Bildende Kunst | Wartist

Exhibition: Stephan Schenk – Kreuzweg (Berne)

© 2012 Stephan Schenk: Tannenberg, a.d.S. Kreuzweg

Between 13 January and 11 February 2018, photogapher Stephan Schenk presents his most impressive cycle “Kreuzweg” (way of the cross/crossing) on the global battles of the First World War in the eponymous exhibition at gallery Kunstraum Oktogon in Berne, Switzerland.

The whole cycle consists of 14 monumental woven tapestries, based on large-format photos of First World War battle landscapes. Schenk, however, did not make classic landscape pictures, but used reduction and abstraction instead: He photographed an area of two by three metres of the respective ground – the individual fighting space of a soldier, as well as the space for being laid at rest.

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Essay: 1917 – A German Perspective

My short essay “1917 – A German Perspective” about the war year of 1917 is now online on New Zealand’s official website about the First World War Centenary. For both New Zealand and Australia, the First World War is of pivotal importance for shaping the national self-concept. Other perceptions are crucial if a reduction to the own perspective is to be avoided. It has been a pleasure and honour to make a small contribution in this respect.

Works by German artists from the times of the First World War were used as illustration, mostly coming from the wonderful collection of Dr Gerhard Schneider – a sincere word of thanks for this support! Continue reading “Essay: 1917 – A German Perspective”

(Deutsch) Robert Schneider: Tosende Stille (Schloss Bonndorf)

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.

Lecture “‘An artwork, liked by men’ – 100 Years of War as Mirrored by Art” (Berlin)

Sorry, this entry is only available in German.

Warning & Temptation – The Pictorial Worlds of War of Käthe Kollwitz and Kata Legrady (Berlin)

From 30 June until 9 November 2014, Käthe-Kollwitz-Museum in Berlin presents the exhibition Warning and Temptation – The Pictorial Worlds of War of Käthe Kollwitz and Kata Legrady. Two very different artists and their individual examination of war are contrasted with each other; on one hand, the pacifist works of Käthe Kollwitz that have not lost their impact and timelessness over many decades; and on the other hand, the direct and colourful works by Kata Legrady, born in 1974 in Hungary, whose contemporary approach addresses the propagandistic promises of war. In addition, the exhibition will present selected pupil’s works that mainly deal with Käthe Kollwitz as mother and grandmother, who has lost her son Peter during the First World War, and her grandson Peter during the Second World War. Continue reading

Zwischen Kaiserwetter und Donnergrollen (Hanover)

From 20 October 2013 until 19 January 2014, the “Wilhelm Busch – Deutsches Museum für Karikatur und Zeichenkunst” (German museum of caricature and the art of drawing, named after Wilhelm Busch) in Hanover will present the exhibition “Zwischen Kaiserwetter und Donnergrollen – Die wilhelminische Epoche im Spiegel des Simplicissimus von 1896 bis 1914” (between “Kaiserwetter” (an old expression for splendid weather) and rolling thunder – the Wilhelmine era in the mirror of Simplicissimus between 1896 and 1914). Since its foundation in 1896, the satiric magazine “Simplicissimus” held the proverbial mirror up to the German society that in the years before the First World War was shaped by domestic and international crises and societal, cultural and technological changes. The exhibition centres around originals of leading satiric fin-de-siècle artists such as Thomas Theodor Heine, Eduard Thöny, Olaf Gulbransson, Bruno Paul, Karl Arnold, Rudolf Wilke, Wilhelm Schulz and Ferdinand von Rezniček.

Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War (Imperial War Museum North, Manchester)

From 12 October 2013 until 23 February 2014, the Imperial War Museum North in Manchester presents the exhibition “Catalyst: Contemporary Art and War”, containing works of more than 40 contemporary artists about war in our time. The IWM’s huge and diverse collection could provide all the more than 70 works that have been made sinde the Gulf War of 1990/91. Among others, Steve McQueen, Frauke Eigen, Paul Seawright, Rasheed Araeen and Willie Doherty take part in this exhibition.

© kennardphillipps, Photo Op, IWM ART 17541 (pigment print)

banned, persecuted – forgotten? Art and Artists under National Socialism (Berlin)

From 16 March until 28 July 2013, Stadtmuseum Berlin presents the exhibition “verfemt, verfolgt – vergessen? Kunst und Künstler im Nationalsozialismus”¹ with various works from the impressive Collection Gerhard Schneider at its location Emphraim-Palais. On the occasion of the theme year “Diversity Destroyed” on the Nazi’s takeover 100 years ago, the Stadtmuseum Berlin thus remembers the methodic defamation of modern art, up to destruction of artworks and lives. The exhibition is dedicated to all artists who had been banned, persecuted or even murdered, and whose works and lives have been nearly forgotten. It is therefore even more necessary to remember their suffering, but not the least their lives and works, to snatch them from oblivion.

Georg Netzband: Der Sieger, 1939 (Dr. Gerhard Schneider, VG Bild-Kunst 2011)

banned, persecuted – forgotten? Art and Artists under National Socialism ↩

Lisa Glauer: “…later, she will build nuclear vessels” (OKK Berlin)

From 22 February until 3 March 2013, Berlin-based gallery Organ kritischer Kunst (OKK, organ of critical arts) presents the exhibition “…später baut sie Atomschiffe” (…later, she will build nuclear vessels” with works by Lisa Glauer. The exhibition will be opened with the performance “experimental production of evidence by visualisation”. Lisa Glauer uses breast milk as material for her works. This project is part of her PhD dissertation on Art and Design at Bauhaus University Weimar.

2 + 2: Phoenix Chemnitz – A Peace Day Exhibition (Chemnitzer Künstlerbund)

On 12 February 2013, the exhibition “2 + 2: Phoenix Chemnitz” will open on the premises of Chemnitzer Künstlerbund (association of Chemnitz’s artists). In this established format, two local and two external artists meet to address a specific subject. This time, the Chemnitz Friedenstag (Chemnitz Peace Day) is this issue: on 5 March 1945, Chemnitz was severly damaged – more than 2,100 people died in this bombing. How can this central event be remembered? What has contemporary art to say on war? Peggy Albrecht (* 1974) and Rose-Marie Güttler (* 1978) are the two local artists in this show, while Jan Bejšovec (* 1975, Konfliktstoff) and Martin Bayer (* 1971, Wartist) from Berlin provide external perspectives. Continue reading