Even though the so-called fun society was declared over and done with a while ago, the guidelines of event culture are still valid. Ever more insistently, artists are forced to conceive their exhibitions as events, to use their works as material for large affairs aimed at the masses. This highly current publication, featuring works by over one hundred artists, shows how art has understood the social significance of the sensational or tragic over the past 120 years, and explored, expanded, altered or destroyed the stuff of which spectacles are made. It begins with the invention of film at the end of the nineteenth century, moves on to the modernization and expansion of mass media after World War II, and finally leads to the situation art finds itself in at the beginning of the new millennium, where every little occasion is required to display its theatrical qualities, and every intimate movement of the individual can become entertainment for the masses. The featured artists (selection): Antonin Artaud, Matthew Barney, Jake & Dinos Chapman, Marcel Duchamp, Marlene Dumas, James Ensor, Nan Goldin, Richard Hamilton, Teresa Hubbard und Alexander Birchler, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Yayoi Kusama, Michael Light, E.-J. Marey, Paul McCarthy + Jason Rhoades, Takashi Murakami, Richard Prince, Ed Ruscha, Jean Tinguely, Cindy Sherman, Andy Warhol Exhibition schedule: Museum der Moderne Salzburg, June 18-October 3, 2005