Archive Gallery 2015/16
Interventions in the Architecture:
Christian Boltanski: Résistance and Gustav Metzger: Travertine /Judenpech
Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstr. 1
80538 München
Germany
Two decades after their creation, two artistic interventions will be realized once again, both of them telling stories of courageous resistance and painful expulsion. This reactivation expresses Haus der Kunst’s understanding of its archive as a dynamic repository for information and artistic ideas.
Résistance by Christian Boltanski
This poster installation on the building’s facade was first on view in Haus der Kunst in winter 1993/1994. The pictures depicted the eyes of former members of the anti-fascist movement Rote Kapelle (The Red Orchestra). This network of resistance fighters consisted of more than 150 men and women who had organized themselves into independent groups. Their struggle against Hitler and his regime of terror ranged from the distribution of leaflets and stickers to contact with Soviet intelligence services and the American embassy, even to espionage. More than one hundred members of the so-called Rote Kapelle were arrested and sentenced to death or prison terms between autumn 1942 and spring 1943. With the eyes in Résistance, Boltanski commemorates those who opposed the National Socialist regime at the risk of their own lives.
Travertine / Judenpech by Gustav Metzger
In March 1999, Gustav Metzger coated the 105-meter colonnade running along Haus der Kunst’s facade with tar. When Haus der Kunst once again invited him to cooperate in an intervention, the artist made a conscious decision to repeat the installation. Since antiquity, Judenpech had been a term for asphalt. Travertine was a favored material for large National Socialist structures, such as the National Socialist Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. This connection intrigued the artist. The installation reflects Metzger’s own traumatic experiences under the National Socialist regime and establishes a relationship between Hitler’s megalomania and human degradation. Gustav Metzger was born in Nuremberg in 1926 as the son of Orthodox Jews and survived the Holocaust thanks to the “Kindertransport,” which brought him to London in 1939. He never saw his parents again, a trauma that influenced both his life and his art.
Archive Gallery 2015/2016
A new exhibition opening on September 17, 2015 presents a selection of drawings from the 1960s. At this time, proposals to remove the columns along the street-facing facade and the steps in front of Haus der Kunst were under discussion. Urban planning arguments in support of this included the expansion of the city’s northern ring road. The architectural committee “Landesbaukunst-Ausschuss” even proposed a complete demolition of the Haus. Its members were distressed that the building had emerged from a period of ideological abuse (1937–44) with its exterior largely unscathed, and wanted to obliterate it from the cityscape even though the Haus had become an internationally renowned venue for modern and contemporary art since 1955.
Current exhibitions:
Hanne Darboven: Enlightenment—Zeitgeschichten. A Retrospective
A cooperation of Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, and Haus der Kunst, Munich, with Hanne Darboven Stiftung, Hamburg
Until 14 February 2016
Geniale Dilletanten [Genial Dilletantes]: Subculture in Germany in the 1980s
Until 11 October 2015
Random Sampling. Painting from Goetz Collection
Until 17 January 2016
Cold Libido. Goetz Collection at Haus der Kunst
Until 28 February, 2016
Opening soon:
Capsule 3: Lynette Yiadom-Boakye
30 October 2015–28 March 2016
Capsule 4: Adele Röder
30 October 2015–14 February 2016
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