Events

For close to fifty years, Senga Nengudi (b. 1943) has shaped an oeuvre that inhabits a specific and unique place between sculpture, dance and performance. Before moving to Colorado Springs at the end of the 1980s where she lives until today, Nengudi was mostly based in Los Angeles. In the 1960s and 1970s, L.A. was the capital of an African-American artistic avant-garde with Nengudi as one of its pivotal figures. Her iconic R.S.V.P sculptures, exhibited for the first time in 1976, are made from pantyhose combined with natural materials such as sand and stone. While ostensibly abstract, their biomorphic forms suggest a body under tension, both physical and social. The artist herself describes the works as “stationary performances.” As the title of the growing series—R.S.V.P., short for “Répondez, s’il vous plait” or “Please respond”—implies, these works formulate an invitation and are occasionally activated during choreographed performances. Performance is at the core of Nengudi's practice—a fact that will be reflected by the exhibition. An illustrated catalog in English and German will be published. Curated by Stephanie Weber and Anna Straetmans.

Marking the 500th anniversary of the Spanish conqueror Hernán Cortés' landfall in the Gulf of Mexico, this major exhibition offers a fascinating insight into Aztec culture. At the centre of the exhibition are two unique feather shields and a nephrite jade figurine from the Württemberg State Museum, objects that have never been presented in the context of Aztec culture. These exquisite treasures will be complemented by high-quality objects loaned from Mexican and European institutions. Another focal point of this exhibition will be the presentation of the latest research results; for example, previously undisclosed findings regarding the great temple, the Templo Mayor, first discovered in 1978, will be on display. Impressive stone sculptures, ceramics, mosaics and gold works will provide a glimpse into Aztec art and culture, with vivid illustrations from colourful illuminated manuscripts bringing the visitor deeper into the subject. The dramaturgy of the exhibition follows the journey of Cortés from the peripheral provinces all the way to the sacred ceremonial precinct of the capital, Tenochtitlán.

With this spectacular exhibition the Kunsthalle Bremen is celebrating a premiere: For the first time, an exhibition will take over the entire museum. The show will present a single masterpiece in each of the museum’s galleries – from the Russian icon to Andy Warhol. With 60 stars in 60 galleries, the exhibiton will examine how the concept of the icon unites aspects of the sacred, worship and the idea of transcendence. Focussing on a single work of art, the presentation examines various aspects of spirituality, devotion and adoration. It invites visitors to experience iconic art works from ten centuries in a new and intense way. Works by Caspar David Friedrich, Wassily Kandinsky, Kazimir Malevich, Mark Rothko, Yves Klein, Niki de Saint Phalle, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky and Kehinde Wiley will be complemented by everyday icons – from consumer brands to icons of popular culture such as Marilyn Monroe, Beyoncé and YouTube stars. An interpretation of the traditional notion of the icon in art will be juxtaposed with the proliferation of icons in everyday life. A once-in-a-lifetime experience in which the museum itself is transformed into a place of contemplation and reflection!

The exhibition will be the first ever to take an in-depth look at Van Gogh’s œuvre in the context of its reception in Germany. Its point of departure is a selection of major works from all phases of the Dutch painter’s career. Building on that foundation, the presentation will be devoted to Van Gogh’s significance for the development of German art at the beginning of the twentieth century. Here an important reference point will be the Städel’s extensive collection of Expressionist works. Alongside well-known examples by Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Erich Heckel, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Gabriele Münter and Max Beckmann, the show will also feature artists meriting rediscovery – and on whom Van Gogh had an equally formative influence –, for example Peter August Böckstiegel, Maria Slavona or Heinrich Nauen.

This first Swiss museum exhibition of drawings and paintings by Wilhelm Leibl (1844 – 1900) looks in particular at portraits and figural works. Supported by Courbet, influenced by Manet and admired by van Gogh, Leibl is one of the lesser known but influential figures of Realism in Europe. He withdrew to the countryside, where he founded an independent and modern form of figure painting, in which truth to nature and the study of the Old Masters supersede the anecdotal approach of traditional genre painting. Crucial for Leibl was not that his subjects should be seen as beautiful, but rather that they be well observed. The exhibition, which features loans from Germany, Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Switzerland, travels to the Albertina in Vienna after it closes in Zurich.

The Bauhaus was founded 1919 in Weimar, Germany. Between the spirit of new beginnings and the threatening rise of nationalism, the Bauhaus established itself in just 14 years and became a symbol of modern design and an avant-garde way of life. Designs originating in this period are still produced today. But how did the Bauhaus manage to become such an innovative force in design and teaching, and in societies? The ifa exhibition »The Whole World a Bauhaus« is devoted to this theme in two parts. The exhibition title is programmatic: »The Whole World a Bauhaus« is a quotation from Bauhaus student and teacher Fritz Kuhr (1928). It alludes to the fact that the Bauhaus redefined the parameters of art, crafts, and technology, when Walter Gropius declared the aim of design to include the whole spectrum of design and also social practice in every sense.

"Mapping Worlds" presents a selection of works on paper produced by Shuvinai Ashoona over the past two decades. Though many of her early drawings depict daily life in Kinngait (formerly Cape Dorset), Nunavut, continuing an artistic tradition begun by the artist’s grandmother Pitseolak Ashoona (1908–1983) and first cousin Annie Pootoogook (1969 – 2016), Shuvinai Ashoona is best known for developing a personal iconography with imagery ranging from closely observed naturalistic scenes of her Arctic home to monstrous and fantastical visions.

Death by violence is the central theme that informs the art of Teresa Margolles. She frequently uses materials coming from, or related to, dead human bodies, like human blood or water used to wash a corpse. In her pictures, sculptures, installations, performances, videos, and photographs she explores the brutality of death in the context of the Mexican drug war, the unjust social situation, gender hatred. The exhibition at the Kunsthalle Krems focuses on a recent topical aspect of her work: the nearly hopeless situation of transgender prostitutes in Ciudad Juárez, the city with the highest rate of violent crime in Mexico.

Refugees leave their home, friends, relatives, often their entire family behind because, for whatever reason, they see no future for themselves where they are living. They leave for the unknown, for a foreign land, without their own language, without the community of family and friends. A drastic change of existence full of uncertainties begins.

Taking Shape: Abstraction from the Arab World, 1950s–1980s traces the emergence and development of abstraction in the Arab world through paintings and sculpture dating from the 1950s through the 1980s. Drawn from the collection of the Barjeel Art Foundation based in Sharjah, UAE, the exhibition features some 75 works by a diverse group of artists, including Etel Adnan, Shakir Hassan Al Said, Kamal Boullata, Huguette Caland, Ahmed Cherkaoui, Saloua Raouda Choucair, Rachid Koraïchi, and Hassan Sharif, among others. Taking Shape reveals how artists moved away from figuration toward a process of simplifying and schematizing reality—an approach initiated by both artist collectives as well as by individual practitioners in the region and the Arab diaspora. Accompanying the exhibition will be a fully illustrated publication featuring new scholarship.