Events

Cold War to the Cosmos: Distant Early Warning Systems and the Arctic examines the strategic significance of the Arctic during the Cold War, a period defined by intense rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union. This atomic age saw the two nations rapidly advance their nuclear programs and exert influence around the world. The Cold War had a broad impact on American society, the physical landscape, and the national desire to control and even militarize outer space. American politics, art, and culture also reflected the specter of global communism and fears of nuclear war and everything from Abstract Expressionism to Jazz were enlisted for propaganda. Today’s global conflicts recall the heightened tensions and military brinkmanship of the Cold War. Competing political and religious philosophies, climate change, and a new space race to Mars prompt us to again consider the Cold War's legacy and Buckminster Fuller’s vision of "Spaceship Earth," where shared responsibility and collaboration are key to addressing contemporary issues and ensuring a sustainable future for all.

Family: (Nearly) everyone has a family, and yet every family is different! But what’s the stitching that keeps families together? And who’s really responsible for spinning it? In a year-long programme, the Humboldt Forum is exploring the stuff that family ties are made of. Are they full of holes or tightly woven; do they hang on a thread, or are they patchwork or perhaps macramé? It is all about networks of relationships – from artistic, historical, scientific, and international perspectives, and in dialogue with the people of Berlin.

In the 1920s, the Viennese philosopher and economist Otto Neurath revolutionized the way social science and policy can be transmitted to a wider public. Seeking to democratize knowledge via a new method of visual communication, he founded the Museum of Society and Economics as a showcase for his work. By the 1930s, Neurath’s approach to illustrating statistics was used globally. Developed in close partnership with graphic designer Marie Reidemeister and artist Gerd Arntz, the Viennese method became known as “Isotype” (International System of Typographic Picture Education).

The reciprocal relationship between objects and their surroundings is at the core of Iman Issa's work. After studying philosophy, which evidently shapes Issa's practice structured into hypotheses and proofs, the Cairo-born artist primarily employed the medium of photography. Today, her studies mostly take on sculptural form, with photography, video, and the written word as further consistencies. Issa asks to which extent the perception of objects is shaped by their geographical, historical, and social circumstances. Is an object or an image at the mercy of its viewers' interpretations, so that its meaning is constantly in flux? Conversely, to what extent does an object, such as a monument or a historical building, shape memory? This prompts the related question of whether there are forms that are in such consonance with their meaning that they are immune to arbitrary interpretation. Issa pursues these considerations using various methods: In her work series titled "Heritage Studies" (since 2015), she draws on existing historical artifacts. Although her own objects, or “displays” as Issa calls them, do not resemble the originals in size, color or material, the artist considers them to be fundamentally identical. Her "Proxies" engage with the genre of the self-portrait: the wall-mounted oval sculptures bearing names such as William S. Burroughs, Georges Henein or Hannah Arendt are accompanied by short aphorisms that can be read as condensations of the respective body of thought. What would a monument to a thought look like, these sculptures seem to ask, detached from the conventions of representation, which, as is so often the case, are either physiognomic, motif-driven, or metaphorical. Works by Iman Issa from the last decade will be presented at the Lenbachhaus. Curated by Stephanie Weber

Ulla von Brandenburg's multifaceted and multi-layered work is characterised by a multimedia practice that finds its characteristic expression in expansive, site-specific installations. The forms of expression and methods of theatre are an important starting point: the artist creates stage-like settings from architectural set pieces and curtains, in which films, drawings, sculptural objects and textile works enter into a complex interplay with dance, performance and song. The boundaries between inside and outside, reality and illusion become blurred.

Naples: Course of Empire is a series of seven panoramic paintings by American artist Alexis Rockman (born 1962) inspired by Thomas Cole’s nineteenth-century cycle The Course of Empire. Executed in Rockman’s signature style of history painting, the works examine the long and fraught relationship between human civilization and the natural world.

Naples: Course of Empire is a series of seven panoramic paintings by American artist Alexis Rockman (born 1962) inspired by Thomas Cole’s nineteenth-century cycle The Course of Empire. Executed in Rockman’s signature style of history painting, the works examine the long and fraught relationship between human civilization and the natural world.

Since antiquity, the detailed reproduction of nature has been one of the key concerns of the craft of painting. In the art of the 20th century, no other movement pursued this rivalry with reality as programmatically as American Photorealism. As a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, artists such as Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings or Ron Kleemann returned to figurative painting, seeking to compete with the medium of photography in its precision and pictorial prowess. Banal motifs from everyday American life became the trademarks of these highly ambitious artists, who located the power of images not in the subject itself, but in its astonishingly illusionistic reproduction. The exhibition explores the evolution of the movement, at times also referred to as Hyperrealism, from the 1960s through to the present day, bringing together well over 90 carefully selected masterpieces. The numerous international lenders include the Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid and the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York. Works by more than 30 artists are on display, including paintings by John Baeder, Robert Bechtle, Charles Bell, Roberto Bernardi, Tom Blackwell, Robert Cottingham, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ben Johnson, Ralph Goings, Richard McLean, Malcolm Morley, Ron Kleemann, Karin Kneffel, Gerhard Richter, Raphaella Spence, and Craig Wylie.

Since antiquity, the detailed reproduction of nature has been one of the key concerns of the craft of painting. In the art of the 20th century, no other movement pursued this rivalry with reality as programmatically as American Photorealism. As a reaction to Abstract Expressionism, artists such as Richard Estes, Audrey Flack, Ralph Goings or Ron Kleemann returned to figurative painting, seeking to compete with the medium of photography in its precision and pictorial prowess. Banal motifs from everyday American life became the trademarks of these highly ambitious artists, who located the power of images not in the subject itself, but in its astonishingly illusionistic reproduction. The exhibition explores the evolution of the movement, at times also referred to as Hyperrealism, from the 1960s through to the present day, bringing together well over 70 carefully selected masterpieces.