Museum Würth, Schwäbisch Hall: extension to be opened in 2026

Kunsthalle Würth in Schwäbisch Hall: extension to be opened in 2026

Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall

© Henning Larsen Architects, Munich

Kunsthalle Würth, Schwäbisch Hall

© Henning Larsen Architects, Munich

Kunsthalle Würth, sponsored by Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG, is planning a comprehensive extension based on designs by the architectural firm Henning Larsen Munich, which is to be completed on the occasion of its 25th anniversary in 2026. 

The architectural firm had already demonstrated a flair for creating a successful symbiosis of old and new in the new building in 2001. The extension of Kunsthalle Würth follows Prof. Dr. h.c. mult. Reinhold Würth’s principle “growth is life and vitality”, with additional 600 m² of exhibition space, further enhancing the Würth Collection’s location in Schwäbisch Hall. A new tour of the building provides visitors with a better orientation.

In addition, the welcome area with museum store will be newly built and the café will be modernized and expanded to accommodate the high number of visitors of up to 250,000 people per year.

Along with office and depot space, the extension will also include a modern workshop room for creative-practical offerings that complement the classic educational program. To this aim, the boundaries of the premises around Kunsthalle Würth were realigned as early as 2013.

The complex construction project, not least because of the tightly built-up inner city location, including some renovation work in the existing building, is expected to be completed by 2026 following intensive planning.

Exciting showcase exhibitions during the renovation period

After “Rose Red, Grass Green, Quince Yellow. Botanic Mysteries in the Würth Collection“, showcase exhibitions based on works from the Würth Collection are presented as usual free of charge at Adolf Würth Hall and in the former reception area from November 2023. Owing to necessary technical modifications, two shorter closing times of the exhibition areas of Kunsthalle Würth are planned for a few months in the spring of 2024. Visitors are still welcome to discover the smaller showcase exhibitions and spend time in the Würth art shop and the cafeteria, both of which will remain open.

More than five million visitors since 2001

Kunsthalle Würth, ingeniously integrated into the old town of Katharinenvorstadt in Schwäbisch Hall by Danish architect Henning Larsen, was opened to a large audience in May 2001 in the presence of many prominent guests from politics, society and culture.  Since then, 49 exhibitions from the Würth Collection have been on display in the timeless construction. More than five million visitors walked through its doors. Built within three years, Kunsthalle Würth quickly became one of the most successful private museums in Germany and a cultural attraction in the city of Schwäbisch Hall. Already after the first structural extension through the acquisition of the Sudhaus restaurant and conference venue, Kunsthalle Würth unfolded even more potential for the continuously growing Würth Collection with its new premises in the basement from 2004. It is sponsored by Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG. In 2001, the Würth Collection comprised around 6,000 works of art, meanwhile, the collection has grown to roughly 20,000 works of art.

KUNSTHALLE WURTH

www.wuerth.com

Ugo Rondinone awarded the Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation

15th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation awarded to Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone

Ugo Rondinone 

Photo: Maru Teppei

New York-based Swiss artist (sculpture, video and installation) UGO RONDINONE (*1964 in Brunnen, Switzerland) received the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation. He is one of the most acclaimed international artists of his generation who has already been honored with numerous solo exhibitions, among others in London, Paris, Boston, Zurich, Rotterdam or Frankfurt. After all, his monumental groups of works can repeatedly be found dominating public space, whether in urban contexts such as New York and Paris or in the Nevada desert.

“Rondinone's works have their own poetry and are inspired by his own experiences and events. They boast immense density as they are rich in quotations from art history, literature, and pop culture. With seemingly playful material observations in an aesthetic of archetypes that can be sensually experienced and approached by the viewer, the artist creates a connection between the subjective and universal world images," according to the jury of the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation. “His skillful brilliance is characterized by this poignant immediacy combined with a formal language shaped by a high degree of seriality and the use of the most different artistic media. The captivating formal translation of universal fields of tension such as time and transience, day and night, reality and fiction, nature and culture makes him a worthy laureate of the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation. Last but not least, the participatory character of his work was convincing.”

The awarding of the prize together with a presentation of the artist's work at one of the museums of the Würth Collection is scheduled for the spring of 2024.

The jury of the 15th Robert Jacobsen Prize of the Würth Foundation

Dr. Christoph Becker, former Director of Kunsthaus Zurich 

Dr. Philipp Demandt, Director of Städel Museum and Liebieghaus, Frankfurt 

Prof. Dr. Michael Eissenhauer, former Director-General of Staatliche Museen zu Berlin 

Fabrice Hergott, Director of Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris 

Prof. Dr. Bernhard Maaz, General Director of Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich 

Elmgreen & Dragset, Scandinavian artist duo, Berlin, winners of the 14th Robert Jacobsen Prize 

C. Sylvia Weber, Director of Würth Collection (chair)

Maria Würth, Member of the Board of the Würth Foundation

About the Robert Jacobsen Prize

After the death of sculptor Robert Jacobsen in 1993, the Würth Foundation endowed the Robert Jacobsen Prize in cooperation with Museum Würth. Every other year, it is awarded to contemporary visual artists to commemorate Robert Jacobsen’s oeuvre and influence. After their first accidental encounter in the 1970s, the Danish sculptor and Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold Würth, entrepreneur and art collector, became long-standing friends. In 1991, Jacobsen had completed his largest sculpture installation on the forecourt of the Würth Group's new administration building, which has shaped the appearance of the Group's headquarters ever since. The Robert Jacobsen Prize is endowed with EUR 50,000. 

Previous Robert Jacobsen Prize winners:

1993 Lun Tuchnowski 

1995 Richard Deacon 

1997 Magdalena Jetelovà 

1999 Gereon Lepper 

2001 Stephan Kern 

2003 Rui Chafes 

2005/06 Bernar Venet 

2008 Monika Sosnowska 

2010 Alicja Kwade 

2012 Jeppe Hein 

2014/15 Michael Sailstorfer 

2016/17 Yngve Holen 

2018/19 Eva Rothschild 

2021 Elmgreen & Dragset

About the Würth Foundation

Prof. Dr. h. c. mult. Reinhold and Carmen Würth founded the Würth Foundation in 1987. It is a civil law foundation based in Künzelsau, Germany, and promotes charitable and benevolent causes. The Würth Foundation promotes projects in the fields of art and culture, research and science as well as education and training—mainly in the Hohenlohe region, where the Würth Group’s headquarters are located. The foundation also supports social integration projects. The projects of the Würth Foundation are promoted by the German Würth Group companies, in particular Adolf Würth GmbH & Co. KG.

WURTH FOUNDATION

www.wuerth.com

Cay Bahnmiller @ Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

Cay Bahnmiller

Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

February 17 – April 15, 2023

CAY BAHNMILLER (b. 1955; d. 2007, Detroit, USA) was born in Wayne, Michigan. After spending part of her childhood in Argentina and Germany, Cay Bahnmiller lived and worked in Detroit until her death.

Cay Bahnmiller’s art is marked by accumulation: of paint, found objects, texts, memories and even of time. Layered and sedimented, Cay Bahnmiller collapsed temporality, allowing her work to reflect the profusion of experience – in all its facets – that can only be accumulated through life lived. She worked fluidly across mediums. Making no distinction between surfaces, she built compositions on street signs, books, pages torn from magazines and auction catalogs, found pieces of wood and toys. This openness was offset by her rigorous examination of her approach and subject matter. There is a clarity and intensity of vision that reveals how purposefully and carefully Cay Bahnmiller crafted her dense work. She related occurrence through both abstract language and exacting detail.

Making the evolving and eroding landscape of Detroit a crucial focus of her work, she connected her own existence with the conditions of the city. Beyond this, her work would ultimately touch a vast range of themes, from poetry, literature and art history, to class and social stratification, politics, trauma, and death. After being violently assaulted in 1993, Cay Bahnmiller’s work became more insular, and her lifelong preoccupation with urban space was accented by a more conflicted relationship between public and private. Her own memory was a key element in her working method. Often calling back to her time abroad, she allowed her childhood experiences to commingle with the literature she favored and her everyday life in the city. “My perception in painting is enhanced by executing this work in the archeological ruin of Detroit,” she wrote, “a city steeped in sedimentation of light… The stark absence of an ‘outer’ world necessitates the imaging of an interior.” Cay Bahnmiller collected cast-off bits of her city – allowing them to convey the character of the place and play roles in her own narratives – building up sculptures that are almost camouflaged.

A contradictory thread runs through both Cay Bahnmiller's life and her art. Her struggle to reconcile the conflicting sides of her personality was something she grappled with until her death. She desired greater recognition as an artist and yet sabotaged her own career repeatedly. Cay Bahnmiller shut down a solo show for herself on the opening day. Works were often made, unmade and made again, showing traces of each stage and the desire to revise and rework. Many of her works arrived at a near-monochrome all over, covering all that was once there of text, figuration and reference. Visceral, unstable and painful, their immediacy is tangible. “In my search for form, the final construction and process often results from negation,” she wrote. True to her belief that “painting is inscription, rather than description,” she used the world of art and its vicissitude – taste, decor, culture, speculation, history – as the literal base of her work, building up layered, totemic, works on magazine pages, auction catalogues, restaurant stationary, and books by her favorite authors. These works also testify to her being a reader and writer as much as an artist.

Cay Bahnmiller is represented in the collections of the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the University of Michigan Museum of Art. Her work has been written about in Artforum and The New York Times, among other periodicals. A multi-part chronicle of Clay Bahnmiller’s life and work was written by the artist Cary Loren for Three Fold Press in 2021. Since her death, solo shows have been organized at What Pipeline, Detroit and White Columns, New York. This is the first solo exhibition of her work to be held in Europe.

This exhibition was realized in collaboration with the Estate of Cay Bahnmiller and What Pipeline, Detroit.

GALERIE BARBARA WEISS

Kohlfurter Strasse 41/43, 10999 Berlin 

www.galeriebarbaraweiss.de

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Andy Warhol Now @ Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Andy Warhol Now

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

12 December 2020 - 18 April 2021

Andy Warhol is indisputably the best-known representative of Pop Art. His iconic subjects such as Marilyn, the Campell’s soup can, and Coca-Cola bottles are part of the collective memory. Thirty years after his last retrospective in Cologne, Andy Warhol Now presents Andy Warhol as an artist whose innovative work can be rediscovered, especially for a young generation in the age of migration and social diversity.

Andy Warhol (*1928 in Pittsburgh – †1987 in New York) captivated and polarized people with his personality, and his art shaped an entire era. His multifaceted work redefined the boundaries of painting, sculpture, film, and music. Even more than his deliberate flirtations with the world of commerce and celebrities, from today’s perspective his advocacy of alternative ways of life makes him an exceptional artist who can still reveal new interpretations and insights.

As a young man from a religious, working-class milieu, Andy Warhol carved his own path into the artworld, which was still dominated by Abstract Expressionism. In his early work, personal, often homoerotic drawings stood alongside commissions as a successful advertising illustrator, while his unmistakable screen prints made him the epitome of the new Pop Art movement. His explorations of advertising, fashion, music, film, and television attest to Warhol’s lifelong fascination with pop culture. But just as his celebrity portraits and Coca-Cola bottles held a mirror up to American society, Andy Warhol stands for a diverse, queer counterculture that found its expression not least in his New York studio, the Factory.

This major exhibition follows this path with over 100 artworks in a variety of media and illuminates Andy Warhol’s expanded artistic practice against the backdrop of pressing social issues. Famous key works such as the Elvis Presley series and colorful variations of an electric chair are represented as well as less well-known aspects, which allow for a current view of this artist of the century in a time of political and cultural upheavals. For instance, it illuminates the influence of Andy Warhol’s immigrant background as the son of Rusyn immigrants in Pittsburgh, which is reflected in a complex processing of religious themes and subjects, among other things. Many works, such as the magnificent series Ladies and Gentlemen, show Andy Warhol as a queer artist who postulated openness and diversity as fundamental and vital factors of a diverse society. In this way, in his work Andy Warhol continually and expertly negotiates topics that remain highly relevant today.

The exhibition is organised by Museum Ludwig and Tate Modern, London in collaboration with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and Aspen Art Museum, Colorado.

Curated by Yilmaz Dziewior, Director, Stephan Diederich, Curator, Collection of Twentieth-Century Art, Museum Ludwig, Gregor Muir, Director of Collection, International Art and Fiontán Moran, Assistant Curator, Tate Modern.

ANDY WARHOL NOW

Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König

Museum Ludwig, Cologne

A catalogue has been published in German and English, edited by Gregor Muir and Yilmaz Dziewior, with texts by Kenneth Brummel, Diedrich Diederichsen, Stephan Diederich, Yilmaz Dziewior, Olivia Laing, Fiontán Moran, Gregoir Muir, Charlie Porter, and Martine Syms. London/Cologne 2020/2021, 224 pages. 200 color illustrations, 21,9 x 28,9 cm, Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König. 

MUSEUM LUDWIG

Heinrich-Böll-Platz, 50667 Köln

www.museum-ludwig.de

Peter Fend @ Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin - Birds Reign

Peter Fend: Birds Reign

Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

November 21, 2020 – January 23, 2021

Galerie Barbara Weiss presents „BIRDS REIGN“, the second solo exhibition at the gallery by PETER FEND.

At the center of the exhibition is the installation Urban Extrusion, which was first shown in the context of „Wonderful: Visions of the Near Future“ at the Arnolfini, Bristol, UK in 2004. In an experimental approach, Urban Extrusion pursues the practical and ecological potential of transforming urban waste into artificial feathers, which can rehabilitate ecosystems when they are scattered back into nature. Fend hypothesizes that feathers can be generated out of waste via the help of yeasts and other organisms, creating keratin, the main component of any feather. The newly derived keratin can then be further processed to form artificial feathers. And in turn, these could be dispersed into lakes, rivers and wetlands, where they would be taken up by ducks, swans and migrating birds. The importance of waterways in sustaining life is one of Peter Fend’s longest standing areas of research. These regions are elemental to ecosystems that stretch far beyond the banks of rivers or shores of oceans, and Fend treats these sites as a possible origin point for targeted rejuvenation. Searching for ways out of our ecological impasse, Fend’s proposal aims to solve two environmental issues at once — taking an excess from one environment and transforming it into something useful for one that is lacking.

The show’s title: „BIRDS REIGN“ refers not only to the capacity for birds (and their feathers) to positively effect large and complex networks of life, but also their disregard for human-derived hierarchies and dominions. Accompanying the installation Urban Extrusion are new drawings by Peter Fend that depict the flyways of migratory birds. Like a global circulatory system, these trajectories cross vast bodies of water, borders and hemispheres. In depicting such large swaths of the world, Fend implicitly includes sites of international conflict and areas where ecosystems have been ruined by human activity. In ever-widening space, notions of nationality and ideology collapse under the effort of the journey. Peter Fend asks how things might improve for the world at large if humanity began taking its cues from the birds.

For more than 40 years, Peter Fend has expanded the boundaries of how an artistic practice can relate to society and, moreover, to the world that society inhabits. His unique methodology incorporates architecture, art history, activism, and business acumen to propose ecologically responsible solutions to real world problems. Through his work across mediums, Peter Fend aims to spark discussion amongst policy-makers, corporations and individuals in a manner that transgresses the context of art. His efforts as founder of OCEAN EARTH pioneered new methods of engaging the public through artistic action. The group employed aesthetic and art-derived strategies for analyzing civilian satellite data, uncovering geopolitical events with global ramifications, making its findings accessible to an audience of millions via major news outlets.

PETER FEND (b. 1950) has been featured in notable survey exhibitions around the world, including: Documenta IX, 1992, Kassel; the 45th Venice Biennial, 1999 and the 47th Venice Biennial, 2003; the Liverpool Biennial, 2003; and the 8th Sharjah Biennial, 2007. He has had solo exhibitions at Kunsthalle Dusseldorf; The Kitchen, New York; Kunstraum Daxer, Munich; American Fine Art, New York; Arnolfini, Bristol; Roger Pailhas, Paris; Georg Kargl, Vienna; and Essex Street, New York.

A newly commissioned project by Peter Fend is included in Manifesta 13, Marseille, which is on view until the end of November. A series of works that were recently acquired by the Migros Museum, Zurich are currently featured in a survey exhibition there on the topic of ‘potential worlds’.

GALERIE BARBARA WEISS

Kohlfurter Strasse 41/43, 10999 Berlin

galeriebarbaraweiss.de

___________________

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer @ Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin - But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer

But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before

Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin

Through 9 January 2021 

CELESTE DUPUY-SPENCER

There’ll Be Nobody Hiding

(When That Rough God Goes Riding), 2020

Photo: def image, Courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler

Galerie Max Hetzler presents the solo exhibition But the Clouds Never Hung So Low Before with recent paintings by CELESTE DUPUY-SPENCER at Goethestraße 2/3 in Berlin. This is the artist’s first solo exhibition outside of the USA, and with the gallery.

Celeste Dupuy-Spencer creates blistering paintings, loaded with a complex mix of iconography, drawn from the real and the imaginary. The artist grapples with urgent and fundamental issues through the symbolic and at times historical nature of its subjects. Both unflinching and empathic, Dupuy-Spencer gives life to arresting compositions that can be bleak and troubling, at times softer and endearing, in which the worldly and the extraordinary, the holy and the base, merge to present a multitude of possible meanings and narratives.

The paintings exhibited at Galerie Max Hetzler are filled with rich, hyper-narratives which do not cohere into one style, or iconographic concern. Pulling the viewer in different directions, the works form a fragmented, challenging panorama, speaking of humanity in all its duality and contradiction, as it relates to religion, politics, or nature. Moving between the literal and the existential — tensions vital in Celeste Dupuy-Spencer’s practice — the works provide an immediate and powerful emotional impact on the viewer, as they come together to explore a range of feelings, from love and hope, to fear, loss, and pain.

There is a strong religious theme running through the exhibition — a subject which has come to the fore of Celeste Dupuy-Spencer’s interrogation of contemporary experience, in recent years. Included are depictions of Christ and significant places tied to his figure and history such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Messiah’s presumed tomb site nearby. As such, they seek to generate an open discussion around beliefs surrounding the divine, and how they constitute the foundations of our society.

Further works include apocalyptic scenes, such as a seascape in the aftermath of a devastating oil spill, with towering pillars of smoke and birds shown migrating away, and a monstruous volcanic eruption, with glowing lava spills engulfing an entire city. Linking to current affairs, these works hold a mirror up to the viewer, reflecting a society going up in flames. They are lucid and heart-breaking observations, which, devoid of excessive pathos or sentimentalism, reveal Celeste Dupuy-Spencer’s painting as an existential act, in a world slouching towards oblivion.

CELESTE DUPUY-SPENCER (*1979, New York City) lives and works in Los Angeles. Dupuy-Spencer was awarded the Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship in 2006. The artist's work has been the subject of several exhibitions in renowned institutions like the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018); Whitney Museum, New York (2017); Samek Art Museum, Bucknell University, Lewisburg (2016); Institut of Contemporary Art (ICA), Boston and Museum 52, New York (both 2011); Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico City and San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco (both 2010); MoMA PS1, New York and Bronx Museum (both 2008); as well as Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions (LACE), Los Angeles (2007). Works by Celeste Dupuy-Spencer are in the collections of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York.

GALERIE MAX HETZLER

Goethestraße 2/3, 10623 Berlin-Charlottenburg

www.maxhetzler.com

New Acquisitions to the Blue Rider Collection @ Lenbachhaus, Munich - More Modern Art for the Lenbachhaus

More Modern Art for the Lenbachhaus

New Acquisitions to the Blue Rider Collection

Lenbachhaus, Munich

Through February 7, 2021

August Macke

Kinder am Brunnen II, 1910

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Ankauf des Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V. 2019

Marianne von Werefkin

In die Nacht hinein, 1910

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Ankauf des Förderverein Lenbachhaus e.V. 2018

The Lenbachhaus in Munich preserves the world’s largest collection of works by the Blue Rider artists. It owes this treasure first and foremost to the extraordinary munificence of Gabriele Münter, who, on occasion of her eightieth birthday in 1957, made a singular gift to the municipal gallery that transformed it into a museum of international renown. The donation encompassed numerous works by Wassily Kandinsky from the years until 1914, by Münter herself, and by their colleagues from the Blue Rider and its orbit. Several considerable gifts followed, including, in 1965, the exceptionally generous bequest of Elly and Bernhard Koehler jun., the son of the prominent patron and collector of works by Franz Marc and August Macke. They made the Lenbachhaus the single most important place for scholarship on and the public presentation of the art of the Blue Rider, which has been central especially to its exhibition programming for more than six decades. The spiritus rector behind this development was Hans Konrad Roethel, the Lenbachhaus’s director between 1956 and 1971. His successors Armin Zweite and Helmut Friedel likewise launched successful endeavors to enlarge the collection. Still, major desiderata remain: important works by artists associated with the Blue Rider that would be most welcome additions to the collection.

Wilhelm Morgner

Die Holzarbeiter, 1911

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Helmuth Macke

Infanterie, um 1914/1915

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

These art-historical "blanks" concern both certain periods and themes and some members and affiliates of the artists’ group. Most saliently, with the exception of Gabriele Münter, the collection until recently had no works by the women artists in the Blue Rider’s inner circle, such as Elisabeth Epstein or Maria Franck-Marc. Epstein was among the select few to  participate in the legendary First Blue Rider Exhibition at Galerie Thannhauser in 1911. She was also Kandinsky’s sparring partner in important theoretical debates and served as the group’s correspondent and liaison in the Paris art scene. Maria Marc-Franck sent two works to the Second Blue Rider Exhibition in 1912 and brought vital impulses to the Blue Rider’s engagement with the theme of "the worlds of children." The Lenbachhaus mounted a first retrospective of the artist’s oeuvre in 1995, but the collection did not have a single specimen of her art, a lacuna we were now able to close with four acquisitions. Wilhelm Morgner, whose stylistically unique drawing of a brickmaker stands out amid the wide range of contemporary positions in the almanac The Blue Rider, is another artist who was hitherto missing from the Lenbachhaus’s collection. In the tempera painting "The Woodworkers" (1911), the Lenbachhaus was able to purchase a work that impressively exemplifies the artist’s fascinating and distinctive style.

The work of collecting and studying the art of the Blue Rider is by no means done. On the contrary, the fewer lacunae remain, the more difficult closing them with targeted purchases becomes. In recent years, the Lenbachhaus has made a dedicated effort to enhance its collection by trying to acquire these special and difficult-to-find positions. Extensive research and the assistance of individuals and institutions have paved the way for a series of spectacular accessions to the collection. The acquisition of two self-portraits by Elisabeth Epstein—presumably the only extant works by the artist from the Blue Rider period known today—was arguably a small sensation.

LENBACHHAUS

Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München

Luisenstrasse 33, 80333 Munich

www.lenbachhaus.de

Friederike Feldmann @ Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin

Friederike Feldmann: Printemps 2020
Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin
March 14 – April 18, 2020

Galerie Barbara Weiss presents a solo exhibition with new works by Friederike Feldmann. The title Printemps 2020 cites fashion, but it is not as a metaphor of the ephemeral that fashion figures in this exhibition. Rather fashion figures as a language with its own syntax and lexis. In detailed studies, Friederike Feldmann compares the constitutive elements of drawing—form, color, line, shape—with the rhetorics of fashion, its codes, patterns and processes. It is an analogy by means of which the artists invites the viewer to reflect on the structuality of her medium, a reflection that opens onto questions of temporality, materiality and plasticity: Is there something like a rhetoric of drawing, comparable to the language of fashion?

In Collection, 2020, Friederike Feldmann explores the margins of her medium. The works only show the outer edges of drawings, which appear to lie on top of each other like sheets of paper spread out on the wall. This effect, which may be read as a reference to the prominence of illusionism in the history of mural painting, is achieved through a shading of the sheets’ edges, resulting in an impression of stratification. Phenomenologically, the artist relies on another illusionist device to interrogate the threshold where passive perception merges with active projection, where reconstruction turns into construction. For just as the eye only reads the first letters of a word to compose a signifying unit, Friederike Feldmann zeros in on the margins of drawings to interrogate a mechanism of perception that resembles an art historical form of pattern recognition. Yet the works are situated on the medium’s margin in a broader sense as well, insofar as Friederike Feldmann not only includes artistic idioms in her collection. She covers a disparate spectrum: the gestural stands besides the geometrical; the architect’s drawing next to the doodle. What appears in this comparison, however, is not a confrontation of high and low, but rather something like an artistic and playful exploration of drawing as a cultural praxis.

If the mural painting interrogates the characteristics that allow for the recognition of different languages of drawing, the smaller drawings shift the focus to specific Looks, 2017 - 2020. They explore those features that individuate a personal style. All of these works—traces and documentations of very personal encounters—emerged from the engagement with portrait drawings of selected artists. With their strict economy of means, the drawings reduce a personal style to its essence while simultaneously translating it. Beyond citation and appropriation, the artists familiarizes herself with a selected body of work, in order to distill and translate its style, working not with a specific model, but solely on the basis of this practiced proximity. Deliberately, Friederike Feldmann’s translation of highly personal styles into her own artistic idiom moves between difference and repetition to pose a fundamental question about what constitutes style, influence and translation in art. 

GALERIE BARABARA WEISS
Kohlfurter Strasse 41/43 - 10999 Berlin
galeriebarbaraweiss.de

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Martin Schoeller @ NRW-Forum Düsseldorf

Martin Schoeller
NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
February 28 - May 17, 2020

MARTIN SCHOELLER is one of the most famous and sought-after photographers in the world. Barack Obama, Angelina Jolie, George Clooney, and Angela Merkel have all stood before his camera. But he has also taken portraits of homeless people, drag queens, and bodybuilders. The NRW-Forum Düsseldorf presents the most comprehensive exhibition of his work in Germany to date, featuring works from his new series Drag Queens for the first time alongside the series Close Up and Female Bodybuilders, as well as new works from a series on acquitted death row inmates.

Martin Schoeller was born in Munich and lives in the USA since 1993. He became famous with Close Up, a series of extreme close-ups. He photographed hundreds of celebrities such as Taylor Swift and Brad Pitt, politicians such as Angela Merkel and Barack Obama, as well as completely unknown people, all in exactly the same style. He always uses the same equipment and lighting and takes the photographs from similar angles and distances, treating the unknown and the too-well-known with the same level of scrutiny and attention. For him the close-up is the purest form of portraiture, because it confronts the viewer with a single and isolated impression.  Despite the series’ identical structure, he seeks to bring out the subject’s personality in every portrait he creates. He is interested in the subtle moment between performed gestures, the instant in which someone reveals something about themselves without knowing it. As a result of the extreme proximity and the use of typical bright fluorescent lighting, no expression, detail, or wrinkle can remain hidden from his camera. The images sidestep the subject’s conscious self-expression and focus on a moment of vulnerability and integrity.

The series Female Bodybuilders features some of the best female bodybuilders in the world. The method used is similar to that of Close Up, but the works are captured from a slightly greater distance. Martin Schoeller took his first Polaroid picture of a female bodybuilder at a competition in 2003 and was so struck by the complexity of the portrait that he began a whole series. He is interested in the contradictions in the images of these female athletes who work on their sport and their bodies with extreme dedication without receiving any public adulation or financial reward. On the contrary, they come up against the pervasive and merciless limits of beauty standards and feminine ideals. The powerful effect of his images lies in the close observation of these contradictions and the respectful and careful examination of the individual. “We all operate within narrowly constructed ideals of the good, the right, and the beautiful, all subject to the countless influences that swirl around us. The athletes presented here are no different; they are as vulnerable as any other person standing in front of a camera,” explains Martin Schoeller.

Hollywood is a series of works about homeless people and Martin Schoeller’s most sociopolitical work. He has photographed hundreds of people struggling with devastating configurations of personal and social injustices. Taken in the studio, the photographs depict women* with trans* identity, including many sex workers whom Martin Schoeller met on the streets of Hollywood. For him, they represent the most vulnerable and most denigrated group in American society. Many of them must overcome a seemingly impossible combination of homelessness, addiction, mental illness, as well as intolerance toward women*’s sex work, trans* identity, and poverty.

The exhibition is the most comprehensive in Germany to date and offers an insight into Martin Schoeller’s multifaceted work. The exhibition also presents additional series and subjects; alongside humorous portraits of celebrities, such as Brad Pitt playing croquet in the Portraits series, there is also the series Identical, for which Martin Schoeller photographed sets of twins, as well as his new series, Drag Queens. Martin Schoeller began this ongoing large-format series in New York and Los Angeles in 2018 and has published part of it in New York Magazine. The series—including new works—is presented in an exhibition for the first time at the NRW-Forum.

For his new ongoing series Death Row Exonerees, Martin Schoeller interviewed and filmed fifteen acquitted death row inmates in a collaboration with the organization Witness to Innocence, which campaigns for the abolition of the death penalty in the USA. Seven of the interviews are shown in a video installation in the exhibition. Over the next few years, Martin Schoeller would like to photograph more of the 166 people who have been sentenced to death and then acquitted in the USA to date.

The exhibition is presented in cooperation with Crossover/Anke Degenhard.

NRW-Forum Düsseldorf
Ehrenhof 2, 40479 Düsseldorf
nrw-forum.de

______________________

Tony Cragg @ Buchmann Galerie, Berlin

Tony Cragg
Buchmann Galerie, Berlin
Through 16 February, 2019

Tony Cragg

Untitled (Multiple Skull), 2017

Wood

240 (h) x 227 x 172 cm - 95 x 89 x 68 in

(c) Tony Cragg, Courtesy Buchmann Galerie, Berlin

Buchmann Galerie presents an exhibition featuring new sculptures and drawings by Tony Cragg.

In the front exhibition space, a monumental sculpture from the new work group Skulls, measuring 240 x 227 x 172 cm, makes a powerful impression with its complex interlock of internal and external spaces. The entire volume of this work constructed from layered plywood is permeated by innumerable close-lying and in some cases interlaced, tube-like forms. They open up a surprising insight into the sculpture's internal depths. Resembling foam and yet conveying solidity, the work evokes organic forms, the innermost part of which generates the exterior. Tony Cragg explains: "There exists a real psychological pressure and need for the viewer to see beyond the surface and that all the forms we see provide a connection to the greater and more fundamental external and internal forces that make them."

The group of work Hedges, inspired by Tony Cragg's childhood memories of landscapes with hedges in his English home region, comprises filigree leaf- and blade-like forms. The organic configurations rouse associations with a hedge or tumbleweed. The red-brown, matt shimmering patina of the steel contributes to these natural associations. However, looking more closely, it becomes clear that the forms, in their buoyancy and arrangement, are artificial – they are man-made. Like a mobile, the formations seem to float in a perfectly balanced state, as if their shape could alter at any given moment.

Conversion, made from aluminium, adopts the leaf-like structure of the Hedges but transposes it into a floral setting, which in turn seems to explode the limitations of abstraction with its camouflage finish.

Tony Cragg is an artist who has always utilized a study of natural science in order to challenge nature. The absolute loyalty to his materials that Peter Schjeldahl attests to the artist (1) meets with a will to form in Tony Cragg's work that is not exhausted in the work itself but wrestles with nature. "I am an extreme materialist" the artist maintains repeatedly. And Peter Schjeldahl adds that it is from this alone that the fantastic spectrum of material and formal freedom can emerge, which characterizes this great sculptor's extensive oeuvre.

In the Buchmann Box are showing a collection of recent sculptures and drawings, which exemplify the artist's work as it continues to unfold in an almost encyclopaedic manner. The sculptor's outstanding significance was recognized impressively in 2007, when he received the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture.

In the last two years several important solo presentations of Tony Cragg's work have taken place, including in the Hermitage in St. Petersburg, Tehran Museum of Contemporary Art, Mudam Luxembourg, and the comprehensive retrospective "Parts of the World" in the Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal, in 2016. A Rare Category of Objects in the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK, was one of the most extensive outdoor exhibitions of his art seen to date. A five volume monographic publication examining Tony Cragg's work is currently being issued by the Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne. Besides a volume about his drawings and prints, it comprises three volumes on his sculptures since the late 1960s, as well as a volume of the artist's own writing. Three of these volumes are already available.

(1) Peter Schjeldahl, Cragg's Big Bang, in: Anthony Cragg, Parts of the World, Cologne 2016, pp. 155-166

BUCHMANN GALERIE
Charlottenstraße 13, D-10969 Berlin
www.buchmanngalerie.com

Bruno Gironcoli @ Schirn Kunsthale Frankfurt - Prototypes for a New Species

Bruno Gironcoli : Prototypes for a New Species
Schirn Kunsthale Frankfurt
February 14 – May 12, 2019

Bruno Gironcoli at the Frankfurter Kunstverein 1981 

Photo © Walter Kranl

Bruno Gironcoli 

Figure with large disk shapes and pointy heads as well as two (unexecuted) spiral shapes, 1986-1990 / 1995 

Iron, wood, plastic, 300 x 245 x 210 cm 

Gironcoli Museum, Herberstein

© the Estate Bruno Gironcoli, Photo: Hans Christian Krass

The Austrian artist Bruno Gironcoli (1936–2010) is one of the most important sculptors of his generation. Beginning in the early 1960s, drawing on his never-ending inventive voracity he created a highly idiosyncratic and remarkable oeuvre rendered in a very personal and individual visual language. In groups of ever-new works he succeeded each time in finding an unmistakable and yet surprising voice. Wire sculptures gave way to hollow-body forms, polyester objects, and disconcerting environments. Bruno Gironcoli’s work always focused on the individual and his abysses. The artist shared his existential questions and politically motivated avant-garde thought with fellow artists of the Viennese scene. His aesthetics of exorbitance and opulence constantly gave rise to excrescences and curlicues and have inspired numerous younger artists. In 1977, the eccentric Bruno Gironcoli took over the direction of the School of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. For the first time, he began to create sculptures that filled or frequently even defied space, made possible through the generous studio situation.

Bruno Gironcoli

Untitled, 1996

Iron, wood, plastic 460 x 220 x 410 cm

Gironcoli Museum, Herberstein

© the Estate Bruno Gironcoli, Photo: Hans Christian Krass

Bruno Gironcoli 

Untitled (detail), 1996

Iron, wood, plastic 460 x 220 x 410 cm

Gironcoli Museum, Herberstein

© the Estate Bruno Gironcoli, Photo: Hans Christian Krass

Bruno Gironcoli 

Untitled (detail), 2001 

Iron, wood, plastic, 230 x 260 x 230 cm

Gironcoli Museum, Herberstein 

© the Estate Bruno Gironcoli, Photo: Hans Christian Krass

The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting excerpts from Bruno Gironcoli’s monumental late oeuvre in a thought-provoking exhibition. As if derived from a theater of the absurd or a surreal dream world, the gigantic objects seem to be prototypes of a new species, enveloped in shining, seductive surfaces of gold, silver, and copper. Foreign and yet familiar, their organic forms and set pieces stem from an everyday culture that is often oriented toward the local: we soon believe we can make out a wine barrel, an ear of wheat, or a vine. Then again, Bruno Gironcoli stages a strange march-past of infants or an imposing, ant-like sculpture. His magnificent and unsettling works never fail to surprise us as postmodern pastiches.

Curator: Dr. Martina Weinhart

SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT
Römerberg, 60311 Frankfurt
www.schirn.de

Tatsuo Miyajima, Drawings @ Buchmann Galerie, Berlin

Tatsuo Miyajima: Drawings
Buchmann Galerie, Berlin
28 September - 3 November 2018

Buchmann Galerie presents the first solo exhibition of drawings by TATSUO MIYAJIMA (*1957, Tokyo) 

Tatsuo Miyajima is one of Japan‘s most important sculptors and installation artists. In his œuvre, the artist – who became known primarily for his works using digital light diodes (LED) – is concerned with concepts of time, its (non-) calculability and its cultural and existential dimension. 

One important component of the works is counting and sequences of numbers. These numbers, appearing in continuous and recurrent - although not necessarily consecutive - cycles from 1 to 9, represent the journey of life until death, whose finality is symbolized by ‚0‘ or the zero point. Consequently, this never appears in the artist‘s work. The series of works on paper from 1995 to 2018 now collected in the Buchmann Box explore several issues essential to Tatsuo Miyajima‘s work. 

Kũ Drawing Series 

In the Zen tradition Kũ stands for emptiness (Kũ is the transcription of the Sanskrit word sunya or sunyata, translated literally as „emptiness“). Tatsuo Miyajima describes how he produced these drawings in a state of Kũ, holding a pencil in his hand, his eyes closed: The lines from my subconscious show my time spent in emptiness. The length of time given in the title, 15 minutes for example, describes the period of time which I spent in an altered state of mind, with my eyes closed. 

Innumerable Counts Series 

Every number in these drawings represents a moment in the counting cycle from 9 to 1. The empty space in the potentially in infinite sequence of numbers re- presents the figure zero, which - as indicated above - does not appear in his work. In these drawings the artist is attempting to grasp moments in cycles of innumerable counts. The Innumerable Counts visualize life for Tatsuo Miyajima. The spirals or lines in the drawings are thus excerpts from a broader context, from innumerable moments in time. 

Count Down Drawing Series 

Tatsuo Miyajima provides a different interpretation of the zero, the empty space, in his Count Down Drawing Series: this series of works shows a repea- ted sequence, counting down from 9 to 1, as the title suggests. Here, too, the place of zero (Kũ) is represented by an empty space or fille with a thin gold foil or a microchip. In this variation the empty space is filled; it is, as the artist points out, the field provided with every possibility, the field of potential. 

The artist‘s works on paper are an essential component of his practice, seen as equal in status to the installation pieces and performances. They complete the artist‘s complex œuvre, which is characterized by investigation into the significance of counting and time, and by subtle meditations exhibiting sublime precision and finesse. 

Important works by the artist can be found in collections including the Tate Gallery London, the Bavarian State Collection of Painting Munich, La Caixa Barcelona, the Deste Foundation in Athens, the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, Leeum Seoul, Kunstmuseum Bern, and M+ in Hong Kong. 

Buchmann Box 
Charlottenstrasse 75, 10117 Berlin
www.buchmanngalerie.com

Yvonne Roeb, Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt – New Works Exhibit

Yvonne Roeb, New Works
Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf, Frankfurt 

Throught April 14, 2012

Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf presents recent works by Yvonne Roeb created last year during her residency in New York which was supported by the Stiftung Kunstfonds. The sculptor assimilates collective images from everyday life, cultural history, mysticism, religion and dream in a surreal way. She deals with first questions and last things and often makes references to the history of art. In her works one will always meet persecuted, transformed, morphological beings or bodies trying to merge together but who at the same time are stuck in an inner struggle or even exert subtle aggression.

The artwork "Acephalous" (headless) consists of two parrots grown together at the most important part of their body like Siamese twins. Both of them are missing the head which is known to be the centre of wisdom, the control of actions and the origin of the mind. This fact makes the adnate animals immobile in most instances. The parrot imitates the human language similar to an echo. Since the parrot never understands the meaning of sounds he makes, he symbolises the vanity of the human beings.

For the sculpture "FEMALE" the artist has searched the models of ancient Greece for idealised images of man and by merging two faces, she mates man and woman into one being. In "Helix" a snake and a braid are combined to a symbolic circle in a graceful dance-like movement. This image reminds also of the cycle of eat and be eaten. In the assemblage "Next I noticed it was spring" the fingertips of a human hand are extending into space as tentacles of a marine animal. In its dynamic the extremities remind of the feminine and twinkle-toed legs of the can-can dancers. The birds of the sculpture "13" are presented as an accumulation lying on skin-coloured leather. Seen as a kill and reminding us of exuberant meals the birds on the one hand stand for opulence and luxury. On the other hand one might think the birds are sleeping - they have kept their tenderness and vulnerability.

In her artwork "Retable" Yvonne Roeb analyses the connection between art and liturgy and questions the function and the usage of images. After the 11th century retable has become one of the most essential scenes for Christian art. Its rearward panels contain varnished and vivid image creations of Occidental history. Yvonne Roeb leaves her Retable entirely without any images. Only the usability and the form allow conclusions regarding the history. The consensus of the essential has to be elaborated by the viewer. The panel looks like it has been made centuries ago, but obviously it was never finished or the images have vanished with years passing by. The plates become projection screens for the imagination of the viewer. But at the same time they emphasize their claim for autonomy.

YVONNE ROEB was born 1976 in Frankfurt/Main, she now lives and works in Berlin. She has studied at the Academy of Fine Arts Münster under Timm Ulrichs and was master student under Katharina Fritsch. The artist’s previous solo exhibitions were also at the Wilma Tolksdorf’s gallery.

Galerie Wilma Tolksdorf 

Hanauer Landstrasse 136, 60314 Frankfurt
www.wilmatolksdorf.de

Exhibition: Psycho - Ena Swansea and Robert Lucander, Falckenberg Collection / Deichtorhallen, Hamburg-Harburg, Germany

Psycho - Ena Swansea and Robert Lucander 
Falckenberg Collection / Deichtorhallen, Hamburg-Harburg, Germany 
Through March 25, 2012

Poetic-surrealist images by US painter ENA SWANSEA and subversive-enigmatic works by Finnish artist ROBERT LUCANDER who now lives in Berlin are on view together at the Sammlung Falckenberg in Hamburg, Germany.

The exhibition’s title of “Psycho” is a reference to the eponymous horror classic by Alfred Hitchcock and calls to mind the disturbed nature of schizophrenics, psychopaths and other psychologically disturbed persons. “Psycho” is Greek for “soul” and the term referring to insanity is derived from the notion that a human’s spirit or soul can become ill; psychoanalysis, for example, is used to treat deep-rooted psychological traumata and behavioral disorders. Bret Easton Ellis’ novel American Psycho exposed, for example, the ugly face of unquestioning materialism but left the reader in doubt as to whether the gruesome scenes depicted in the novel emanate from the protagonist’s psychotic fantasies or whether he actually carries out these excessively violent acts. Colloquially, “psycho” is used to describe a mentally disturbed person who displays behavioral problems and a tendency towards aggressive conduct, thus having an unsettling and threatening effect on their environment. The use of this term leads one to expect a confrontation with art that takes non-conformism, insanity and thus the threatening and the sinister as its theme.  

Dreams and emotions form the focus of paintings by artist ENA SWANSEA (born in 1965 in North Carolina) – her works bear witness to a fascination with the enigmatic and the power of fantasy. They can be interpreted as the expression of subconscious, irrational desires and fears which fester in the depths of one’s memory. Her seemingly transient “dream images” speak to the beholder in a way that only painting can – without the need for words and with a certain sensual immediacy. Those classic genres – the portrait, the group portrait and the landscape – provide Swansea with a medium to express her most intimate feelings. Her painting serves as a form of self-assurance and arises out of a need to confront her own affectivity, her personal fears and traumata, while simultaneously holding a mirror up to the society we all share.   

The main interest of artist ROBERT LUCANDER (born in 1962), now resident in Berlin, likewise lies in portraits and images of our society, albeit in a manner that is far from traditional. In terms of content it is not a matter of capturing the essence of the person depicted, nor is it a classic, creative process of reproducing reality in formal terms. In contrast to the associative illusionism to be discerned in Eva Swansea’s works, Robert Lucander places special emphasis on the materials and artistic techniques used. Thus the images and montages by the Finnish artist seem to emerge directly from the medium itself, from its grain and the knotholes of the wood. Lucander avails himself of the world of images to be found in magazines and advertising, dissects the colourful media world into fragments and then uses reduction, painting over, montage, mirroring and duplication to create his own visual statements, which only appear superficial and harmless upon first glance. Everyday news stories and newspaper images become the artist’s materials in his subversive and humorous studies of human gestures and facial expressions, whereby he lifts the lid on the social precipices behind the world of beautiful images. 

Both the ephemeral-psychological character of Ena Swansea’s paintings and the analytically fragmentary nature and media alienation as manifested in works by Robert Lucander, serve to unsettle the beholder somehow. Both artists upset our viewing patterns, create a subtle feeling of discomfort and expose either one’s own or social reality as “insane”. 

DEICHTORHALLEN, HAMBURG
20095 Hamburg
www.deichtorhallen.de

Roy Lichtenstein, Museum Ludwig Cologne - Art as Motif

Roy Lichtenstein: Art as Motif 
Museum Ludwig Cologne
Through 3 October 2010

The halftone dots used by Roy Lichtenstein (1923-1997) are world famous. Taking motifs from the realms of comics and consumerism, Lichtenstein made paintings by piecing together dots and coloured surfaces. But a very different side of his work can be discovered at this exhibition in Museum Ludwig in Cologne (Germany). Around 100 exhibits, chiefly large-scale paintings along with a number of sculptures and drawings, reveal his fascinating explorations of style through the history of art – from Expressionism and Futurism to Bauhaus and Art Deco. Lichtenstein even appropriated works by his artist heroes - Picasso, Matisse, Mondrian and even Dali - and interpreted them in an often ironic and cryptic manner using his own visual language.

Poster of the exhibition at Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Many of his early works are based on historic American paintings, such as by Benjamin West. But he also painted after such models as Picasso, Braque and Klee, who according to his own words he worked into an “expressionist Cubism”.

Indeed, Lichtenstein even continued his takes on Picasso later on, once he had already begun to work with the half-tone dots. In his hands, Picasso’s works became a kind of comic and received a character all of its own. Painting a work that clearly resembled Picasso was, according to Lichtenstein, a liberating act.

With his Perfect and Imperfect Paintings Lichtenstein wanted to create abstract works purely for their own sake. According to him, the idea was to let the line start at some point and then to follow it, thus allowing it to draw all of the shapes in the painting. In his “Perfect Paintings” the line ended at the edge of the canvas, while in the “Imperfect Paintings” the line went beyond the bounds of the canvas; this was in fact a humorous play on the idea of the “shaped canvases”, which were very popular in the 1960s.

Roy Lichtenstein’s large-scale paintings from the series “Brushstrokes” show nothing more than gigantic, stylised, comic-like brushstrokes on canvas. This motif has great significance in the history of art: it is a symbol of painting or indeed art per se, and testifies to Lichtenstein’s reflections on paintings about painting.

Roy Lichtenstein also reworked classic motifs, such as the Laokoon group using stylised brushstrokes, which he sometimes applied to the canvas with stencils and sometimes by hand using expressive gestures. The brush stoke became the dominant motif and superimposed itself on the subject. So once again, his actual theme was painting as such.

Apart from this, Roy Lichtenstein also turned his mind to the classic genres of the still life and the landscape. His strongly simplifying style of painting allowed him to capture his subjects in a kind of cliché. Here again he continued to reference Picasso, as well as Matisse. And he also cited his fellow countrymen who specialised in marine still lifes. For his landscapes he took the background of comic drawings as his basis.

Museum Ludwig has the largest collection of American Pop Art outside of the USA, including numerous works by Roy Lichtenstein. Prior to the exhibition, the Peter and Irene Ludwig Foundation has managed to acquire another large-scale work from Lichtenstein’s late period. The 2.80 x 1.30 m canvas from 1996 comes from a series of works inspired by Asiatic motifs. During the mid-nineties Roy Lichtenstein took a long look at Chinese and Japanese landscape painting.

After completing the Lichtenstein exhibition it is worth taking a tour round the permanent collection at Museum Ludwig, which presents fascinating cross-connections and comparisons with works by Léger and Picasso and even Kirchner and Dalí.

The exhibition was organised in close co-operation with the Roy Lichtenstein Foundation. It was shown from January till May in a different form in Milan’s “Triennale di Milano” under the title “Roy Lichtenstein: Meditations on Art”. It was curated by Gianni Mercurio, who has worked with Stephan Diederich for the exhibition at Museum Ludwig.

A documentary film on Roy Lichtenstein is also on view at the exhibition containing hitherto unreleased material from international archives, as well as excerpts from Michael Blackwood’s film Roy Lichtenstein from 1976 and passages from interviews with Diane Waldman and Martin Friedman.

The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalogue with numerous reproductions published by DuMont.

The exhibition is generously supported by RheinEnergie AG as a Museum Ludwig Partner, and Ströer Out-of-Home Media AG as a Media Partner.

Related posts:

Roy Lichtenstein: Reflected, Mitchell-Innes & Nash, NYC, Through October 30, 2010

Other current exhibitions at Museum Ludwig Cologne: La Bohème. The Staging of Artists in photography of the 19th and 20th century, Through January 2011

Upcoming exhibition at Museum Ludwig Cologne: Suchan Kinoshita: In 10 Minutes, 9 October 2010 - 30 January 2011.

www.museum-ludwig.de

Berliner Liste 2009 fur junge Galerien

Berliner Liste 09 als experimenteller Ort für junge Galerien und aktuelle Kunst

Berlin gehört zu den pulsierendsten Kunstzentren der Welt. Seit Jahren begegnen sich hier junge Künstler aller Stilrichtungen, um jenseits des Establishment des weltweiten Kunstmarktes nach neuen Konzepten und unkonventionellen Wegen zu suchen. Für diese Szene steht die Berliner Liste; als innovative Entdecker-Messe bildet sie seit ihrer Gründung vor sechs Jahren durch den Berliner Galeristen Wolfram Völcker eine Plattform für junge Arbeiten und frische, zeitgenössische Kunst. Die Berliner Liste gibt Newcomern eine Chance. Die unkomplizierte und kommunikative Atmosphäre der Messe lässt einen lebendigen Austausch zwischen Künstlern, Galerien und dem interessierten Publikum entstehen. Mit diesem Konzept hat sich die Berliner Liste seit ihrem Jubiläumserfolg von 2008 mit rund 15.000 Besuchern als zweitgrößte Kunstmesse Berlins nach dem Art Forum etablieren können. 

Berliner Liste 09 an neuem Standort hinter Glas Zum besonderen Profil der Berliner Liste gehört auch der jährlich wechselnde, stets außergewöhnliche Standort. In jedem Jahr wird ein anderer Ort von der Messe mit Leben gefüllt und der Öffentlichkeit bekannt gemacht. In den Vorjahren zählten bereits das Vitra Design Museum und der Postbahnhof am Gleisdreieck zu den ausgewählten Ausstellungsorten. Zum 5jährigen Jubiläum 2008 zog die Berliner Liste in das leer stehende ehemalige Luxushotel Haus Cumberland am Kurfürstendamm. In diesem Jahr wird die Messe das Palais am Tiergarten beziehen, einen neuen, nahezu transparenten Glas- und Backsteinbau, der für die Foto- und Lichtkunst der Berliner Liste 2009 den idealen Rahmen bilden wird. Auf vier Etagen lädt die Berliner Liste hier zum Flanieren und Entdecken des aktuellen Kunstschaffens ein sowie zum Dialog mit Künstlern und Galeristen. Im fünften Stock wird eine Lounge mit Dance Floor die entspannte und kreative Atmosphäre der Messe unterstreichen. Nicht zuletzt ist auch das Art Forum von diesem zentral am Reichpietschufer in unmittelbarer Nähe der Nationalgalerie gelegenen Gebäude in wenigen Minuten mit öffentlichen Verkehrsmitteln zu erreichen. 

Berliner Liste 09 als Tor nach Osteuropa Die diesjährige Berliner Liste präsentiert sich weitaus internationaler als bisher; am neuen Standort im Palais am Tiergarten werden 60 Galerien aus 14 Ländern ihre vielversprechendsten künstlerischen Talente Sammlern, Kuratoren, Kunstinteressierten und Journalisten aus aller Welt vorstellen. Die Hälfte der ausstellenden Galerien stammt dabei Deutschland, die übrigen kommen aus dem europäischen Ausland, den USA und Südkorea. In diesem Jahr nimmt die Berliner Liste 2009 die osteuropäische Kunstszene in den Focus: So wird auch dieses Jahr wieder die Anaid Gallery aus Rumänien dabei sein. Erstmals reisen aus Osteuropa die Galerie Krokus und die Photon Gallery aus Slowenien an. Die Gallery Bastejs aus Lettland wird ebenso die neuesten Strömungen und Tendenzen der Kunst aus Lettland präsentieren. Mit der expliziten Auswahl vieler osteuropäischer Galerien will die Berliner Liste der speziellen historischen und geografischen Situation Berlins auf der Schnittstelle zwischen Ost und West gerecht werden. Ein weiterer chwerpunkt liegt auch in diesem Jahr auf aktueller Kunst aus Spanien. 

Fotografie auf der Berliner Liste 09 Anlässlich ihres fünfjährigen Jubiläums hat die Berliner Liste 2008 ihr Angebot um zwei neue Abteilungen erweitert. In der Sektion „Fotografie” zeigten 10 Galerien erstmals gebündelt ausschließlich Fotografie. „Kunst seit 1960“ öffnete die Berliner Liste, um weitere Galerien und anspruchsvolle Sammler einzuführen. Beide Abteilungen haben großen Zuspruch des Fachpublikums erfahren. Zum 6. Mal bietet die Berliner Liste diesen Herbst eine Plattform, um risikolos experimentieren zu können und Entdeckungen zu machen – und zwar nicht nur neue Orte, sondern auch aufstrebende Künstler und aktuelle Tendenzen. 

BERLINER LISTE 09 Fair for Contemporary Art, Photography and Art since 1960 
24 - 27 September 2009 Eröffnung: 23. September 2009, 18 Uhr im Palais am Tiergarten 13 bis 21 Uhr, am 27. September 13 bis 19 Uhr Eintritt: Tagespreis 12 Euro, ermäßigt 10 Euro Katalog : 5 €
Palais am Tiergarten Reichpietschufer 86 10789 Berlin Veranstalter : The working smarter group GmbH Augustr. 62 10117 Berlin

Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig

Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig

Front View of The Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig

(c) The Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig - All rights reserved

A part of the exhibition

(c) The Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig - All rights reserved

Museum Shop (c) The Museum of the Printing Arts Leipzig - All rights reserved

Facts about the museum

In today’s information society, museums act as knowledge repositories and thus form a bridge between history and the present day. This is certainly true of the Leipzig Museum of the Printing Arts, where the production of print media can be experienced with all the senses. A very special experience awaits those who are able to visit the Museum of the Printing Arts in Leipzig. By combining a working print shop and a museum, it provides a close-up view of five hundred years of printing history. In this unique setting, more than 200 working machines and presses demonstrate the techniques of copperplate printing, lithography and letterpress. The museum’s four floors are devoted to manual and mechanical typesetting and the various printing processes. A type foundry in full working order shows visitors how lead type is cast either by hand or by machine – a genuine rarity.

Visitors become acquainted with the ‘black art’, as printing has always been known, which is vividly brought to life in this ‘hands-on’ museum whose motto is “see, smell and touch”. Guided by the specialist staff, visitors can set lines of text themselves or have various motifs printed on the platen presses as they tour the exhibition. In addition to printing machines, the Leipzig Museum of the Printing Arts has some forty tons of lead type, matrices and steel dies in its collection, for a wide variety of typefaces of European and oriental origin. It also houses a fully equipped bindery where books can be bound by hand. Visitors can watch modern graphic prints being produced and can purchase them in the museum shop, together with samples of lead type, cards, ex-libris folders and small graphic artworks. Artists often come to the museum too in order to produce woodcuts, lithographs and etchings on historic machines.

The Museum of the Printing Arts holds regular workshops and courses on the use of historic printing techniques. Under the expert guidance of artists, participants can produce their own etchings and lithographs, and print them by traditional means. Traditional typesetting, letterpress printing and bookbinding techniques can also be learned at workshops run by the Museum. The annual festival, known as ‘Leipziger Typotage’, exhibitions on special topics and numerous other events complete the museum’s attractive programme.

http://www.druckkunst-museum.de/