In a major show, the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s important collection of contemporary art presents its most recent acquisitions and donations (something new) in dialogue with important works that have already enriched the collection for some time (something old) and highlights them with special loans that are on the museum’s wish list for permanent acquisition (something desired) and some of which were created especially for the presentation.
Image caption: Annika Kahrs (*1984) Infra Voice, 2018 3-channel video installation, 10:35 min., in colour, with sound Hamburger Kunsthalle, on permanent loan from the Fonds für Junge Kunst der Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen © Annika Kahrs Photo: Hans Wulf Kunze
The exciting compilation of works by more than 50 – mostly internationally renowned – artists impressively shows how enormously polyphonic contemporary art is. The works deal with current and virulent themes of our time: understanding and communication, isolation and demarcation, exercise of power and protest as well as utopia and structure. Photographic series, multimedia room installations, video projections, architectural models and structures made of fabric are presented, which take a look at (virtual) worlds and realities, address the tension between form and dissolution and show the potential of networking in fabric and language. About three quarters of the exhibited works are being shown for the first time at the Hamburger Kunsthalle.
The traces of soot on the wall of the Italian Arte Povera artist Jannis Kounellis meet a photographic series by Annette Kelm showing the covers of burnt books from the Nazi era. Kounellis’ jute sacks, densely stacked on top of each other, find a very contemporary counterpart in a garage door by Andreas Slominski. The questions of isolation and demarcation raised here also run through the multimedia installation by Hamburg artist Cordula Ditz, which deals with the young Hamburg resistance fighter Helmuth Hübener, who was executed by the National Socialists at the age of 17.
Lost in translation is the central idea of a thematic context that is about understanding and translation. This can be communication between humans and animals with the means of music, as is the case in Annika Kahrs’ large-scale multi-channel video projection: giraffes from Hagenbeck’s zoo are here brought into an interplay with music from the largest string instrument in the world, an octobass. Communication problems between people from different continents are the subject of Simon Fujiwara’s impressive spatial installations.
Questions about the exercise of power and protest are posed by the artists Thomas Demand (with the photo series Oval Office) or also by the Japanese photographer Seiichi Furuya, who in his slide installation Mémoires explores the field of tension between the individual Annika Kahrs (1984) Infra Voice, 2018 3-channel video installation, 10:35 min, in colour, with sound Hamburger Kunsthalle, on permanent loan from the Fonds für Junge Kunst der Stiftung Hamburger Kunstsammlungen © Annika Kahrs Photo: Hans Wulf Kunze MIRA FORTE Head of Press & Public Relations Hamburger Kunsthalle Stiftung öffentlichen Rechts Glockengießerwall 5 20095 Hamburg T +49-(0)40-428131-204 F +49-(0)40-428131-884 presse@hamburger-kunsthalle.de www.hamburger-kunsthalle.de and the state. The large room installation New Management by Simon Denny deals with the so-called Frankfurt Declaration of 1993, a global market leadership strategy by Samsung. The artists Sara Sizer, Edith Dekyndt, Hannah Rath and Fernando de Brito, on the other hand, use the fabric of textiles to make networks and connections visible in an abstract-poetic way. Their delicate and at the same time present works are, as it were, architectures made of fabric, to which the built models of reality and virtual worlds (Thomas Schütte, Jan Köchermann, Tilman Walther) respond.
Accompanying something new, something old, something desired are ten film contributions on ten artists, which present the construction or installation of the respective works on site at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in conversation with the curator, thus providing an unusual look behind the scenes.
Participating artists: Jan Albers, Fernando de Brito, Günter Brus, Nina Canell, Robert Cottingham, Stephen Craig, Jose Dávila, Edith Dekyndt, Thomas Demand, Simon Denny, Cordula Ditz, Peter Doig, Simon Fujiwara, Seiichi Furuya, Zvi Goldstein, Anna Grath, Christian Haake, Raymond Hains, Almut Heise, David Hockney, Karl Horst Hödicke, Annika Kahrs, Annette Kelm, Jürgen Klauke, Hans-Jürgen Kleinhammes, Bernd Koberling, Jan Köchermann, Jannis Kounellis, Jens Lausen, Jean Leppien, Almut Linde, Axel Loytved, Paul McCarthy & Mike Kelley, Annette Messager, Gerold Miller, Simon Modersohn, Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman, Cady Noland, Sigmar Polke, Tobias Putrih, Hannah Rath, Daniel Richter, Gerhard Richter, Grit Richter, Thomas Schütte, Richard Serra, Sara Sizer, Andreas Slominski, Paul Spengemann, Pia Stadtbäumer, Paul Thek, Wolfgang Tillmans, Philippe Vandenberg and Tilman Walther.
WHERE?
Hamburger Kunsthalle
Glockengießerwall 5
20095 Hamburg
WHEN?
Friday, 18 February 2022 until Sunday, 18 February 2024
Tue-Sun 10 am – 6 pm
Thu 10 am – 9 pm
