Anne Imhof is the artistic voice of a young generation. This autumn, Imhof will be able to design the 1100 square metre basement hall of the Stedelijk entirely according to her ideas. She will transform it into a labyrinthine overall installation through art, architecture, light and a specially created soundtrack. This is Imhof’s first solo exhibition in the Netherlands.
Image above: Installation view Anne Imhof Youth, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, co-presented with Hartwig Art Foundation © Anne Imhof, Courtesy the artist, Galerie Buchholz and Sprüth Magers Photo: Peter Tijhuis
The Darker Side
To appeal to our senses, Imhof uses a polyphony of disciplines. She combines painting, installations, choreography and music. Imhof often draws inspiration from duality, from Greek mythology to nihilism to underground culture. She engages with the dynamics of power by addressing emotions such as hyper-individualism and loneliness, desire and greed, satiation and the fear of missing out. By translating these emotional states into her artworks, Imhof captures fleeting moments rather than a single moment in time. She will construct a dystopian underworld in the Stedelijk in the form of a dizzying labyrinth of school lockers that evoke a sense of anxiety and body dysmorphia. In the narrow corridors, an avatar stares, barriers confuse, and the changing light plays with our orientation.
The Garage Museum of Contemporary Art in Moscow was to be the first exhibition venue, curated by Beatrix Ruf (Director, Hartwig Art Foundation) in collaboration with Katya Inozemtseva (Chief Curator, Garage Museum). In response to the Russian war in Ukraine, the Garage Museum has suspended its exhibition programme with immediate effect. The preparations for Moscow are now the reference for the show in Amsterdam, curated by Vincent van Velsen (Curator, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam) in close collaboration with Rein Wolfs (Director, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam). A new video work by Anne Imhof, created in Moscow, will premiere at the Stedelijk.
About Anne Imhof
Anne Imhof (Giesen, 1978) studied at the Städelschule in Frankfurt. In 2015, she was awarded the National Gallery Prize, which led to a solo exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin. In 2017, Imhof won the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for her work Faust. Her subsequent exhibitions at the Tate Modern and the Palais de Tokyo were enthusiastically received by the media and the public alike.
WHEN?
Exhibition dates: Saturday 1. October 2022 until Sunday, 29. January 2023
WHERE?
Stedelijk Museum
Amsterdam
