Lecture series
Thomas Schütte & Danh Vo: Das Reich ohne Mitte
5 July–6 October 2013
Kunsthalle Mainz
Am Zollhafen 3-5
55118 Mainz, Germany
Hours: Tuesday–Friday 10am–5pm;
Wednesday 10am–9pm;
Saturday–Sunday 11am–5pm
T + 49 6131/12 69 36
F + 49 6131/12 69 37
mail [at] kunsthalle-mainz.de
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Nations and states establish a strong collective image by disseminating symbols of their rulers and erecting monuments and temples. In public spaces, statues in particular are seen to represent systems of political rule. They mark squares, urban centres, and mountain ranges—visible from afar. Once erected, they serve as a timeless demonstration of authority, emphasising irrefutable legitimacy. But how is power depicted today? Are statues still a democratically tenable form? How does a nation present itself to the public? Where is its focal point?
The exhibition takes its thematic point of departure from the Niederwalddenkmal situated near Mainz, a monument that consists of a massive figure of Germania. The sculpture was erected on its gigantic base in 1871, immediately following the Franco-Prussian war. Since that time, the personification has looked out over the land as an imperious symbol of victory, visible far and wide.
During the modern era and under democratic constitutions, pathos-charged abstraction was assigned to represent the interests of the state. The Federal Republic of Germany was among the nations to avail itself of this new symbolic language. The two sculptures in front of the Offices of the Federal Chancellor in Bonn and Berlin are similar in appearance: a sculpture by Henry Moore was erected in Bonn in 1977; a steel structure by the Basque artist Eduardo Chillida in Berlin in 2000. In both cases, the interlocking forms contrast with the buildings that serve as their backdrops and the lawns that form their pristine surroundings.
In the exhibition, this sculpture is represented by models, plaster sketches, and historical photographs. Other images, such as Thomas Hobbes’s famous seventeenth-century illustration of Leviathan and engravings dating from the French Revolution, complete the historical part of the narrative on national self-representation.
The second section of the exhibition is reserved for contemporary approaches. Two important internationally active artists are featured here. Thomas Schütte’s Vater Staat (Father State) (2011) is a present-day counterpart to Germania. Measuring nearly four metres in height, it depicts a grim man wrapped in a heavy cloak. He comes across as a gnarled wise man of incorruptible authority. Danh Vo, a native of Vietnam, exhibits fragments of the American Statue of Liberty in their original size. Executed in copper repoussé, the individual parts are displayed on pallets as symbols of inquiry into the nation in an age of emigration, loss of homeland, and globalization.
Events and lectures:
“Westkunst, 1981 and Today?”
Wednesday 4 September, 7pm
Laszlo Glozer (art critic, Munich/Hamburg) in conversation with Thomas D. Trummer (Director of the Kunsthalle Mainz)
CV of Laszlo Glozer:
Laszlo Glozer, born in 1936, studied art history, archaeology and philosophy in Freiburg and Munich. From 1971 to 1985, he was an editor at the Süddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. In 1980, he received the Willl-Grohmann-Prize and in 1981 co-curated the exhibition Western Art—Contemporary Art since 1939 with Kasper König. He was professor of the history of modernity at the University of Fine Arts in Hamburg from 1985 to 2003. Laszlo Glozer lives and works in Munich and Hamburg.
“Demonstrating Power. Art as Symbol of Sovereignty”
Wednesday 11 September, 7pm
Lecture by Wolfgang Ullrich (Hochschule für Gestaltung, Karlsruhe)
CV of Wolfgang Ullrich:
Wolfgang Ullrich, born in 1967, studied philosophy, art history, theory of science, and German literature in Munich. He earned his Ph.D. with a thesis on the later work of Martin Heidegger. Since 2006, Ullrich has been professor of art science and media theory at Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design.
“Leviathan and Two-headed Eagle”
Two Monster Images of State Power
Wednesday 25 September, 7pm
Lecture by Vitus Weh, scholar and writer, Cultural Studies (Vienna)
CV of Vitus Weh:
Vitus H. Weh, born in 1965, studied art history and applied cultural sciences at the universities of Hildesheim and Berlin. He is an author and consultant for museums, and a freelance curator of exhibitions on art, design, and culture. Among the exhibitions he has curated are The art of invitation, documenta Archiv Kassel, 1992; The utopia of design, Kunstverein München, 1994; functional images, museum in progress, 1999 / 2000; Global Tools, Vienna / Helsinki, 2002; re:LEVIATHAN. Representations of State Power, Vienna / Düsseldorf 2003; and Sheen and Ruin: The Precarious Crystalline in Art, Architecture, Fashion and Design, Vienna / Graz, 2009. He is a co-founding editor of springerin. Journal of contemporary art, co-editor of Architecture Art: A Handbook on the interplay of architectual, design-related, political and economic factors in public buildings from 1920 to the present (1998, Vienna). Since 1998, Vitus Weh has been a lecturer at the University of Art in Linz. He has been responsible for the concept, development and artistic direction of quartier21, MuseumsQuartier Vienna, since 2001, and involved with the concept and development of Vienna’s gasometers as a campus for music and dance since 2010.
“Allegories of the Modern Welfare States”
Wednesday 2 October, 7pm
Lecture by Silke Wenk (Oldenburg University)
CV of Silke Wenk:
Silke Wenk is professor of art history and cultural gender studies at the Institute for Art and Visual Culture at Carl von Ossietzky University in Oldenburg. She has published widely on topics such as allegories in modernity, public art (including National Socialism), politics of remembering, and gender and memory. Recent publications include Studien zur visuellen Kultur. Eine Einführung (2011, with Sigrid Schade), articles on “Analysing the migration of people and images—perspectives and methods in the field of visual culture” (in Migration and Culture, 2012, Oxford), and on “Verschleiern und Entschleiern. Ordnungen der (Un)Sichtbarkeit zwischen Kunst und Politik” (in Verschleierter Orient—Entschleierter Okzident?, 2012, München).
Fade into You—A series of film screenings
View, Drink, and Discuss
Wednesdays, 7pm
September 18: episode XIV: Jochen Kuhn, Exit (2008), 36 minutes. Courtesy of the artist.
October 9: episode XV: John Smith, Flag Mountain (2010), seamless loop, 8-minute cycle. Courtesy of the artist and Tanya Leighton Gallery, Berlin.
October 30: episode XVI: Gillian Wearing, I love you (1999), 60 minutes. / Trauma (2000), 30 minutes. Courtesy of the artist, Sammlung Goetz, München, and Maureen Paley, London.