Otto Bartning (1883 – 1959) @ Akademie der Künste, Berlin - Architect of Social Modernism

Otto Bartning (1883 – 1959) 
Architect of Social Modernism 
Akademie der Künste, Berlin 
31 March – 18 June 2017 

Otto Bartning (1883 – 1959)

Architect of Social Modernism

Akademie der Künste, Berlin

Otto Bartning (1883 – 1959). Architect of Social Modernism is the first exhibition of its kind to pay tribute to the many diverse aspects of Otto Bartning’s oeuvre. As an architect and theorist of modernism, inspirational figure and critic, writer and advisor, Otto Bartning had a lasting influence on twentieth-century architecture. In the process, he set new benchmarks for closely integrating artistic vision and social responsibility. His designs for cultural, social and residential buildings across Germany and in other European countries are all informed by the human dimension, as well as functionality and acceptance. Through his constant efforts to create spaces suitable for the spiritual dimension in social life, Otto Bartning soon became one of the leading advocates of a modern Protestant church architecture.

In the original drawings and sketches, photos, and architectural models on show, this comprehensive retrospective illustrates four eras of German history. With this exhibition allowed to draw for the first time on Bartning’s entire private estate indexed in the Otto Bartning Archive at the TU Darmstadt, many of the exhibits never been seen publicly before.

In his early career in Imperial Germany, Otto Bartning’s designs exemplified his radical rejection of the historicist revivalist styles dominant at that time. After the First World War, together with Walter Gropius and Bruno Taut, he was a formative influence on the Weimar Republic’s Neues Bauen architectural movement. In his Sternkirche design (1922) and his innovative Stahlkirche (1928) assembled from steel elements, he created touchstones of architecture for modern Protestant churches. His work for the emergency church programme from 1946 was also quite unique, helping to design architectural typologies of prefabricated churches produced in series and constructed in 43 German cities. Co-founder of the reconstituted Deutscher Werkbund after 1945 and founding member of the Architecture Section of the West Berlin Akademie der Künste in 1955, Otto Bartning also shaped the direction and principles of architectural development in the new Germany of the post-war years.

Berlin’s International Building Exhibition Interbau 1957 represented a further highpoint in his oeuvre. As head of the project, Otto Bartning played a major role in the plans for developing Berlin’s Hansa Quarter, which celebrates its 60th anniversary this year. In his honour, the road crossing the quarter is named Bartningallee. Other buildings by Otto Bartning in Berlin include residential blocks on the Siemensstadt and “Reichsforschungssiedlung” Haselhorst housing estates, as well as churches such as his ‘fan-shaped’ Gustav-Adolf-Kirche, built in 1934 in Charlottenburg, the Church of the Resurrection (Offenbarungskirche) in Friedrichshain, an emergency church consecrated in 1949, and the Himmelfahrtkirche (1956) in Gesundbrunnen. 

The exhibition publication includes articles by Werner Durth, Wolfgang Pehnt and Sandra Wagner-Conzelmann (€19.90, ISBN 978-3-88331-220-0).

OTTO BARTNING

Architekt einer sozialen Moderne

Von Werner Durth, Wolfgang Pehnt, Sandra Wagner-Conzelmann

Akademie der Künste und Wüstenrot Stiftung (Hg.)

Justus von Liebig Verlag, Darmstadt, 2017

The exhibition’s further venues include Bartning’s home town of Karlsruhe (Städtische Galerie Karlsruhe, 22 July – 22 Oct 2017) and Darmstadt, where he spent his last years (Institut Mathildenhöhe Darmstadt, 19 Nov 2017 – 18 Mar 2018).

AKADEMIE DER KUNSTE
Hanseatenweg 10, 10557 Berlin
www.adk.de

Updated 06.05.2020

Andy Warhol's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) To Star New York's Post-War and Contemporary art Auctions, Christie's, New York

Andy Warhol's Soup Can With Can Opener (Vegetable) To Star New York's Post-War and Contemporary art Auctions

Christie's, New York

17 May 2017

Andy Warhol’s Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable), 1962 (estimate on request) will star in Christie’s Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale on 17 May. One of the 20th-century’s most iconic images, Warhol’s ‘Campbell’s Soup Cans’ quite literally changed the course of art in the post-war period. The property of the Cingillioglu Family Collection, the present work was originally part of the legendary collection of Pop Art assembled by Emily and Burton Tremaine, who acquired the painting after a visit to Warhol’s studio in the year of its execution.  It was last sold as part of the renowned collection of Barney A. Ebsworth at Christie’s New York in 2010. The work will be on view at Christie’s King Street in London from 4 March to 8 March. 

Francis Outred, Chairman and Head of Post-War and Contemporary Art EMERI, “Warhol’s Soup Cans changed art history by recognizing the rise of mass consumption in society, and predicting the world we live in today. This painting was made at the very moment of recognition and thereby created the foundation for the for the Pop Art phenomenon which continues to inspire many aspects of contemporary society. The Cingillioglu Family Collection has been established over the past 40 years, collecting the very best across many categories and periods and is particularly known for its strong constellation of Pop art. Bought at Christie’s in 2010 for over 23 million dollars, Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) is now set for a triumphant return to the auction room and presents a real opportunity to acquire one of the most historically relevant and instantly recognizable canvases of the 20th century.”

Conceived and executed in Warhol’s New York factory, Big Campbell's Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) is the first in Warhol’s series of large-scale hand painted ‘Campbell's Soup Cans’. In July 1962 it was exhibited at the Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, becoming the first picture by Andy Warhol to ever be shown in a museum. Of the ten large-scale Campbell soup cans painted by Warhol, six are in museum collections, including the Menil Collection, Houston; the Kunsthaus, Zurich; the Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf; and two in The Andy Warhol Museum, Pittsburgh.

Big Campbell’s Soup Can with Can Opener (Vegetable) directly predates the birth of the silkscreen, prefiguring the means of painting that came to define Warhol’s practice. Looking at the lack of shadow and the treatment of the reflected light on the metal of the tin and of the opener, it becomes clear that Warhol is considering a way to bridge the handmade with the mechanical. The evidence, on close inspection, of traces of pencil on the surface and the rather lush red brushstrokes on the label shows Warhol working through the ideas that would become the focus of his entire career.

When Andy Warhol was asked, in a 1977 interview by Glenn O'Brien, what his favorite work was, he said, 'I guess the soup can'.* Warhol’s ‘Campbell Soup Can’ paintings draw attention to the world of mass production that had become a fundamental part of modern existence in the 1960s. By co-opting the visual tropes of commercial art, in which he had been trained, Andy Warhol was able to speak to a contemporary audience that was fully conversant in the same language. Recalling the tactics of Marcel Duchamp’s readymade Andy Warhol was able to capture the attention of the media and public like no other artist of our time.   

* (Glenn O'Brien, 'Interview: Andy Warhol", High Times, August 1977, in K. Goldsmith, ed., I'll Be Your Mirror: The Selected Andy Warhol Interviews: 1962-1987, New York, 2004, p. 242).

Auction:

Post-War and Contemporary Art Evening Sale

New York, 17 May 2017

7pm

CHRISTIE'S

www.christies.com

Art Dubai 2017 Programme

Art Dubai 2017 Programme

March 15-18, 2017

Installation Shot of Art Dubai 2016 

Courtesy of The Studio Dubai

Held under the patronage of HH Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, and under the new leadership of Fair Director Myrna Ayad and International Director Pablo del Val, the eleventh edition of Art Dubai will be the most international to date, welcoming new galleries and representative countries to the fair for the first time, alongside ambitious new elements to the programming.

Highlights of the fair’s growing offering include Art Dubai’s inaugural Modern Symposium, initiated to celebrate the cultural impact of 20th century masters from the Middle East, Africa and South Asia; a visual, sensory and gastronomic experience for visitors realised by Beirut-based artist collective Atfal Ahdath at ‘The Room’; and a series of commissioned performances that will take place during the fair.

“Over the years and through its programming, Art Dubai has become one of the world’s most dynamic art fairs.” said Myrna Ayad, Fair Director of Art Dubai. “Through its year-round activities, educational initiatives and artistic commissions, Art Dubai redefines what an art fair can be and I am delighted that this year with new initiatives such as the Modern Symposium and our largest performance art programme to date, we will be able to offer further insights into the regional art scene with an increased programme to engage our visitors outside the gallery halls”.

Art Dubai 2017 will feature 94 galleries from 43 countries, continuing its mandate to offer access to art from across the globe, and reinforcing its position as the world’s most globally diverse art fair and the preeminent platform for the regional art scene.

“We are offering visitors a new experience in the gallery halls, with more tightly curated presentations this year”, said Art Dubai’s International Director Pablo del Val. “The exhibitions will be split between solo or two-artist exhibitions, allowing a more focused contemplation, and multi-artist shows, enabling an overview of different works. In addition, we are showing new galleries and countries for the first time, with a particularly strong contingent of Iranian galleries as well as our highest-ever number of galleries from Latin America.”

Art Dubai is held in partnership with The Abraaj Group. The fair is sponsored by Julius Baer, Meraas and Piaget. Madinat Jumeirah is home to the event. The Dubai Culture & Arts Authority (Dubai Culture) is a strategic partner of Art Dubai and supports the fair’s year-round education programme.

Art Dubai 2017 Programme

Modern Symposium

For its eleventh edition and to complement the fair’s Modern hall, Art Dubai will introduce the inaugural Modern Symposium, which, with the support of Alserkal Avenue, will take place ‪on Friday 17 March at Art Dubai Modern and ‪on Saturday 18 March at Alserkal Avenue. Comprising a series of talks and presentations focused on the life, work and cultural impact of 20th century Modern masters from the Middle East, South Asia and Africa. Renowned curators, scholars and patrons will lead the sessions that will delve into the styles, influences and practices of artists whose work contributes to the history of art produced between the 1940s and 1980s.

Art Dubai Projects: “The Room: Cooking Liberty”

Hosted in Art Dubai’s ‘The Room’, Cooking Liberty is a visual and gastronomic experience presented by Beirut-based art collective Atfal Ahdath, whose founding members are Vartan Avakian, Hatem Imam and Raed Yassin. Taking cues from Salvador Dali’s cookbook, Les Diners de Gala, and through exaggeration and repetition, Atfal Ahdath invites guests to experience their new, live visceral installation by day. By night, the collective will welcome guests with edible dreams in an immersive setting reminiscent of a grandiose banquet, a truly sensorial experience that flirts with familiarity and expectation.

Art Dubai Projects: “Ghariba/Stranger”

Art Dubai has commissioned Moroccan-born, Brooklyn-based artist Meriem Bennani, who will create an interactive bar installation, borrowing from playful strategies and designs that beauty salons, massage parlors or entertainment parks use to encourage social interaction amongst strangers. Titled Ghariba/Stranger, Bennani’s installation will include viewing stations for videos showing video portraits of Moroccan women.

The Abraaj Group Art Prize

Each year, Art Dubai unveils the Abraaj Group Art Prize, the region’s most important art prize. The 2017 prize is curated by Omar Berrada and the winner, London-based Bangladeshi artist Rana Begum, will unveil her commissioned work alongside an exhibition of works by shortlisted artists Doa Aly, Sarah Abu Abdallah and Raha Raissnia.

Art Dubai Commissions

Focusing exclusively on performance art in 2017, the programme will include a series of five specially commissioned performances, curated by guest curator Yasmina Reggad, and presented by international artists, Manuel Pelmuş, Lana Fahmi, Eglė Budvytytė, Iván Argote and Pauline Bastard.

In addition to the Commissions programme, Yasmina Reggad and Lana Fahmi will perform a dance piece, created in homage to recently deceased Emirati artist Hassan Sharif, based on his diagrams, instructions and performance archive.

Global Art Forum

The fair’s critically acclaimed Global Art Forum is the largest talks programme in the Middle East and Asia, and is recognised as a leading international platform for engaging cultural debate. Featuring around 50 speakers from around the world, the forum returns in 2017 under the theme Trading Places, with a focus on the trade of goods and ideas that shape – and reshape – the world. Conceived by Shumon Basar as Commissioner, with Antonia Carver and Oscar Guardiola-Rivera as Co-Directors, the Global Art Forum will take place at the fair on March 15-17. Art Dubai partners with the Dubai Culture and Arts Authority and Dubai Design District (d3) to present the Global Art Forum.

Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program

Held under the patronage of Her Highness Sheikha Manal bint Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the Sheikha Manal Little Artists Program, now in its fifth edition, is held in partnership between Art Dubai and The Culture Office. The program offers a unique opportunity for UAE-based children and teenagers, encouraging them to engage in the arts and due to the success of last year’s edition, this year’s program will grow to accommodate more than double the number of participants it had last year, increase the number of its Discovery Tours, as well as include, for the first time, drop-in workshops. The 2017 edition will feature Expanding Treasures, a project by lead artist Suzan Drummen, seeing families and children work together to create a large-scale temporary installation on-site at the fair. The program’s popular Discovery Tours, enabling young children to discover key pieces around the fair, will be complemented by the Artists in Schools Initiative, giving the exclusive opportunity to selected schools to experience workshops on campus.

ART DUBAI
www.artdubai.ae