Nicole Eisenman Exhibition @ Museum Brandhorst, Munich - What Happened

Nicole Eisenman. What Happened

Museum Brandhorst, Munich

24 March - 10 September 2023

“Nicole Eisenman. What Happened” at Museum Brandhorst surveys for the first time the entire spectrum of the artist’s three decades of work in painting and sculpture, bringing together approximately 100 works dating from 1992 to the present. Relevant from an art historical and social, political and deeply human perspective, it is an oeuvre that manages in an anarchic way to be both an homage to and a critique of its own subject.

Nicole Eisenman (*1965) has been one of the protagonists of the New York art scene since the 1990s and is today one of the most influential contemporary artists. From the beginning, her work has been characterized by a juxtaposition of different materials, formats and techniques, from paintings and works on paper to large-scale murals and installations. Characteristically, Eisenman draws from a variety of sources, including works from the Renaissance, underground comics, and socialist murals of the 1930s to name but a few. Many of her works invoke the experiences of lesbian communities in New York. However, rather than being documentary, they are highly imaginative and comical.

In her large-scale figurative paintings since the 2000s, Nicole Eisenman references her living environment, depicting the everyday in ways that are both humorous and compassionate. They are often group portraits, yet they tell not only of unity and connectedness, but also of loneliness and alienation within society. Since the mid-2010s, the artist has produced a series of monumental paintings in which she references the tense political atmosphere in the United States following the 2016 presidential election. Some works criticize those voters who fell for Donald Trump’s populist promises. Others feature politically engaged communities working together to confront a social culture that is on a dark path (“The Darkward Trail,” 2018). In recent years, sculptural works have also become more prominent in Nicole Eisenman’s practice. After initially working with plaster at the beginning of the 2010s, these days there is no material that the artist does not use in her sculptures. Their materiality references queer themes that continually preoccupy Eisenman, along with her unwavering humanist and universalist stance.

Visitors to the exhibition “Nicole Eisenman. What Happened” are immersed in three interwoven narrative threads as they explore the show. The first is about a lesbian artist with feminist convictions who begins painting for a small alternative community in New York’s downtown scene of the 1990s and whose works are now celebrated internationally. Another narrative is devoted to Eisenman’s view of and commentary on U.S. society and the cracks that run through it: the impact of George W. Bush’s presidency, the 2008 economic crisis, or the shift to the right in politics following Trump’s election. Likewise, Eisenman negotiates the omnipresence of screens in our everyday lives, imagines the U.S. landscape at the onset of climate catastrophe, and infuses the genre of history painting with new life by capturing recent protest movements such as Black Lives Matter and Defund the Police in her images. Finally, in a third narrative strand, the exhibition displays the impressive formal aesthetic experiments, ambition, and ingenuity in the selection of material that distinguish the artist’s oeuvre.

Accompanying the exhibition is a comprehensive catalog documenting the full range of Eisenman’s work. In his essay entitled “What Happened,” Mark Godfrey provides a comprehensive genesis of the work. In her text, Monika Bayer-Wermuth explores the question of fluidity of material and bodies alike. In addition to the essays by the two curators, Chloe Wyma devotes herself to Eisenman’s most recent works and her role within political discourses in the art world in recent years. Reminiscences and short contributions by numerous contemporaries complete the book, which provides an insight into the artist’s work that is as profound as it is personal.

German edition: ISBN 978-0-85488-318-9

English edition: ISBN 978-0-85488-312-7

An exhibition by Museum Brandhorst in cooperation with the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

Curated by Monika Bayer-Wermuth and Mark Godfrey

MUSEUM BRANDHORST

Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen

Theresienstrasse 35 a, 80333 Munich

www.museum-brandhorst.de

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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

Alex Katz Retrospective Exhibition @ Museum Brandhorst, Munich

Alex Katz

Museum Brandhorst, Munich

6 December 2018 – 22 April 2019

The Museum Brandhorst presents a major exhibition of works by celebrated American painter Alex Katz. A towering figure in contemporary painting best known for his iconic portraits of beautiful, stylish women, masterfully rendered in bold, vibrant colors, Alex Katz has influenced and inspired generations of artists around the world. Featuring about ninety works—including some of the artist’s most important paintings—the exhibition offers visitors a retrospective overview of this seminal artist’s oeuvre from the 1950s to today.

ALEX KATZ (born 1927, New York) emerged on the New York scene during the heyday of Abstract Expressionism and just prior to the explosion of Pop Art. Although he is often hailed as one of the precursors to Pop, his aesthetic is perhaps more closely aligned with such poets as Frank O’Hara and John Ashbery than with other painters of his generation. His unique oeuvre, which now spans some 70 years, is utterly devoted to the representation of the here and now and the immediacy of human perception—a commitment to what the artist has often described as “painting in the present tense.” Working variously en plein air, from photographic sources, and from his own sketches and preparatory drawings, he has focused his attention on subject matter from his immediate milieu: portraits of family (in particular his wife Ada) and friends, artistic collaborators and scenes of social interaction, landscapes and architectural scenes, and flowers. Throughout, Alex Katz’s sensitivity for painterly surfaces unfolds in productive tension with the formal languages of film, fashion, and advertising.

The exhibition begins with works from the late 1950s and early 1960s, including portraits of the renowned choreographer and dancer Paul Taylor and his company, for which Alex Katz designed many sets. A series of seminal single and group portraits from the 1960s establish Alex Katz’s signature style as well as the social and artistic milieu of Downtown New York, both of which remain leitmotifs throughout his work and the exhibition. Two large galleries of landscapes show Alex Katz playing at the edge of abstraction while at the same time recommitting himself to a decidedly modern form of realism.

The quality of light itself, whether direct, reflected, or diffused, becomes a central concern in these paintings. So, too, does the ability of an individual brushstroke to delimit multiple different types of form while also retaining its status as an autonomous mark.

Also on display is a sizable collection of small oil paintings, sketches, and preparatory drawings. Often directly related to the large-scale paintings on view, these works will provide visitors with an expanded understanding of the artist’s multi-layered working process.

The exhibition draws on the Museum Brandhorst’s own extensive collection of works by the artist—including masterpieces from across his long career—supplemented by key works from other public and private collections, and provides an extended glimpse into the prolific production of this 91-year-old painter.

 An abundantly illustrated catalogue was published by Hirmer Verlag, featuring newly commissioned texts on the artist by critic Kirsty Bell and art historian Prudence Peiffer, as well as reflections by contemporary artists Arturo Herrera, Jordan Kantor, and Matt Saunders (ISBN 978-3-7774-3237-3).

On the occasion of the exhibition, the museum premieres a new documentary film on Alex Katz, directed by Kristina Kilian of the University of Television and Film (HFF) Munich. This project is part of an ongoing collaboration between the Museum Brandhorst and the HFF.

Curator: Jacob Proctor

MUSEUM BRANDHORST

Theresienstrasse 35A, 80333 München

www.museum-brandhorst.de