Junge Sammlungen 04

The Vague Space. Collection Christian Kaspar Schwarm

23.09.2017 - 18.02.2018

Christian Kaspar Schwarm is a strategy consultant and co-founder of the online platform “Independent Collectors”. His collection, which is currently being constantly expanded and redefined, primarily comprises young international art by lateral thinkers. If one reads the names of the artists who have so far found their way into the collection of the Berlin resident by choice, one finds cross-media positions with a high political and intellectual claim. At the same time, there are installations and video works that encompass entire rooms and are extremely sensual. Schwarm sees collecting art and his constant exchange with artists primarily as a resource for experience and an expansion of his understanding of the world. This is already echoed in the title of the exhibition: The Vague Space figuratively means a still undefined space that is to be conquered and filled with questions by engaging openly and curiously with the art presented. Within the exhibition there is an area for lingering, in which selected volumes of the collector’s interdisciplinary library are integrated. They not only allow insight into the collector’s worldview and spheres of interest, but also provide meaningful cross-references to the artworks on display.

“Of sensual impact and intellectual depth. […] The collector considers the discursive power of art to be vital, especially in our time.” Sigrid Schuer, Weser-Kurier

Impressive welcomes the visitors already the central room of the exhibition. Slavs and Tatars hang colorfully designed banners with irritating political messages in the museum, whose patterns are sometimes reminiscent of Muslim carpets and quote Arabic characters. This alone makes the work Friendship of Nations – Polish Shi’ite Showbiz seem topical and political. Among other things, it stages surprising connections between the Polish Solidarność movement of the 1980s and 90s and the Iranian revolution. Mythological figures become emblems of the union, political slogans change language and reference. Political art rethought.

Peter Piller’s photo series, on the other hand, are the results of an archiving of the everyday. Among other things, he compiles found images with recurring motifs that seem alienated by the systematic recording of their normality and ordinariness. Be it shooting girls or farmer’s waiting areas – in their artistically motivated agglomeration these in themselves banal at the end sometimes oppressive, sometimes also laughing motifs fascinate.

Mario Pfeifer shows pictures and scenes from Patagonia in an impressive 3-channel video. Past and present of the Yaghan people living here are the basis of this work. Tradition and modernity, mechanization and colonial heritage are brought to life in fascinating sequences of images that are repeatedly underscored with electronic music.

In addition to her large-scale text work War Porn, Fiona Banner brings the names and images of fighter jets from around the world into the museum in the disturbingly beautiful works Some Strange Birds and All the Worlds Fighter Planes. The artistic-analytical appropriation turns into a critical stocktaking.

 

Although Christian Kaspar Schwarm is presenting his collection to a wider public for the first time, he is skeptical of the traditional form of art collecting. In his view, art collecting needs to be revised. And he is attempting to make this clear and tangible for visitors in his presentation in Bremen. At the same time, The Vague Space is intended to provide impetus and lay the groundwork for re-discussing the collecting of contemporary art as such and thus also the self-image of the collector’s museum for the future.

“For me, the world of art has opened up horizons and possibilities that conceivably go far beyond the act of buying and owning works. What I collect in reality: unexpected encounters, strange places, irritating moments, lasting friendships, sudden and slow realizations, growing knowledge, ongoing confrontations.” Christian Kaspar Swarm

With the generous support of BLB and the Museumsfreunde Weserburg.

Artists

Fiona Banner, Beni Bischof, Nina Canell, Marcel van Eeden, Tom Ellis, Guan Xiao, Diango Hernández, David Horvitz, Jonathan Monk, Mario Pfeifer, Peter Piller, Karin Sander, Slavs and Tatars, Michael E. Smith, Simon Starling, Fiete Stolte, Lukas Stopczynski und Haegue Yang.

New exhibition format "Young Collections

With the series “Young Collections,” the Weserburg began a new exhibition format in 2014. On display are works of art from a young private collection that has not yet been presented to the public in this form. The museum enables its visitors to participate in very current trends in international art and their complex relevance to the present. For the Weserburg, these nascent collections guarantee an exciting insight into what moves a younger generation. At the same time, it is giving itself a new profile for the future as a “collector’s museum.” In 2014, the Hamburg collection Dominic and Cordula Sohst-Brennenstuhl kicked things off with the exhibition “Young Collections 01. Zero Point of All Places,” followed by the von Kelterborn Collection from Frankfurt am Main with “Young Collections 02. Come and See” and the Berlin collector Ivo Wessel with “Young Collections 03. The Space Between People Can Support the Ceiling.”