Helena Huneke
March 28–May 10, 2015
Opening: Friday, March 27, 7pm
Halle für Kunst
Reichenbachstrasse 2
21335 Lüneburg
Germany
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday 2–6pm
T +49 4131 402001
info [at] halle-fuer-kunst.de
In a first comprehensive solo exhibition, Halle für Kunst presents a large selection of works by Helena Huneke (1967–2012), who in the late 1990s belonged to a circle of Hamburg-based artists operating the Akademie Isotrop, an alternative to institutionalized art academies. Although Huneke could closely relate to the mode of work and exchange probed and practiced there, she created an extremely autonomous and expansive body of work characterized by an strong command of materials, by fragility and intimacy.
The show at Halle für Kunst brings together works from different periods. The main focus is on Huneke’s fabric pieces, object assemblages and drawings. A number of texts that Huneke partially published will also be presented. They combine and superimpose theoretical and political considerations with biographical externalizations tied to her own doubts, existential worries and desire for recognition, while at the same time questioning and rejecting existing hierarchies and systems. A moment thus appears in Huneke’s texts that is characteristic of her entire oeuvre: The wish to intellectually penetrate her own work and intensively engage with the relations and conditions surrounding her.
Huneke’s artistic thought was additionally imbued with an aversion for anything static, complete and one-dimensional. She by no means transferred the elements and motifs of her work to a final state, for example, but combined and arranged them to ever new overall constellations. Accordingly, the exhibition is grasped as one of many possible perspectives on her work and should not be understood as an attempt at a linear and homogenizing (art) historiography. Quite to the contrary: It is informed by the wish to show how reserved and fragile, and at once captivating and sensitive the work and the artist appear.
The exhibition was developed in cooperation with the circle of friends of Helena Huneke. A subsequent publication is planned.
Works by Helena Huneke (1967–2012) have been presented et al. at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2013), Shane Cambell, Chicago (2012), Vilma Gold, London (2011), Friends And Lovers In Underground, Hamburg (2011), Kunstverein Wolfsburg (2010), Pro Choice, Vienna (2010), Montgomery, Berlin (2009 and 2008), Brno House of Arts (2009), Kunstverein Hamburg (2005), Greene Naftali, New York (2003), Goldbekhof, Hamburg (2003), Maschenmode, Berlin (2002), Esther Freund, Vienna (2001), Fullerton Art Museum, San Bernadino (1999), Galerie Nomadenoase, Hamburg (1998), Balduingalerie, Hamburg (1996). With Akademie Isotrop Helena Huneke had shows et al. at Grazer Kunstverein (1999), Gesellschaft für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremen (1999), Galerie Buchholz, Cologne (1999), Cubitt, London (1999), Contemporary Fine Arts, Berlin (1998) and at Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (1997).
With generous support by Land Niedersachsen, Lüneburgischer Landschaftsverband, Hansestadt Lüneburg, VGH-Stiftung, and Lüneburger Bürgerstiftung.
Our special thanks are due to the family and circle of friends of Helena Huneke as well as the lenders Guido Baudach, Stefan Thater, Markus Selg, and several private collectors.
