In context of the exhibition What is the Proper Way to Display a Flag? (until 23.4.2023)
At 3 pm there will already be a guided tour with curator Ingo Clauß, which is included in the price.

Whether it is a self-designed flag or a national flag: numerous artists use the strong symbol in their actions and publications. The lecture draws from the holdings of the Center for Artists’ Publications and shows how and where flags were used – how they were waved, attacked, printed, documented, alienated, or invented.

Image: Armin Chodzinski: Behauptung, 2012. flag embroidered with silver and gold threads. Zeppelin University Friedrichshafen

On the occasion of the fifth nationwide Printmaking Day, the Berufsverband Bildender Künstler*innen Bremen will host a festival at the Weserburg from March 17 to 19, 2023. In addition to the curated exhibition Das beste Wischwerkzeug ist der Handballen (The Best Wiping Tool is the Ball of the Hand), there will be an open presentation from which works can be purchased directly and taken home.

Three creative offerings in the form of hands-on stations are also on the program: letterpress in combination with frottage (Pia van Nuland), intaglio in combination with material printing (Udo Steinmann), and risography, a stencil printing process in the style of screen printing (D.O.C.H.: Katharina Dacrés, Karin Demuth, Julia Dambuk, Carolin Klapp, and Lucia Mendelova).

In addition to live silkscreen prints (Serigraphic Circus), there will be a stand with printed matter by Bremen artists, who will offer their printed products for sale, such as editions, monographs, posters or postcards.

Program

Friday, March 17

• 7 p.m.: Exhibition opening The best wiping tool is the ball of the hand. Introduction: Sirma Kekeç (artist and initiator) and Bettina Brach (curator at the Center for Artists’ Publications at the Weserburg)
• 7 – 9 p.m.: Participation stations and live screen printing

Saturday, March 18

• 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.: Exhibition The Best Wiping Tool is the Ball of the Hand and Open Presentation
• 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.: Participation stations and live screen printing

Sunday, March 19

• 11 a.m. – 6 p.m.: Exhibition The best wiping tool is the ball of the hand and open presentation
• 11 a.m. – 5 p.m.: Participation stations and live screen printing
• 1 pm: Performance “Printmaking is like Karate” with Shogun Bremen e.V.

Material costs for the hands-on stations : 2 Euro per station/1 Euro reduced.
For the live screen printing please bring textiles. Costs: depending on the textile to be printed

The festival is organized by the artist Sirma Kekeç and the BBK Bremen, in cooperation with the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art and the artists’ association Gedok Bremen.

Sponsored by: Gedok Bremen Artists’ Association, Karin and Uwe Hollweg Foundation, Senator for Culture of the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen, Berufsverband Bildender Künstler*innen Bremen, Die Sparkasse Bremen, Waldemar Koch Foundation.

EVENT CANCELLED!

On the occasion of the fifth anniversary of the CLOSEUP Bremen scholarship program, nordmedia Film- und Mediengesellschaft is presenting cross-media projects in the form of an exhibition for the first time. As part of the 8th Bremen Film Festival, innovative media formats by former scholarship holders will be presented at the Weserburg from April 13 to 16, 2023.

The five-day exhibition offers a broad spectrum of cross-media formats that have been supported in recent years by nordmedia and funded by the Senator for Economics, Labor and Europe. They range from audio-visual web series formats to a “living” archive, short films to an augmented reality pilot and an interactive video booth made from recycled materials. In addition, insights into the project development of a dystopian animated film will be given and visitors* can immerse themselves in the story of a work of art by Caspar David Friedrich through an artistic light projection (projection mapping).

Since 2018, CLOSEUP Bremen has been offering Bremen media creators professional mentoring and workshops in addition to 20,000 euros. Therefore, there is also a museum focus on the creative process. The exhibition aims to show how the teams have further developed their work through the project grant and how their works offer new perspectives on the city and life in Bremen and Bremerhaven.

Based on the exhibition project re.act.feminism #2 – a performing archive, curators Bettina Knaup and Beatrice E. Stammer explore the question of whether and how performance can be exhibited, archived and an archive performed. re.act. feminism #2 was a temporary performance archive that traveled through Europe from 2011 to 2013, constantly being added to, expanded, changed, and activated (including Akademie der Künste, Berlin; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; Tallinn Art Hall; Wyspa Institute of Art, Gdańsk). The focus was on performance documents by more than 180 feminist queer performance artists and collectives from different parts of the world (www.reactfeminism.org). The concept of archive was understood as an aspiration in the sense of Arjun Appadurai, as a proposal for a living archive in the making.

A special focus is on the activities of performance artists from the former GDR in the 1980s.

An event in cooperation with the Mariann Steegmann Institute | Art & Gender in the context of the exhibition What is the Proper Way to Display a Flag?

Poems offer a great template to deal with them in an illustrative way. Richly pictorial language, allusions and atmospheric condensations are a challenge to develop one’s own perspectives on the material, to visually translate intellectual content, to clarify, interpret, contrast or ironically shade what already exists.

In addition, the study group will also and above all explore the interplay of self-penned lyrical texts and own illustrations. Sometimes the illustration follows the lyrical text, sometimes the text follows the illustration, and sometimes both are created at the same time in conceptual preliminary considerations.

Information and registration at: info@ankebaer.de

Photo: Christian Platz

Jason Miles is considered a pioneer in his field. The Grammy-winning musician, producer and pioneer of synthesizer programming worked for more than five years alongside Miles Davis, who called him a “genius” in his biography. In addition, he spent a decade alongside Marcus Miller and Luther Vandross. Now Jason has written his own book. At the Weserburg, he presents exciting behind-the-scenes looks, combined with a unique solo piano set. With a bit of luck, he’ll also talk about his time with Michael Jackson, Chaka Khan, or Roberta Flack….

Since 2011, jazzahead! has been presenting jazz and related music in Bremen’s city center for a predominantly regional audience as part of its CLUBNIGHT. Around 30 venues participate every year in the so popular long night of jazz. Clubs, bars, theaters, museums, churches and hotels, they all become live venues on this night.

Fig: Jason Miles © 2016 David Spagnolo

The collective exhibition Lacuna – inside a Dumpling takes the production of dumplings as its central starting point. On four Sundays of the exhibition period, the artists will activate the space with workshops and performances starting at 12 pm, serving freshly cooked dumplings from different regions from around the world.

Program:
world-making:

12 – 6 pm: Pierogi

2 – 3 pm: Reading Room/Performance –  ‘Blind im Dunkeln tappen und was wir sonst noch wissen’

5:30 – 6 pm: Concert/Performance – `Rundrum‘
An acoustic search for the incidence. Voices and sounds overlap and form a circle.

In cooperation with the Hochschule für Künste Bremen
With generous support from the VGH-Stiftung and the Freundeskreis der HfK Bremen

The collective exhibition Lacuna – inside a Dumpling takes the production of dumplings as its central starting point. On four Sundays of the exhibition period, the artists will activate the space with workshops and performances starting at 12 pm, serving freshly cooked dumplings from different regions from around the world.

Program:
void-shaping:

12 – 6 pm: Shish Barak

2 – 3 pm: Workshop/Performance – ‘Mehr als die Rückgängigmachung der Wiederentdeckung’

4 – 5 pm: Concert/Performance – ‘nachloten’
The collective, in the broadest sense a band, improvises freely with sound and performance.

In cooperation with the Hochschule für Künste Bremen
With generous support from the VGH-Stiftung and the Freundeskreis der HfK Bremen

Who comes when, where, how and why into the conversation?

Salon culture has been booming in many forms for some time. Salon culture offers space for discourse, exchange and cooperation. With the Day of Salon Culture, the significance of this cultural form will be explored at three art and cultural venues in Bremen with three different events. What role did women* play in the history of salons? What culture of conversation and conviviality is associated with salons and how can it be shaped at present? What spaces for thought are necessary in order to be able to find solutions at all in the face of profound social crises? What future forms of conversation does society need in order to enable participation? How can the concept and potential of salon culture as cultural heritage be thought into the future?

In the context of “Salon Culture Day”

In cooperation with the Mariann Steegmann Institute | Art & Gender

Fig.: Cover invitation card “Day of salon architecture” (detail)

The workshop must unfortunately be cancelled!

A book is not an arbitrary container for information, texts, and images, but an artistic object in itself and a medium that brings with it very specific characteristics.

The Center for Artist’s Publications at the Weserburg offers ideal conditions to enter into one’s own artistic-practical examination of the book form with a variety of inspirations. Accompanied by Anke Bär and in exchange with other participants, a small, clear book project can be realized over the course of the two days, or a complex project can be conceptualized and begun or continued. The techniques used in the course can be varied.

From pencil, charcoal or colored pencils to ink and watercolors to acrylic and the inclusion of transfer and collage techniques or photo overpainting, everything is conceivable.

Photo: Christian Platz

The collective exhibition Lacuna – inside a Dumpling takes the production of dumplings as its central starting point. On four Sundays of the exhibition period, the artists will activate the space with workshops and performances starting at 12 pm, serving freshly cooked dumplings from different regions from around the world.

Program:
transgression:

12 – 6 pm: Empanada

2 – 3 pm: Performance ‘Residue‘
How to put a narrative in a jar and keep it.

4 – 5 pm: Reading Room

In cooperation with the Hochschule für Künste Bremen
With generous support from the VGH-Stiftung and the Freundeskreis der HfK Bremen

You want to build a machine that produces sounds and noises? Then come to our sound machine workshop!

We build machines from everyday objects. Bring old toys, empty cans, decorations, cardboard and anything else you can think of. We’ll bring these things to life by connecting them to motors, electrical circuits, and microcontrollers so that they make sounds.

We’ll find interesting sounds, experiment with materials and technology, rhythm and programming. At the end of the workshop week there will be an exhibition and concert with our machines!

Presentation & concert of the sound machines: May 21, 2023, 12 p.m.

In the context of realtime 2023 – international festival for new music bremen (May 17 – 21, 2023).

Photo: Thomas Keiser

Robots are already used in many areas of everyday life. Are they also used artistically? Can they dance or make music?

Prof. Dr. Frank Kirchner, head of the DFKI in Bremen, has developed a robot with his team from the University of Bremen that can dance and gives a sample here. Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Kühnberger has also been researching AI for years and knows the catchy programs that can already compose music. In this Talk Time, both scientists talk about the ways in which AI and robotic systems are currently getting involved in the field of music.

The subsequent concert in the Otte Klanghaus, where two drums play in duet – one of them controlled by an AI.

In the context of realtime 2023 – international festival for new music bremen (May 17 – 21, 2023).

Can an artificial intelligence (AI) play the drums?

The composer Artemi-Maria Gioti has asked herself this question. For her work Imitation Game, she developed a robotized drum kit that plays AI-controlled duets with a human drummer. Since this togetherness is a kind of improvisational music, this interplay sounds different in every performance. The AI drums respond to the rhythmic, tonal, and dynamic cues of the duet partner just as the drummer responds to the cues of the robot drummer. The audience can hear and observe how both “musicians” cross-fertilize each other.

The piece lasts about a quarter of an hour and is played twice. Before the first and second short concert, the artistic director of the festival, Claudia Janet Birkholz, will talk with the composer about the peculiarities of the piece, the variations and the complicated apparatus. Because beforehand, the percussionist and the composer spent several days setting up both percussion instruments and coordinating them with each other.

After the concert Artemi-Maria Gioti will answer the audience’s questions.

Artists:

Artemi-Maria Gioti – composer
Manuel Alcaraz Clemente – percussion
Work: Imitation Game (2018) by Artemi-Maria Gioti.

In the framework of realtime 2023 – international festival for new music bremen (May 17 – 21, 2023).

Over several years, the composer and performer Gero Koenig developed an electroacoustic string instrument, the Chordeograph. The Chordeograph is played with the movements of the arms and hands in space. The body movements are electronically recorded and transformed into sounds.

In the workshops, everyone can try themselves out as a musician under the guidance of Gero Koenig and play with sounds and tones. Even several players at the same time. Here, music is actually created in a playful way!

In the context of realtime 2023 – international festival for new music bremen (May 17 – 21, 2023).

Photo: Tobias Wootton

As part of the International Museum Day, visitors have free all-day admission to the Weserburg. At 12 p.m. there will also be a free guided tour with Karin Puck through the exhibition The Way We Are 4.0.

The collective exhibition Lacuna – inside a Dumpling takes the production of dumplings as its central starting point. On four Sundays of the exhibition period, the artists will activate the space with workshops and performances starting at 12 pm, serving freshly cooked dumplings from different regions from around the world.

Program:
implosion:

12 – 6 pm: xxx

2 – 3 pm: Performance – ‘Tasteless‘
A satirical performance that considers the act of consuming food detached from its cultural and political specificity.

3 – 6 pm: Workshop – ‘creating our dumplings’
Dumplings are a dish that transcends cultures and countries. They can be found in a wide variety of forms all over the world. But what do dumplings mean to each of us? If you were to make and invent them yourself, how and what would you do?

Event in English language. Registration at: jiyeleestudio@gmail.com. Limited number of participants.

In cooperation with the Hochschule für Künste Bremen
With generous support from the VGH-Stiftung and the Freundeskreis der HfK Bremen

Weserburg Program

6 – 10 p.m. (hourly)
Short tours of the current exhibitions with art educators and curators

6 – 10 p.m.
Participation stations for collage and printing with the artist Sirma Kekeç
With softcut, styrodur or ink. Try out and combine techniques, create your own works and take them home!

6 – 0 pm
Children’s books and Pasolini – Insights into the illustration course at the Hfk Bremen
Films by the Italian poet and director gave the students of the HfK Bremen the impetus to develop their own concept for a children’s book. Realized without digital tools, very different stories were created that vividly illustrate that children’s books don’t have to be just sweet and harmless.
Students from Samuel Nyholm’s illustration course will present their sketches, storyboards and the finished original books in the library and will be available for discussions.

6:30 p.m.
Piano recital by and with children and young people who have fled Ukraine and pianist Alexandra Wenger.
For the past year, pianist Alexandra Wenger has been rehearsing on Mondays and Tuesdays with children and young people who have fled from Ukraine at the grand piano in the Hans Otte Klanghaus. As part of the Long Night, the young pianists invite you to an entertaining recital.

The TAU will be on hand with tacos, burgers, etc. to satisfy hunger during the night.

Photo: Christian Wasenmüller

In the current post-truth era, all kinds of demands for authenticity and for the one true original appear, which were considered obsolete twenty years ago. However, not only in art but also through NFT, Deep Fake or the online tool ChatGPT and similar applications in other media, discussions about the concepts of originality and truth will be necessary in the future.

In the lecture, Stefan Römer analyzes works from the current Weserburg exhibition The Way We Are 4.0 from Warhol to Sturtevant and, for example, Mel Chin or Jonathan Monk with regard to their specific modes of appropriation.

In the context of the exhibition The Way We Are 4.0

In cooperation with the Mariann Steegmann Institute | Art & Gender

Credit: Sturtevant, Warhol Flowers, 1964-1968, on loan from SÛ Collection

Program

The creation of man – the invention of tin – the exhaustion of language, audio read by Norbert Schwontkowski 2012 at Radio Bremen/Nordwestradio.
Short texts by Norbert Schwontkowski, read by Dr. Rainer Beßling.
In a sound collage, pianist Dietmar Kirstein accompanies uncut film footage of Norbert Schwontkowski, recorded in 2008 in his studio at Häschenstraße 22.
Visit of the artist’s room on Norbert Schwontkowski in the exhibition The Way We Are 4.0

The event will be moderated by Dr. Rainer Beßling.

Credit: Norbert Schwontkowski, visuel poetry, 1989, Brigitte and Udo Seinsoth Collection.

This event must unfortunately be cancelled!

On this workshop weekend, crazy ideas, half-baked things, long-neglected projects, unfinished things from previous courses and matters of the heart may be brought to the table. These can be single sheets or sequences of pictures, book ideas or single figures, personal narration or scientific research, preliminary sketches or final illustrations.

Accompanied by Anke Bär and inspired by the exchange in the group, illustration ideas can be reflected, sharpened and (further) realized. Projects that may have stalled can be recharged with fresh energy and moved forward. Common warm-up exercises and a richly stocked book table will broaden the participants’ own approaches and open up new perspectives.

The course is aimed at adults.

Photo private / Illustration: Christiane Becker

The Swiss artist Hannah Villiger (1951–1997) is a sculptress who expressed herself through the medium of photography. She found the ideas for her single pictures and multipartite blocks in her immediate surroundings: in the view through a window onto the square in front of her apartment; or in what was then a brand-new Polaroid technique, with which she explored her own body, almost scanned herself, and mounted the results in greatly enlarged form onto aluminum panels.

With her work, Villiger finds a place among the artistic positions which, between the 1970s and 1990s, entered into new territory in terms of content and form and created pioneering achievements from which artists continue to derive benefits today in an entirely self-evident manner.

The exhibition traces out the fundamental strands of her creative output through exemplary works. Furthermore, it integrates an area in which the Swiss artist Eric Hattan compares his own approach with that of Villiger and stages a reciprocal question-and-answer game of similarities and differences.

Fig.: Hannah Villiger, Sculptural, 1984/85, Private ownership © Foundation THE ESTATE OF HANNAH VILLIGER

75 minute yoga class for all interested with Gabriele Kroll in the exhibition Hannah Villiger. I am the Sculpture. Afterwards there will be a common end with refreshments in the library. Before and after, the exhibition and the museum can be explored.

Please bring comfortable clothing and your own yoga mat. If you do not have your own mat, please let us know when you register.

In the context of the exhibition Hannah Villiger. I am the Sculpture

Fig.: Gabriele Kroll at the Weserburg in front of a work by Juan Muñoz (Miroir et cuillière, 1997, on loan from SÛ Collection)

The intensive five-day summer course will focus on encountering the location, the building, and the exhibition The Way We Are 4.0  in a variety of drawing and illustration exercises, being inspired by it in very different ways, also rubbing shoulders, setting oneself apart, and finally developing independent ideas. The participants will be individually accompanied by the lecturer Anke Bär. The exchange in the group and a rich book table offer further inspiration.

The course is aimed at adults. The prerequisites for participation are openness, curiosity and a willingness to experiment. No special previous experience in illustration is expected.

About the person:

Anke Bär is an author, illustrator, freelance artist and lecturer who lives with her family in Bremen. In addition to her own artistic work, she has been teaching drawing, illustration and creative writing for more than 10 years at various colleges, universities, independent art schools, schools and further education academies and enjoys the lively exchange with people of all generations.

75 minute yoga class for all interested with Gabriele Kroll in the exhibition Hannah Villiger. I am the Sculpture. Afterwards there will be a common end with refreshments in the library. Before and after, the exhibition and the museum can be explored.

In the early 1970s Hannah Villiger was in Rome, the city of Baroque sculpture and the cradle of Arte Povera. The lecture attempts a search for traces that takes Villiger’s engagement with the medium of sculpture as a starting point and anchors the works she herself called Skuptural in this environment. Where are the artistic and (art) historical preconditions to be found that form the foundation for anchoring Villiger’s working method in the medium of sculpture? Does the shift in the conceptualization of sculpture across the medium work because it is precisely tradition that offers support? The lecture attempts unexpected juxtapositions and connects seamlessly with the theme of the current exhibition.

About the person:

Thomas Schmutz is an art historian and curator. He has a doctorate on the reciprocal relationship between art, art history and the material of painting. He has many years of experience in the supervision of institutional collections and has worked as a collection curator at the Aargauer Kunsthaus, among others. Since 2018, he has been working together with Eric Hattan as co-curator for the foundation THE ESTATE OF HANNAH VILLIGER. Thomas Schmutz is titular professor at the University of Neuchâtel. He teaches in the field of modern art history and museology.

Access link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/85696353724?pwd=c3pCeGQxb21heGRyY1o5ZTRxYVZjQT09

Photo: private

In the performance dress on the occasion of the exhibition “Hannah Villiger. I am the Sculpture”, Katja Schenker appears in a concrete dress that initially restricts her body as two rigid surfaces and at the same time evokes a sense of delicacy and soft movements.

Personal details:
Katja Schenker (*St. Gallen, 1968) lives and works in Zurich. Her artistic works focus on the areas of live performance, drawing, sculpture and installations in indoor and outdoor spaces. Mostly the handling of natural materials is in the foreground. The sensuality of the materials and their context play an important role, as do their spatial and temporal dimensions such as mass, gravity, permeability or transience. Thus the works aim at the experience and perception of one’s own physicality, related to the bodies of the audience and those of the artist. In her processes, concepts such as skin, openness and hold play an important role.

She has been awarded the Swiss Art Awards three times, the Swiss Performance Art Award in 2015 and the recognition prize of the St. Gallen Cultural Foundation in 2021, among others. Katja Schenker studied comparative literature, art history and philosophy at the University of Zurich and at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales in Paris.

Fig.: Katja Schenker, dress (Performance 2023), Photo: Anne Morgenstern

In art history, the representation of the female body is usually referred to as the “nude”. In modernist painting, this old motif is increasingly losing its relevance, but not so in photography. Here it is precisely the photography of the 1970s in which it is experiencing a modified renaissance. One need only think of John Coplans, Katharina Sieverding, Jürgen Klauke or Cindy Sherman. It is precisely at this point that Hannah Villiger’s approach should be mentioned, but it is still underexposed, i.e. too little known, in the historiography of photography outside Switzerland.

In comparison with various positions in contemporary and recent photography, the lecture aims to characterise Hannah Villiger’s specific approach to the body. Here, questions of pictorial form, the relationship between sculpture and photography and display play a role above all.

Personal details:
Stefan Gronert, born in 1964, holds a doctorate in art history and has been curator for photography and media art at the Sprengel Museum Hannover since 2016. Previously – after studying art history, education, German language and literature and philosophy in Bochum – he was head of the graphic collection and curator for contemporary art at the Kunstmuseum Bonn from 1996. He has written numerous publications on modern and contemporary art in particular, e.g. monographs on Gerhard Richter (2006, 2014), Sigmar Polke (2017), Jeff Wall (2016) and the Düsseldorf School of Photography (2009, 2nd edition: 2017). Stefan Gronert has held numerous teaching positions and in 2017 initiated the blog www.foto-kunst-theorie.de of the Sprengel Museum Hannover.

Image:
Hannah Villiger, Skulptural/Sculptural, 1984/85, © Foundation THE ESTATE HANNAH VILLIGER

Free dial-in link:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84991794196?pwd=MmsrOWtSWi9LSllIY2JJd1hUeGtrZz09

In this two-day workshop we will approach the interesting work and working method of Hannah Villiger in a practical way. Through the examination of her artistic work and the exhibition at the Weserburg, participants will have the opportunity to experience and apply some of the methods used by the artist in a very personal and practical way in order to develop their own work. For this we will create new visual material or use existing images. We will take up the pioneering and free impulse of her artistic work to strengthen our own relationship to the visual from this point of view.

The possibilities offered by Hannah Villiger’s work are infinite and at the same time precise and exact. In this way we will create our own visual sculptures.

This workshop is aimed at adults who are interested in photography as a means of artistic expression, as well as those who are keen to experiment and open to new ways of seeing and approaching things.

No previous photography experience is required to participate in this workshop.

Personal details:
Claudia A. Cruz is a freelance artist, photographer, art mediator and culture maker from Mexico in Bremen.

Her artistic work focuses on the fields of photography and textile and wearable art. Her work has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions, including the Willy Brandt Haus Berlin, the Frankfurt Architekturmuseum and the Neues Kunstforum Cologne, as well as the National Portrait Gallery London, the New Museum New York, at the Photomeetings Luxembourg and the Goethe-Institut Mumbai, India.

She also develops and coordinates participatory and intercultural projects, workshops and courses in which she uses conceptual photography and artistic design processes in textiles and fashion as instruments of creative development and social change.

For the fifth time, the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst is presenting the new hanging of the collection exhibition The Way We Are. This time, too, there are plenty of discoveries to be made with over 120 works by 100 artists and artist groups from different times and contexts. Thematic areas on 2,500 m² formulate a multitude of different settings from the 1960s to the present day.

Short guided tour of the exhibition (instead of introductory speech):
7 pm with Janneke de Vries
8 pm with Ingo Clauß
Meeting point: Museum ticket office

By participating in the event, you agree that photographs taken at the event may be used for subsequent marketing and publicity purposes of the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst. If you have any further questions, please contact info@weserburg.de.

Fig.: Via Lewandowsky, Hansi Goes Down, 2009, Sammlung Haus N, Photo: Eric Tschernow © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2023

In this workshop we will try to decipher the ideas and methods of artist Hannah Villiger in her current exhibition at the Weserburg: What is a sculpture? What can a sculpture look like? Can I be a sculpture?

In a playful way, we will take a close look at the exhibition and the artist’s work, discover her artistic methods and develop sculptural works from them together. You will develop your own methods and apply them to different art media. You will use your own or existing images, different materials and your bodies to create your own sculptures.

The focus is on you and your ideas! After all, the exhibition is called “I am the sculpture”.

The workshop is aimed at all children aged 8 and over.

Personal details:
Claudia A. Cruz is a freelance artist, photographer, art mediator and culture maker from Mexico in Bremen.

Her artistic work focuses on the fields of photography and textile and wearable art. Her work has been shown in numerous national and international exhibitions, including the Willy Brandt Haus Berlin, the Frankfurt Architekturmuseum and the Neues Kunstforum Cologne, as well as the National Portrait Gallery London, the New Museum New York, at the Photomeetings Luxembourg and the Goethe-Institut Mumbai, India.

She also develops and coordinates participatory and intercultural projects, workshops and courses in which she uses conceptual photography and artistic design processes in textiles and fashion as instruments of creative development and social change.

Fig. © Foundation THE ESTATE OF HANNAH VILLIGER
An image of an illustrative map of the site

For the opening of the 7th FUNUN at the Weserburg, the Syrian Exile Cultural Association Bremen invites you to a musical journey to Syria. The Bremen musician Aladdin Haddad will present his album release concert ” Monologue I ” on this evening. He will be musically accompanied by Modar Salama (percussion). Anna Mücke will artistically illustrate Haddad’s music during the opening.

Jasmina Heritani will moderate the evening and report on the situation in Syria after the earthquake.

Migration movements have strongly shaped German society and led to a multitude of narratives of the past and memory. According to Czollek, collective memory is a contradictory construct that makes coming to terms with the Shoah difficult between “never again” and a “final stroke” as well as guilt and reconciliation. Accordingly, Czollek describes the German culture of remembrance in his essay as a “theater of reconciliation” with perpetrators who are forgiven and victims who are supposed to forgive. The post-migrant society leads to complex perspectives and biographies that do not fit into this scheme.

The event will discuss the extent to which the theater of reconciliation aims to resolve the contradictions of post-Nazi society while at the same time failing to address the reality of post-migrant society, and the implications of this in practice.

Moderation: Klaas Anders

A cooperation of globale°, University of Bremen, GRK Contradiction Studies and Worlds of Contradiction Lab: pluriversal cultures of memory and Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst

Photo: © PaulaWinkler

The Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst is presenting the first institutional solo exhibition of Kay Rosen in Europe. Ever since the 1970s, the American artist (*1943 in Corpus Christi, Texas; lives in New York City and Gary, Indiana) has been using language as artistic material. She is internationally known above all for wall works which render individual words, sentences or series of letters, often in massive dimensions. Coming together here in an impressive manner are minimalist form, aesthetic impact and intelligent contents.

Fig.: Kay Rosen, Kiss of Death, 2011, private collection, Bremen, Germany

Get to know Kay Rosen’s world of word games, word (re-)creations and text puzzles with curiosity and joy and use them imaginatively without a pen. The hands-on station invites visitors to create their own works on paper and take them home.

Fig.: Kay Rosen, Head Over Heels, 2016, private collection, Frankfurt

Has to be canceled due to illness!

Drawing on examples from Kay Rosen’s corpus of work since the 1980s, this lecture inquires into the artist’s engagement with text and written signs in contemporary art – both inside and outside museum spaces.

By operating playfully with the common structures of linguistic combinations, Rosen often sets in motion a dynamic between wording and textual signs that interrupts conventional attributions or even leads them ad absurdum. At the same time, her linguistic combinations and interventions can transfer political content from the U.S. context, such as the Culture Wars of the 1980s, into art. Transposed into the museum or urban space, the textual content becomes the political context.

About the person:
Elena Zanichelli, Italian art historian, critic, and curator, has been Professor of Modern and Contemporary Art History at the Institute of Art History at Philipps University in Marburg since October 2023. She was most recently Visiting Professor at Stanford University in spring 2022, and has been Director of the Mariann Steegmann Institute since April 2021. Art & Gender at the University of Bremen, where she taught art studies and aesthetic theory. She has been a member of the Board of Trustees of the Kulturstiftung der Länder since 2020.

In the context of the exhibition Kay Rosen. NOW AND THEN

Photo: © Nick Bonvi

Daniela Comani presents her artist books. Her multidisciplinary practice includes photographs, texts, installations and artist books. In 1990, while studying at the HdK (UdK) in Berlin, she became interested in the format of the artist’s book and produced several artist’s books as one-offs or in small editions, each with photographs and/or drawings. In 2001 she started publishing artist books in offset printing and in higher editions of 500-1000 copies, collaborating with various publishers such as Revolver, Corraini, Patrick Frey, Monroe Books and Humboldt Books.

Daniela Comani presents her working process and the development of numerous book projects , from idea and concept to design and layout. She also goes into technical details and collaboration with publishers.

About the person:
Daniela Comani is an Italian artist living and working in Berlin. Her multimedia work touches on themes such as history, language and gendering, often using supposedly familiar photos and texts from newspapers and books. ‘Gendering’ as an artistic strategy is a common thread running through his works and artist books.

Photo: Daniela Comani in front of her site-specific installation “Orlando’s Library”, MAMbo, Bologna 2023 (detail) © Ornella De Carlo.

Talk concert with Claudia Janet Birkholz, piano. Guest: Prof. Dr. Arvid Kappas, psychologist and emotion researcher.

Three times a year, the pianist Claudia Janet Birkholz invites to a special talk concert, where she talks with her guests about music and plays selected works on the grand piano.

This time, at the Weserburg Museum of Modern Art, she talks with psychologist and emotion researcher Prof. Dr. Arvid Kappas about the expectations and perceptions of female listeners who experience new music in concert. How do we perceive (new) music? And why does it often seem strange and unfamiliar to us? Moreover, the more often we hear it, the more exciting it seems.

Claudia Janet Birkholz plays works by György Ligeti, who wanted to direct the perception of the listeners with his compositions, compositions by Christoph Hendler, who wants to direct perception through priming, as well as works by Toshi Hosokawa, who has his own expectations of the audience.

About Prof. Dr. Arvid Kappas:
Emotion researcher Arvid Kappas studied psychology at the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, where he graduated in 1986. He received his PhD in 1989 from Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, USA. After lecturing at Université Laval in Canada and the University of Hull in the UK, he was appointed professor at the International University, now Constructor University, in Bremen in 2003. He is considered an internationally recognized expert in the psychology of emotions.

The event is a cooperation between Realtime – Forum Neue Musik e.V. and the Weserburg Museum für moderne Kunst.

With the kind support of Sparkassen Bremen AG

Photo: Andreas Caspari

With Marlen Hobrack, Elisabeth Lechner and Hadija Haruna Oelker

Women* experience discrimination because of their gender in many areas of life. But not all women* are the same! In fact, the living conditions of women* are diverse. Depending on their origin, class, age or religion, women* experience different forms of discrimination such as sexism, racism, homophobia, ableism or classism. These forms of discrimination overlap and usually influence or reinforce each other.

With the reading, the Central Office of the State Women’s Representatives (ZGF) would like to use three examples to draw attention to the different forms of discrimination and the mechanisms associated with them. We need to recognize these in order to be able to change structures and to ensure that we as a society see differences and diversity as an opportunity and not as a shortcoming.

An event organized by the Central Office of the State Women’s Representatives (ZGF). In cooperation with OUT LOUD.

Photos (from top to bottom): ©Wolfgang Stahr, ©Mercan Sümbültepe, ©Marcus Engler