2008 - Kunstsammlung NRW

Ayşe Erkmen - Hausgenossen
8 November 2008 – 14 January 2010

After Joe Scanlan’s project “Passing Through” (May 2007 – October 2008), the Turkish artist Ayşe Erkmen will arrange a further location-specific installation for the large area beneath K21’s glass cupola. Find out more

Image: Ayse Erkmen, Hausgenossen, 2008, Courtesy Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin, © Ayşe Erkmen, 2008, © Photo: Achim Kukulies, Düsseldorf 2008

Image: Lawrence Weiner, A PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS ASAP, 2004, language + the materials referred to, dimensions variable, Collection of Glenn Fuhrman, Weiner holding Icelandic version before it was taken out to sea and thrown overboard for Material Time Work Time Life Time at Reykjavik Arts Festival, Reykjavik, 2004, photo by Kristian Hrafnarson, New York, artwork © 2008 Lawrence Weiner/ VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008

Lawrence Weiner - AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE
27th September, 2008 – 11th January, 2009

The exhibition LAWRENCE WEINER: AS FAR AS THE EYE CAN SEE is
a retrospective on the oeuvre of one of the cofounders of so-called Conceptual Art. There has not been a comparative show of this radical, complex, epoch-making and influential work since 1988. The exhibition has already been held at the Whitney Museum in New York and the Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles. The only European presentation will now take place at K21.

The works on display range from the paintings produced in the 1960’s to the innovative language-based works which have made the artist internationally known over the past forty years. With sculpture as a point of departure, he realised early on that it made no difference to him whether a work was produced by the artist, by someone else, or whether it was not carried out at all and only existed as a verbal expression. Find out more

Joe Scanlan - Passing Through
12th May, 2007 – 5th October, 2008

The American artist Joe Scanlan (born in 1962) has designed the latest long term project for the large, spectacular area beneath K21’s glass cupola. In the centre a ”wandering”, modular pavilion of lightweight construction has been erected. Due to the constant reconstruction of its basic form, this edifice slowly “moves” across the four wings of the building. Inside, works by the artist make up a small retrospective, once again in changing constellations. This pavilion which Scanlan created with two architects, is both a sculpture and a functional container. It can be used not only for exhibiting art but also for other worthwhile purposes in the future.

Furthermore, the area at the centre of the glass cupola will be transformed into a kind of daylight cinema for the interplay between sunlight and shadow. This project is a continuation of Scanlan’s research in the interface between art, design, architecture, economics and ecology. Find out more

Joe Scanlan’s project came about in cooperation with M:AI, Museum für Architektur und Ingenieurkunst NRW.

Joe Scanlan, Fake Nonsite, 2005
Aluminium coat-hanger, yellow paper, glue; 108 x 70 x 50 cm

Eija-Liisa Ahtila
17th May – 17th August, 2008

The exhibition which was planned as a comprehensive show together with the “Jeu de paume” in Paris will present three new film installations by the Finnish artist (born in 1959). Ahtila’s greatest work so far, the six-channel video installation “Where is Where?” (2007/8) will be included. In addition recent sculptures and photo works and also selected earlier works such as “Consolation Service” (1999) or “The House” (2002) will be on display. This overview shows the direction in which Ahtila’s work is currently developing: her recent works move away from the both fictional and documentary portrayal of human drama in specifically Finnish environments to a more global perspective. They are dedicated to existential and abstract topics such as togetherness and exclusion, childhood and violence, life and death. Find out more

Image:

Scenographer's Mind T to IX, 2002

Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York and Paris
© Crystal Eye – Kristallisilmä Oy, Helsinki / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2008

Idris Khan - Every...
26th January to 9th March, 2008

Before the temporary closing of K20 and the subsequent removal of the collection, the large hall on the ground floor will house one last exhibition. A show with works by the young British artist Idris Khan (born in 1978) has been planned. Since completing his studies at the Royal College of Art in London in 2004, he has produced an intellectually lucid, visually impressive and technically brilliant œuvre in only a few years. Khan’s subjects show his passionate interest in culturally coded works and artefacts from the spheres of literature, art and music. Photography and video are his media of choice. In his photographs he digitally superimposes pictures, texts or scores he has acquired onto one another. In his videos on classic pieces of music by Bach and Schubert, musical performances are turned into visual and acoustic palimpsests through multiple repetition and layering.
Find out more

Image:
Gabriela Swallow bei den Dreharbeiten von A Memory... After Bach’s Cello Suits, 2006
Photo: Thierry Bal, London

A Last View – The Collection’s Masterpieces
26th January – 27th April, 2008

Before K20 closes for just under a year and a half on 28th April 2008, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen’s most important masterpieces will be shown one more time.

Among these are Pablo Picasso’s monumental work “Deux femmes nues assises” from the artist’s classicist period, George Braque’s cubist still life “Nature morte, harpe et violon” and also Marc Chagall’s composition “Le violoniste”. Wassily Kandinsky’s “Komposition IV” and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner’s “Mädchen unter Japanschirm” will be among the highlights of expressionist painting. Max Ernst’s work “Au premier mot limpide” and Joan Miró’s “nu au miroir” will serve as examples of surrealist art. Julius Bissier’s ands Paul Klee’s extraordinary collections also deserve particular mention.

Futhermore, the large installation by Joseph Beuys “Palazzo Regale” will be accessible. Works by Gehard Richter will also be on display. His cycle “Silikat” was only recently purchased by the Kunstsammlung. Jackson Pollock’s drip painting “Number 32” undoubtedly represents a milestone in abstract painting after 1945. This monumental piece will be accompanied by further outstanding works of pop and minimal art.

Find out more

Image: Marc Chagall, Le violoniste, 1911, © VG Bild-Kunst, 2008

Jeroen de Rijke – Willem de Rooij
8th December, 2007 – 13th April, 2008

Jeroen de Rijke (1970-2006) and Willem de Rooij (born 1969) created many highly acclaimed works in the course of the last 10 years. The analysis of the filmic image in its beauty and its critical potential makes up the core of this oeuvre. The both intelligent and visually precise works explore the con-ventions and messages of filmic aesthetics. Furthermore, they draw attention, not only to the underlying, but also to the open tensions caused by globalisation.
Apart from presenting an overview of the artists’ previous creations, the exhibition will also allude to a likely continuation after Joroen de Rijke’s untimely death.

Find out more

Image:

Jeroen de Rijke/Willem de Rooij
"Mandarin Ducks" 2005
16mm film, color, optical sound, 36 min.
Courtesy Galerie Daniel Buchholz, Cologne
© Willem de Rooij, 2007
Photo: Thomas Manneke, 2005

Hiroshi Sugimoto
14th July, 2007 – 6th January, 2008

Hiroshi Sugimoto, the Japanese master of photography, combines Far-Eastern traditions with aspects of Western modernism and post-modernism in his artistic approach.

Over the past thirty years, the artist created a stylistically and conceptually coherent oeuvre. His work’s beauty and auratic effect result from the strict formal structuring of his pictures and an elaborate developing technique. Since the beginning of the nineties, Sugimoto has been internationally present with exhibitions at important museums. However, so far only excerpts of his oeuvre have been on display in Germany.

Now the first comprehensive retrospective has been planned including more than 55 photographies and at least one sculpture which will be shown in settings created by the artist himself. The presentation will include examples from all of the artist’s important series, the Wax Portraits, Dioramas, Theaters, Architectures, Seascapes, Pine Trees, Colors of Shadow, Conceptual Forms and probably also from a new series which has not been shown yet.

Find out more

Hiroshi Sugimoto, Mathematical Form: Surface 0006, 2004
Kuen’s Surface: a surface with constant negative curvature;