Color as Program

Color permeates every aspect of our lives, not only aesthetically and perceptually, but also politically and economically. With the dawn of the age of technical reproducibility over a century ago, the presence of color has increased steadily and exponentially: a veritable invasion of color got under way – and continues to push on in almost all areas.

With a selection of art and cultural history exhibits spanning more than a hundred years, the exhibition focuses on the artistic exploration of the affective and representative power of color. They survey starts with the earliest color photographs and color films, moves on to the virtuoso use of color by the masters of modernism and the autonomy of color at the beginning of the 20th century, and reaches all the way into the present.

The exhibition also shows works that use color to question or expose power relations and economic interests and highlights how color is used to enhance language and poetry or to emphasise their absence. In recent years of global migration, artists have used color to represent identity and difference. The exhibition also touches on cultural history milestones. Examples of this include the rainbow flag in all its variations or the exhibition’s title motif, which shows Willy Brandt ushering in the era of color television in 1967 by pressing the start button – and thus making West Germany a little more colorful.

Color as Program is the first exhibition to be developed jointly by the entire curatorial team of the Bundeskunsthalle. The resulting diversity of voices chimes with the dazzling, multifaceted nature of the subject.

The freewheeling tour of the exhibition and the associative approach are a deliberate choice on the part of the curators. Liam Gillick, artist and guest co-curator, has created an exhibition architecture that not only frames the works on show but is itself an installation.

Artists
Etel Adnan, Josef Albers, Rozbeh Asmani, Anna Atkins, Gilbert Baker, Rosa Barba, KP Brehmer, Angela Bulloch, Sophie Calle, Judy Chicago, Claire Fontaine, Geneviève Claisse, Angela de la Cruz, William KL Dickson & William Heise, Sanna Dullaway, Gardar Eide Einarsson, Oskar Fischinger, Carsten Fock, Helen Frankenthaler, Sam Gilliam, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Renée Green, Kapwani Kiwanga, Leo Lionni, Antje Majewski, James Clerk Maxwell & Thomas Sutton, Sarah Morris, Hans Op de Beeck, Blinky Palermo, Jorge Pardo, Adam Pendleton, Amalia Pica, Gerhard Richter, Willem de Rooij, Pamela Rosenkranz, Hans-Albrecht Schilling, Rudolf Steiner, Hito Steyerl, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Do-Van Tran, Franz Erhard Walther, Lawrence Weiner, La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, Jung Hee Choi

Team of curators​
Eva Kraus, Johanna Adam, Susanne Annen, Miriam Barhoum, Katharina Chrubasik, Susanne Kleine, Agnieszka Lulińska, Henriette Pleiger, Liam Gillick (Co-Kurator)

Current exhibitions
The Brain. In Art & Science  (until 26 June 2022)
Simone de Beauvoir and “The Second Sex” (until  16 October 2022)

Soon to come
Identity not Proven: New acquisitions in the federal collection (May 7 to October 3, 2022)
Bettina Pousttchi. The Curve (Summer 2022 on the roof of the Bundeskunsthalle)

Director: Eva Kraus
Press Officer: Sven Bergmann, kommunikation [​at​] bundeskunsthalle.de

The Bundeskunsthalle is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media.