New program, new director
Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst
Jülicher Strasse 97-109,
52070 Aachen, Germany
phone: (+49) 241 1807 104
fax: (+49) 241 1807 101
info [at] ludwigforum.de
The Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst is starting over into the new year: As of January 2009, Brigitte Franzen, curator of the “Skulptur Projekte Münster 07″ has become the new director. The Ludwig Forum with its collection of art since the 1960s focusing on Pop Art, Hyper Realism, art from the 1970s and 80s and video art, shall receive some new impulses: The program of the former umbrella factory will revolve around video art and the meaning of realism in contemporary art.
“Pop up!”, the new director’s first exhibition, shall deal with realisms and realities in a selection of works both from the collection and invited artists. Jean Michel Basquiat, Lygia Clark, John Ahearn, Martin Kippenberger, Nancy Graves, Robert Smithson, Duane Hanson, Susan Pitt, Chuck Close and Franz Gertsch will be confronted with recent positions of contemporary art. For the first time, the Ludwig Forum shall present works by Yael Bartana, Haegue Yang, Nairy Baghramian, Karoe Goldt, Susanne Paesler, Sofa Hultén, Danica Dakic and Annette Wehrmann. The critical and ironical approach to phenomena of everyday culture, of pop and post-modernism is a common element here. What is real is also political, it is the reflecting and reflected surface and material of art itself. Tendencies of new formalisms and a retreat from merely documentary superficiality towards a meta-reflection that considers realism just as real as minimalism or modernistic architecture result in a new and multiply broken reference. A differentiated perspective on our Here and Now is essential as pop phenomena do not radiate an unbroken fascination anymore. They have become so common that their mere appropriation as during the 1980s does not suffice to set oneself off from mainstream any longer. Yael Bartana’s realistic political progaganda, Annette Wehrmann’s drastic and ironical vigilantism or Susanne Paesler’s hyperrealist painting are examples of this new attitude.
“Ludwig’s Graphic” shall, for the first time, present a broad overview of the Ludwig Forum’s graphical collection. The focus will be on the 1960s and 80s with the most relevant art developments in Western Europe and North America. Additionally, graphic works from Eastern Europe, Latin America and Asia will be shown.
“Video Archives Camp” presents video art as the most important innovative form of art in the 20st century. It shall feature the second part of “40 Years of Video Art in Germany”, a project initiated by ZKM Karlsruhe and since 2006 run by the National Culture Foundation of Germany. The Ludwig Forum owns an excellent video collection that shall be integrated into this project, which is not only meant to be an exhibition but also dedicated to cataloging, conservation and research of video collections in Germany in order to prevent them from further technical degradation.
Exhibits that are central to the history of video art in Germany are restored and digitized, a selection of works will be shown on original video equipment of the time.
The focus on video in 2009 shall be completed by an exhibition of the most recent works by Ergin Cavusoglu whose videos, sculptures and drawings have gained wide international acclaim. In 2004 he represented Turkey at the Biennial of Venice. Cavusoglu examines transit lounges, global migration routes and transfer of people by inspecting their aesthetics and reconfiguring them in his works. His installations are not documentaries but investigations of space and the actors in it under aesthetical aspects of rhythms, dynamics and constraints.
Aernout Mik will continue to show examples of his recent video works in the Ludwig Forum until March 2009. His integration of video into space made him a prominent position in contemporary video art. In Aachen, Mik shows four variations of video displays. His irritating images of human behavior, close to reality but nonetheless disturbing by their deceleration, irony and shift of common viewing habits. The Ludwig Forums presents the four works “Glutinosity” (2002), “Osmosis and Excess” (2005), “Convergencies” (2007) and, for the first time in Europe, “touch, rise and fall” (2008).
Program 2009
Aernout Mik, until March 1.
Pop Up! April 5 – August 23.
Ludwig’s Graphic, June 27 – August 23.
Video Archives Camp, September 18 – November 11.
Ergin Cavusoglu, November 11 – January 17, 2010
Director: Dr. Brigitte Franzen
Opening Hours: Tue, Wed, Fr 12 a.m.-6 p.m., Thur 12 a.m.-8 p.m., Sat+ Sun 11 a.m.-6 p.m.
Press Contact: Julia.Zeh@mail.aachen.de
