Heimo Zobernig
American, 1992

Artist
Heimo Zobernig

Title
American

Year of creation
1992

Technology and dimensions
of the billboard: 16 Din A0 posters mounted on 4 panels, 238 x 168 x 10 cm, 238 x 672 cm

Year of acquisition
2006

Acquisition of the foundation

In 1992, Heimo Zobernig, like several other artists alongside him, was invited by the Graz Art Association to design a poster as part of the “Steirischer Herbst” project. The finished posters were then to be hung and presented in several locations in the city as well as in the Graz Art Association itself. Zobernig, who relates his poster to the "America-nowhere" exhibition project he curated in the Forum Stadtpark, gets the chance to make his poster twice as big as those of the other artists.

In cyan blue, the word "American" in Helvetica block letters covers the entire canvas of Zobernig's work, which is made up of 16 DinA0 posters. Under the blue lettering, the viewer can see overview diagrams on each of the 16 posters with statistical data on all countries in the world, taken from the Encyclopaedia Britannica.

To go with this picture, Zobernig published a 5cm thick book in DinA4 format entitled "Americans" as part of the group exhibition in the Forum Stadtpark, which Mathias Poledna put together for him. This book contains, among other things, a copy of the first page of a country entry from the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as well as an overview of all contributions to the encyclopedia that concern "art".

Zobernig, who with this work intended not only to address the concept of group exhibitions themselves, but also to satirize them, decided to do so due to the low budget and the short exhibition period of just five days.