Made in Germany
May 25 August 26, 2007
kestnergesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover, Sprengel Museum Hannover
www.madeingermanyhannover.de
Benjamin Bergmann (DE) | Michael Beutler (DE) | Armin Boehm (DE) | Candice Breitz (ZA)| Fernando Bryce (PE) | Peggy Buth (DE) | Björn Dahlem (DE) | Nathalie Djurberg (SE) | Elmgreen & Dragset (DK/NO) | Slawomir Elsner (PL) | Jeanne Faust (D) | Ceal Floyer (PK)| Andreas Gefeller (DE) | Christoph Girardet (DE) | Tue Greenfort (DK) | Beate Gütschow (DE) | Jeppe Hein (DK) | Diango Hernández (CU) | Andreas Hofer (DE) | Sabine Hornig (DE) | Sergej Jensen (DK) | Franka Kaßner (DE) | Christoph Keller (DE) | Annette Kelm (DE) | Alexander Laner (DE) | Ján Mancuska (SK) | Bjørn Melhus (DE) | Simon Dybbroe Møller (DK) | Jonathan Monk (UK) | Astrid Nippoldt (DE) | Henrik Olesen (DK) | Kirsten Pieroth (DE) | Peter Piller (DE) | Julius Popp (DE) | Julian Rosefeldt (DE) | Daniel Roth (DE) | RothStauffenberg (DE) | Michael Sailstorfer (DE) | Florian Slotawa (DE) | Sean Snyder (USA) | Simon Starling (UK) | Mathilde ter Heijne (FR) | Gert & Uwe Tobias (RO) | Oliver van den Berg (DE) | Marcel van Eeden (NL) | Amelie von Wulffen (DE) | Gabriel Vormstein (DE) | Haegue Yang (KR) | Tobias Zielony (DE) | Ralf Ziervogel (DE) | David Zink Yi (PE) | Thomas Zipp (DE)
From May 25 to August 26, 2007, the Sprengel Museum Hannover, the kestnergesellschaft, and the Kunstverein Hannover will be presenting current positions in contemporary art from Germany in a major review exhibition.
The exhibition is concentrated on a younger generation of artists of German and international origin who live and work chiefly in Germany. The title Made in Germany, can be understood as programmatic in that it does not couple artistic identity solely with place of birth and biography but with the place where the artist produces the work of art.
The selection of 52 artistic items for the exhibition makes no claim to completeness, preferring a paradigmatic provisional assessment. It is the outcome of nationwide selection process involving numerous visits to studios, intensive exchanges with artists and construction discussions on standpoints and works. The exhibition proclaims no national identity or the existence of genuinely German art. It attempts rather to demonstrate existing exchange processes at the economic, aesthetic, institutional, and intellectual levels, and shows the international dimension of the national.
In a wide variety of ways, the artists succeed in expanding and modifying classical media. Their own aesthetic language combines different sources, images and information. They effortlessly mix present-day elements with well-known images from contemporary history long since entrenched in collective memory. And they draw on the rich fund of art history: modern art, the concept art of the 1960s and 1970s, minimal art, and currents of the 1980s. The artists submit the modern age to critical reflection, interrogating the relationship between private and public space, examining role patterns and their attribution, and are always on the lookout for a good story. Not least of all, biographical background plays a role: concern with ones own identity, with ones role as an artist, and with ones origins. This examination is partly poetic and romantic, and it is always personal.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by Hatje Cantz with contributions by:
Ulrike Groos | Christoph Grunenberg | Jörg Heiser | Georg Imdahl | Rainer Metzger | Stephan Schmidt-Wulffen | Rudolf Schmitz | Birgit Sonna | Christoph Tannert | Antje von Graevenitz and Katrin Wittneven (ISBN 978-3-7757-1985-8)
Press contact: Beate Anspach | Tel. 49(0)511 168 446 44 | Fax 49(0)511 168 410 88 | madeingermany@hannover-stadt.de
The exhibition is under the patronage of Federal President Horst Köhler
The exhibition is being generously funded by: German Federal Cultural Foundation, Lower Saxony Sparkassen Foundation