Künstlerräume

30.01.2016 - 30.12.2016

In an exciting sequence, the Weserburg presents new artists’ spaces for the third time. The artists self-confidently put their works and concepts up for debate. The exhibition thus provides insight into the diversity and quality of artistic production today, which are impressively reflected in the Weserburg’s collections. It is precisely in the differences, contradictions, and confrontations that come to light in the process that the Weserburg’s artists’ spaces respond to the complexity of today’s experience of the world. Several selected rooms have been set up by the artists especially for this exhibition and can be seen as impressive installations only here on site.

Alicja Kwade succeeds in creating a fascinating light installation with surprisingly simple means. In a pulsating dialogue, two light bulbs alternately light up, creating a play of light and shadow. Erich Reusch and Martina Klein present two different color and painting concepts that are capable of redefining entire exhibition spaces. The viewer moving through the space becomes part of, indeed the venue for, a special aesthetic experience. The Belgian Koen van den Broek again succeeds in an impressive renewal of contemporary landscape painting. His paintings show views of the sea, a vacation spot, or the desert. But the chosen motifs profoundly contradict the expectations we associate with the depiction of exotic faraway places.

Horst Müller takes up the theme of localization and temporalization in his own way with his numberless “ceiling clock” and other astonishing objects: We are seduced into reconsidering our position in space and time. In Müller’s works, moreover, there are obvious doublings or mirrorings, as if the experience of this world plausibly imposes that of a parallel or counter-world. Clemens Krauss’ exciting endoscopic tracking shot through all the floors of his parents’ house also allows us to participate in an unusual experience, conceivable only here, which simply ignores and penetrates architectural realities – and thereby makes us rightly aware of them.

Christian Boltanski and Christian Jankowski address everyday experiences that are familiar to us all in very different ways. In a multi-part photo series, Boltanski touchingly recreates his childhood and impressively shows how history and stories can be made present in art. In his video “The Hunt,” Jankowski presents a grotesquely comic supermarket visit with bow and arrow, thus succeeding in both: humorous contemplation of the world and its critical reflection.

The exhibition brings together painting, sculpture, photographic, and video works that invite visitors to take a varied tour. Some older works from the Weserburg’s collections are familiar to the public through previous visits, others come from private collections associated with the museum, and still others from the participating artists themselves. The latter are being shown for the first time in this form and combination in the sense of a premiere.

The selected individual contributions do not stand isolated next to or behind each other in the labyrinthine rooms of the old warehouse buildings. They complement each other, add up to each other, begin to have an effect on us not only as individuals, but also in their totality and their interplay. In doing so, they trigger other images and associations in us and mix with them. One could also speak of the fact that the interaction of certain spaces, even the simple “looking at each other” usually always results in more than the mere sum or juxtaposition of their individual elements.

 

With the generous support of

 

Artists

Pidder Auberger, Achim Bitter, Christian Boltanski, Christian Jankowski, Martina Klein, Joseph Kosuth, Clemens Krauss, Alicja Kwade, Thomas Lehnerer, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Horst Müller, Erich Reusch, Taryn Simon, Koen van den Broek, Ingo Vetter, Günter Weseler