Bonner Kunstverein presents Yield, a major new installation by London-based artist Jack O’Brien. For this exhibition, O’Brien grounds the show’s conception, material form, and organization in a state of transience: everything utilized is loaned or borrowed.
Drawn from the aesthetics of global logistics, O’Brien orchestrates selected bodies of work by artists Horst Egon Kalinowski, Edgar Knoop, Elisabeth Marx, Herbert Press, and Eva-Maria Schön from the estates in the care of the Künstler:innenarchiv der Stiftung Kunstfonds. O’Brien brings these distinct systems of preservation and circulation into relation with contemporary forms and conditions of valorization. Here, visibility is institutionally negotiated: the procedures that preserve the works and materials also regulate the gestural framework of the show. Structures designed to carry or organize other things acquire a sculptural presence, while the artworks become components within larger configurations. The distinction between object and its support becomes unsettled as seemingly autonomous elements reveal their mutual dependence.
Through a series of material agreements, Yield establishes a rhythm, a restriction, an interval. To yield is to give way under pressure, to relinquish a position, or to allow something else to pass. It also names what is produced: an output, a harvest, a return. As an exhibition,Yield suspends these meanings, evoking the question of what a material can withstand in order to fulfill its expected purpose.
Curated by Viktor Neumann.
In cooperation with the Künstler:innenarchiv der Stiftung Kunstfonds.
With generous support from the Stiftung Kunst der Sparkasse in Bonn, Sparkassen-Kulturstiftung Rheinland, Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung.
October 31, 2026 – February 14, 2027
Opening: October 31, 7 pm
For more information, click here.
