. He wrote more than 20 plays, half of which were performed during his lifetime. As a Frenchman in the US he was a close observer of an entertainment industry in which soap opera, body building, and self-proclaimed doctors play just as important a role as classical culture. The artistic practice of Robert Wilhite on the other hand, is marked by a confrontation between the randomly generated, the calculated, and the conceptual. His works move freely between media and disciplines: from sculpture to performance to painting. In the late 1970s Wilhite collaborated on four plays by de Cointet, and is still involved in their revivals today. This presentation will elaborate on the physical and objective mode of language through the collaborative lenses of de Cointet and Wilhite.
in English
Krist Gruijthuijsen (*1980) has been the director of the Grazer Kunstverein since 2012. He lives and works in Graz.
Robert Wilhite (*1946) is an artist. He lives and works in the United States.