Painting Forever!
18 September–10 November 2013
Berlinische Galerie, Landesmuseum für Moderne Kunst
Alte Jakobstraße 124-128
10969 Berlin, Germany
Deutsche Bank KunstHalle
Unter den Linden 13/15
10117 Berlin, Germany
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin, Germany
Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
Potsdamer Straße 50
10785 Berlin, Germany
www.berlinischegalerie.de
www.deutsche-bank-kunsthalle.de
www.kw-berlin.de
www.smb.museum/nng
Facebook: Painting Forever
Opening within Berlin Art Week: In the fall of 2013, four leading Berlin institutions for contemporary art devote themselves to the topic of painting and, for the first time in this context, join forces to put on a concerted program. For the launch of this cooperation project, initiated by the Berlin Senate, the institutions involved have chosen painting as the focal point of this collaboration, which is to be continued in the future. The title of the project is Painting Forever! From the individual installations through the conceptual group exhibition with well-known painters to a wide-ranging overview that brings together up-and-coming and established approaches, the individual formats and curatorial concepts vary greatly and together form an exciting picture of painting in Berlin—once again demonstrating the complexity and diversity of painting practices in the capital.
Participating artists: Franz Ackermann (Berlinische Galerie), Martin Eder, Michael Kunze, Anselm Reyle, Thomas Scheibitz (Neue Nationalgalerie), Jeanne Mammen, Antje Majewski, Katrin Plavčak, Giovanna Sarti (Deutsche Bank KunstHalle). The artist list of KW Institute for Contemporary Art will be announced in July.
Since the end of the 19th century at the latest, painting has played an extremely important role on an institutional level. Through the medium of painting, the city has also brought forth experimental artistic approaches, including the Berlin Secession, the New Objectivity and the Neuen Wilden (Young Wild Ones). The individual and group presentations of the four exhibition formats of Painting Forever! will demonstrate various approaches to the medium: installation-based and location-specific approaches will play a role, as will classical concepts of painting. The exhibitions are based on various artistic and curatorial positions and, despite their diversity, all address the question of what painting can and wants to be today.
Painting Forever! combines both young, contemporary positions with already established artists and artists’ groups and also explores historical references. The individual locations of the overall project Painting Forever! are to be understood as complementary elements, yet, at the same time, as discrete exhibitions that can be experienced individually. Painting Forever! is a contribution to current debates and discourses about the medium of painting and its role in contemporary artistic production: Its broad, open treatment of current painting practices aims to highlight the fact that, time and again, painting assumes a central position in contemporary art discourse.
Furthermore, by presenting a range of artistic positions, the project aims to develop lines of argument from practice, which throw up deeper questions as to the production and reception processes associated with painting: what is the basis of the reciprocal esteem in which artists and observers have held each other down through the centuries? What (artistic) strategies can help this medium, which has so often been declared dead, to overcome its crises and formulate new positions? What is painting’s relationship with the other media of contemporary art production? Why is painting generally and permanently under pressure to legitimate itself although it is the artistic form of expression upon which so much artistic practice is based? What socio-political and gender-specific questions arise out of painting as an artistic practice today?
To accompany the exhibition project, a four-volume publication will be released for the joint opening in September 2013.
Painting Forever!—a cooperation of Berlinische Galerie, Deutsche Bank KunstHalle, KW Institute for Contemporary Art and Nationalgalerie – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin. Opening within the Berlin Art Week. Painting Forever! is an initiative of the Governing Mayor of Berlin, Senate Chancellery – Cultural Affairs.
Contact for Painting Forever!
Kathrin Luz, Kathrin Luz Communication
T 0049 (0) 171 3102472 / painting [at] neumann-luz.de
