Spheres of Interest

Isaac Chong Wai, Lizza May David, Wilhelm Klotzek, Ofri Lapid, Adrien Missika and Gitte Villesen feature works from the ifa art collection by Joseph Beuys/ Nicolás García Uriburu, John Cage, Carlfriedrich Claus, Wieland Förster, Zille Homma Hamid, Geoffrey Hendricks, Dick Higgins, Hannah Höch, Franz Klekawka, Käthe Kollwitz, Joseph Kosuth, Paula Modersohn-Becker, Simone Nieweg, Robert Rehfeldt, Takako Saito, Eran Schaerf, Endre Tót, Rosemarie Trockel, Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt.  

Curated by Inka Gressel and Susanne Weiß. 

How did the art collection of ifa (Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen) come to be? Which works were acquired when and by whom, and what can these decisions tell us about the socio-political conditions, trends, and protagonists of the time? How can we partake in and reconfigure collections like these from today’s perspective? For this exhibition, six international artists who are based in Berlin have been invited to engage in an open process approaching ifa’s unusual collection, which boasts a total of over 23,000 works, in all its nuances and layers.  

The historic structures of the ifa art collection, its exhibition histories, and specifically the partial preservation of the collection that once belonged to the GDR Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen (ZfK) all become opportunities for personal research by the six artists. They interrogate the collection based on their own “Spheres of Interest,” searching for overlaps, parallels, and omissions. The exhibition title references the eponymous artwork by Ruth Wolf-Rehfeldt, a pioneer of the GDR’s Mail Art movement, who—unlike her husband Robert Rehfeldt—was not represented in the collection until now.

Some selected works remained packed in their ifa transportation crates until recently, while others are returning home from long exhibition tours with countless stops, and still others have only just been restored. Such are the varied paths these works have travelled to come together now at the ifa-Galerie Berlin. 

Isaac Chong Wai has developed a performance referencing the woodcut The Mothers (1922–23) by Käthe Kollwitz, which revolves around the representation of a collective body marked by experiences of war. Lizza May David’s research is dedicated to representations of German migrant societies after the Second World War. Working from Joseph Kosuth’s lexical pieces, Ofri Lapid has created a “Language Tour” tracing their exhibition locations. Adrien Missika will present MOTUS, a local pop-up touring exhibition, for which he developed a cargo bicycle that activates selected Fluxus works in public space. Wilhelm Klotzek’s intervention includes pieces from the ZfK collection that have never before been exhibited, among them works by Wieland Förster and Carlfriedrich Claus, responding to these with an acoustic assemblage. Gitte Villesen casts a feminist gaze upon the collection’s omissions, choosing works accordingly. Her text and image tableaus address the directions of the collective process undertaken by the artists and curators. 

This intensive cooperation brings together critical and humorous observations, comments, and inquiries to influence one another and coalesce into a polyphonic form, a tapestry of interwoven relationships that offers new perspectives on the ifa art collection. At the same time, the exhibition stands for forms of connectivity based on a trust in artistic and collective processes. They touch on urgent moments in our present and highlight collective memories as well as new moments of action. 

The ifa art collection 
The history of the ifa art collection is closely intertwined with the concept of the ifa touring exhibitions, in which curators develop since the 1970s monographic exhibitions presenting works from Germany. They are shown in international museums and cultural institutions both large and small. Socio-politically relevant projects that communicate contemporary artistic tendencies are also a focal point. Works from ifa are currently being shown in 20 exhibitions, and a further selection of the collection is out on loan to museums.

Since 2020, the ifa galleries Berlin and Stuttgart have been inviting contemporary artists to engage in dialogical encounters with individual artworks from the ifa art collection. “Out of the Box” stands for this practice of re-evaluating individual works.