14 December 2003 – 14 March 2004

ARTHUR KÖPCKE

What is it?

installationsansicht2
The Germano-Danish painter, poet and Fluxus artist, who died in 1977 at the age of 49, radically questioned the boundaries of art.  His comprehensive oeuvre is a collage of literature, painting, object, conceptual and action art. Köpcke not only switched media with ease, but also the roles (those of the artist, the gallerist and the purveyors of art), the orthography of his name and language itself: German, Danish and English.
Köpcke’s conceptual main work, the so-named »reading/work-pieces« (1963-65) features chiefly a combination of banal subjects from newspaper magazines, puzzles and language games.

The exhibition was devised in cooperation with the Hamburger Kunsthalle and the
Kunsthalle Fridericianum to commemorate Köpcke’s 75th birthday in 2002.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
   

14 September – 23 November 2003

PAWEL ALTHAMER & ARTUR ZMIJEWSKI

So-called waves and other phenomena of the mind . . .

ausstellungsraum
During the preparation of the joint exhibition for the Kunstverein, both Polish artists Althamer and Zmijewski embarked upon their travels together: to the working class quarter Brodnó in Warsaw, to a forest, to a hypnotist, to the deserts of Mexico. Partly under the influence of narcotics, both men were in search of new experiences and in so doing crossed over customary boundaries.
Visitors to the exhibition were greeted by a Yucca and the metal writing bearing the title of the exhibition “So genannte Wellen…” emblazoned upon the brutalistic facade of the Kunsthalle. There was a desert-like floor area visible in the exhibition space of the Kunstverein whilst Zmijeswki’s videos could be viewed on monitors featuring Althamer playing the role of his life: the role of the artist.

The exhibition was accompanied by a catalogue.

Sponsored by the Ministry for Planning, Housing, Culture and Sport of the Federal State of NWR.
   

1 June – 24 August 2003

SILKE OTTO-KNAPP

Orange View

installationsansicht1
The artist Silke Otto-Knapp (*1970) paints water colours of cities such as Los Angeles and Las Vegas and shows artificially produced plant environments in greenhouses located in public spaces. The artist uses photographs taken from photography books or magazines as  templates, as well as her own photographs.  It is not so much the correct representation of the motif that is of central importance here but rather its development within the painterly process.  Sometimes it is only possible to discern glimpses with a few marked lines.   
Whereas an early series shows the nocturnal view from the Hollywood Hills across the glittering metropolis, a later sequence of images depicts Los Angeles as a city overgrown with opulent plants and palms. The apparently wild nature and the equally rank megalopolis overlap in the fusion of colour fields.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.
   

1 – 11 May 2003

RINEKE DIJKSTRA

The Buzzclub, Liverpool, UK / Mysteryworld, Zaandam, NL

buzzclubmysteryworld-2_gr
In her Video »The Buzzclub« the Dutch artist Rineke Dijkstra (*1959) shows  visitors to two discotheques »The Buzzclub« in Liverpool and »Mysteryworld« in Zaandam, Netherlands. She requested young visitors to pose for her camera in the middle of the night in the empty vestibule in front of a white wall. The music from the discotheque is audible in the background, but the girls and boys are alone. The artist sets a formal rigour against the dynamics of the music and the movement: the cool neutrality of the room, the isolation of the figures and the calculated editing.  In this way Rineke Dijkstra achieves an existential quality and shows portraits of individuals that oscillate between vulnerability and self-confidence.
   

18 January – 30 March 2003

SAM DURANT

likemannebel
Sam Durant is interested in the relationships between politics, pop culture and art. In his sculptures, drawings and photographs he focuses upon the period around 1968/70 and the shift from utopia to dystopia. One’s first impression of the exhibition is determined by singing and talking voices issuing from loudspeakers: Mick Jagger, Sun Ra, die Rapper Dead Prez, BAP and Joseph Beuys.
A tree keeps cropping up in an installation made of drawings and sculptures—as a symbol of slavery, for the racist justice of the lynch mob in the Deep South, but also for a family tree representing one’s own genealogy. A special installation created especially for the Kunstverein presents selected material in pseudo-scientific manner on the life and work of Joseph Beuys, a kind of critical echo of the mythology surrounding Beuys and his ambivalent attitude towards America.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue.