Mies van der Rohe. The MoMA Collages

The connection between art and architecture is the focal point of Mies van der Rohe. The MoMA Collages, an exhibition celebrating the Aachen-born architect to be shown in the Ludwig Forum from October 28, 2016 through February 12, 2017. Thanks to the extraordinarily generous loans of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, it is possible to show for the first time an extensive selection of collages and photomontages Mies created between 1910 and 1965.

There is hardly a pictorial technique that reflects more incisively the aesthetic principles, the zeitgeist, and the attitude to life of modernism than the collage and the montage. Influenced by Dada, Constructivism, and De Stijl, Mies drew extensively on these new pictorial techniques to visualize his artistic ideas on the “Neues Bauen” in competitions, exhibitions, and journals. At the same time, these collages and photomontages are autonomous works.

Under the impact of war, revolution, and industrialization, the horizon of human experience and perception underwent a radical transformation at the beginning of the 20th century, and this was expressed in newspapers and magazines, in the visual and performing arts alike. The exhibition also explores this transformation and its consequences. In addition, the mediums of film and photography are considered. The exhibition will also be accompanied by works of contemporary artists—Thomas Ruff, Sarah Morris, Mischa Kuball, Julia Weißenberg, Christian Odzuck and Inigo Manglano-Ovalle—have directly engaged with Mies’s work or indeed specially created new works for the occasion.

An exhibition conceptualized by the Ludwig Forum Aachen. In cooperation with the Museum Georg Schäfer, Schweinfurt, February 26–May 28, 2017.

The detailed program accompanying the exhibition is available at: www.ludwigforum.de

Symposium 1
Collage/Montage: Ludwig Mies van der Rohe and the Pictorial in Architecture
December 2–3, 2016

Symposium in cooperation with Lutz Robbers, Ph.D. (Jade Hochschule Oldenburg), with Dietrich Neumann, Claire Zimmerman, Martino Stierli, and others.

The artistic, social, and technological conditions relating to the pictorial works and design techniques of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe demand close attention. The collages/montages pose the question if architectural pictoriality is in fact fundamentally different to that of other forms of the pictorial. Can artistic, literary, or cinematographic experiments with montages and collages simply be adopted and integrated into architecture—or is architectural pictoriality something very specific? The symposium is for scholars, architects and an interested general public.

Please register by November 18, 2016 with Anna Arnold, email veranstaltungsplanung.lufo [​at​] annaarnold.de.

Museum admission only
 

Symposium 2
Working with Mies: The recent discourse on Ludwig Mies van der Rohe in art and architecture
January, 20, 2017

With Dirk Lohan, David Chipperfield (inquired), Klaus Klever, Ulrich Hahn, Wim van den Bergh, Wita Noack, Mischa Kuball, Christian Odzuck, Julia Weißenberg, Florian Mausbach, Leo Schmidt, Lars Scharnholz, and others

Topics: Mies re-examined: the reception of Mies van der Rohe in todays architecture, the idea of reconstruction of the Villa Wolf in Guben. Living with Mies: how to make an exhibition in a “Miesian” building, Mies in the reflection of contemporary art.

Please register by January 6, 2017 with Anna Arnold, email veranstaltungsplanung.lufo [​at​] annaarnold.de.

Museum admission only

 For further information please see www.ludwigforum.de

Publication:
A publication will be released parallel to the exhibition (approx. 280 pages, illustrated mostly in color, published by Andreas Beitin, Wolf Eiermann, and Brigitte Franzen), which, for the first time, deals exclusively with the collages and photomontages of Ludwig Mies van der Rohe. Numerous internationally renowned authors (including Barry Bergdoll, Dietrich Neumann, Lutz Robbers, Martino Stierli and others) explain his works from a range of perspectives.