That's a Very Large Number - A Commerzbau
The National Gallery of Iceland presents That's a Very Large Number - A Commerzbau a major installation by Hildigunnur Birgisdóttir, originally commissioned for the Icelandic Pavilion of the 2024 Venice Biennale. Playfully incisive, the exhibition, curated by Dan Byers, features sculptures and installations that probe aspects of the uncanny relationship between us and our world of mass-produced objects.
That's a Very Large Number - A Commerzbau occupies both the museum entrance and Gallery 3, where the artist fills the space with works that appropriate the materials, products, and language of industrial manufacture and product marketing and distribution. Hildigunnur creates an immersive environment, inspired by the tradition of the Merzbau, pioneered by German dada artist Kurt Schwitters. Schwitters began using the term Merz in his work, after discovering a fragment of newspaper printed with the end of the word Commerz. Here, Hildigunnur reintroduces the com creating commerzbau as a wry reference to mass-produced objects and the castaways of commerce.
