Coming soon:
A queer exhibition at Museum Ludwig, Cologne
August 19 November 12, 2006
The Eighth Square
Gender, Life, and Desire in the visual Arts since 1960
Museum Ludwig
Bischofsgartenstr. 1
50667 Cologne
Germany
When a pawn in a chess match reaches the eighth square on the far side of the board, the player can swap him for a piece of his or her choice. So the pawn a lowly foot soldier can transform into a queen, a powerless figure into the epitome of power, a man into a woman.
Sexuality does not end in family politics or a TV series. Sexuality is always a quaking and transmuting, is desire and power, seduction and sadness, splendour and misery. Looking beyond vaudeville or pornography, only art enables the subject to be discovered in all its fascination and specificity. It not only permits a game with the sexes and with forbidden desires that is free of danger, but is alone able to grasp all of sexualitys inherent contradictions. What does that mean for divergent desires? What does that mean after our present liberalisation, in a world standardised to death? What is this world like for feminine men, for masculine women?
The Eighth Square casts a new and sharp eye on art, it sounds out the historical and social developments. This is the first exhibition and the first catalogue in which drag and gender, queerness and transsexuality are presented on a broad platform, in all of its facets, and above all where it is allowed to be erotic.
The exhibition presents works by David Altmejd, Kenneth Anger, Diane Arbus, David Armstrong, Francis Bacon, Stephen Barker, Matthew Barney, Monica Bonvicini, Marc Brandenburg, Kaucyila Brooke, Louise Bourgeois, Brassaï, Claude Cahun, Tom Burr, Daniela Comani, Lucky DeBellevue, Kerstin Drechsel, Nicole Eisenman, Thomas Eggerer, Valie Export, Hans Peter Feldmann, Jochen Flinzer, Annette Frick, General Idea, Gilbert & George, Robert Gober, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Sunil Gupta, David Hockney, Jonathan Horowitz, Peter Hujar, Robert Indiana, Jasper Johns, Deborah Kass, Jürgen Klauke, Peter Knoch, Ferdinand Kriwet, Ins A Kromminga, Inez van Lamsweerde, Zoe Leonard, John Lindell, Lovett/Codagnone, Attila Richard Lukacs, Winja Lutz and Toni Schmale, Robert Mapplethorpe, Bjørn Melhus, Marlene McCarty, Michaela Melián, Annette Messager, Donald Moffett, Tracey Moffatt, Pierre Molinier, Yasumasa Morimura, Bruce Nauman, Piotr Nathan, Marcel Odenbach, Henrik Olesen, Catherine Opie, Jack Pierson, Adrian Piper, Aurora Reinhard, Robert Rauschenberg, Salomé, Lucas Samaras, Cindy Sherman, Dayanita Singh, Markus Sixay, Jack Smith, Katharina Sieverding, Ingo Taubhorn, Wolfgang Tillmans, Paul Thek, Cy Twombly, Gitte Villesen, Del LaGrace Volcano, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol and David Wojnarowicz.
Thomas Meineckes especially commissioned novel Feldforschung, (edition Suhrkamp 2006) will accompany the exhibition.
Eran Schaerf created an intriguing exhibition design, an architecture which incorporates theories about queer space, the gaze, change and transition.
As a prelude to the exhibition, Hans-Peter Feldmanns David sculpture will be unveiled in front of the Museum on July 14th at 8:30 p.m.
The opening will be accompanied by a richly illustrated catalogue with articles by Judith Butler, Douglas Crimp, Diedrich Diederichsen, Harald Fricke, Julia Friedrich, Hanne Loreck, Thomas Meinecke, Eva Meyer, Cristina Nord and Frank Wagner – on art, cultural theory, film, literature and music.
The exhibition is funded by Kunststiftung NRW and The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
