The inaugural exhibition Shared Spaces opens on 18 October 2024 at Kunsthalle Barmen, moving from the approximately 400 m2 of exhibition space on the first floor to the forecourt. In times of a harsh and chilly social climate, the artistic works open up spaces: for social practices and empowerment, for irritation and reflection.
Image above: Kunsthalle Barmen, photo: Vivian Junker, 2023
The artistic works include neon and light installations, videos, sound works and performances. The forecourt will be enlivened by a sauna with an integrated bar and a fountain as a social meeting point. For the opening, an artistic banquet will be set up with neighbours for all opening guests. The exhibition moves along the field of tension between social cohesion and the feeling of being thrown back on oneself; between identity formation, speechlessness and the questioning of social norms and rituals. It is an invitation to explore the strengths of communities and to encounter each other anew. The invited artists include Sonja Alhäuser, Baltic Raw, Monica Bonvicini, Paul Budniewski, Isaac Chong Wai, Antje Engelmann, Ivana Franke, Heiner Franzen, Alfredo Jaar, Anike Joyce Sadiq, Rita McBride, Nik Nowak and Raul Walch.
“I am delighted to be reinventing the Kunsthalle Barmen in close collaboration with Prof Katja Pfeiffer and our team. What role institutions play in our society today, how we can reach our diverse neighbourhood and establish an inspiring place of physical exchange are the questions at the forefront. I can’t wait to explore this experimentally and with artistic means!”
-Guest Professor Isabelle Meiffert, Artistic Director
The University of Wuppertal is revitalising the former Hall of Fame for three years with contemporary art and testing contemporary mediation offers. The aim is to create an inspiring and discursive place of exchange and shared experiences for a diverse audience.
The Kunsthalle Barmen has a dual leadership team: Prof. Katja Pfeiffer is taking over the management of the Bergische Universität Wuppertal with its core task of education, while guest professor Isabelle Meiffert will be the artistic director. Professors Katharina Maderthaner and Anne-Marie Neser as well as artistic assistants Sebastian Bartel and Christoph Westermeier will strengthen the team.
About the Kunsthalle Barmen
The Kunsthalle Barmen is in the neo-Renaissance style and was built as a “hall of fame” in honour of Kaiser Wilhelm I and Kaiser Friedrich III by the then Barmer Kunstverein and opened in 1900 by Kaiser Wilhelm II. By 1913, the museum was already regarded as a stronghold of Expressionism. At the end of the 1920s, the association owned one of the most important and respected collections of modern art, which was decimated by fire, theft and confiscation during the Third Reich. Reconstruction of the building, which had been completely destroyed during the war in 1943, began in 1954. Today, as the “Haus der Jugend” (House of Youth), it houses the municipal youth welfare centre of the same name with a theatre hall and music club as well as the Barmen district library.
The Kunsthalle Barmen is run by the University of Wuppertal. Under the motto “Understanding, Communicating, Designing”, it is recognised both regionally and internationally. This also characterises the Faculty of Design and Art in its three departments of Industrial Design, Art, Media Design and Interior Design. A special feature of the Kunsthalle Barmen is the combination of exhibition curation and mediation. One focus is on innovative and comprehensive mediation approaches by the university.
The Kunsthalle Barmen LAB, a unique laboratory for cultural education, brings together the city’s population, local residents and university students in various formats and programmes. Around 60 students are already involved in five seminars. They are developing a flexible exhibition architecture, mobile laboratory equipment and a guidance system for the exhibitions. They are also significantly involved in the conception, organisation and implementation of the educational programmes.
“Getting as many people as possible excited about looking at pictures and objects is one of my most important concerns. As an art and design faculty within such a large faculty network as the University of Wuppertal, it is part of our task to convey an interest in design to people who are actually researching completely different things. With our involvement in the Kunsthalle Barmen, we want to extend this communication to urban society and make it accessible to an audience that, if we have our way, cannot be diverse enough.”
-Prof. Katja Pfeiffer, initiator and director of the Kunsthalle Barmen Lab
With its reactivation, the Kunsthalle Barmen is to become a counterpart to the classically oriented Von der Heydt Museum and a meaningful addition to both the Waldfrieden Sculpture Park and the Pina Bausch Centre.
About Isabelle Meiffert
Visiting professor Isabelle Meiffert (*1983) studied cultural studies, art history and cultural management and has been working as a freelance curator in Germany and abroad since 2010. Her focus is on site-specific and context-generated exhibitions, which she realises in independent and institutional contexts and often in public spaces. She is interested in experimenting with different artistic media and formats in order to have an impact on society. Meiffert has realised exhibitions and projects in, for and with the nGbK, Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) Tasmania, Uferhallen, Halle am Berghain, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin, C/O Berlin, n.b.k., Berlinische Galerie, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Kunsthaus Erfurt and Bäderverein Baden (CH), among others. From 2019 to 2023, she conceived and organised two editions of Kunst im Untergrund, an international competition for art in public space, as a collective at the nGbK. Since the summer semester of 2024, Isabelle Meiffert has held the eighth “Dr Jörg Mittelsten Scheid Guest Professorship” at the Faculty of Design and Art at the University of Wuppertal, where she is responsible for the artistic direction of the Kunsthalle Barmen.
About Isabelle Meiffert
Visiting professor Isabelle Meiffert (*1983) studied cultural studies, art history and cultural management and has been working as a freelance curator in Germany and abroad since 2010. Her focus is on site-specific and context-generated exhibitions, which she realises in independent and institutional contexts and often in public spaces. She is interested in experimenting with different artistic media and formats in order to have an impact on society. Meiffert has realised exhibitions and projects in, for and with the nGbK, Museum of Old and New Art (Mona) Tasmania, Uferhallen, Halle am Berghain, Alte Nationalgalerie Berlin, C/O Berlin, n.b.k., Berlinische Galerie, KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Kunsthaus Erfurt and Bäderverein Baden (CH), among others. From 2019 to 2023, she conceived and organised two editions of Kunst im Untergrund, an international competition for art in public space, as a collective at the nGbK. Since the summer semester of 2024, Isabelle Meiffert has held the eighth “Dr Jörg Mittelsten Scheid Guest Professorship” at the Faculty of Design and Art at the University of Wuppertal, where she is responsible for the artistic direction of the Kunsthalle Barmen.
WHEN?
Opening: Friday, 18 October 2024
Exhibition dates: Saturday 19 October 2024 to Saturday, 11 January 2025
Opening hours: Sunday to Thursday
WHERE?
Barmen Art Gallery
Geschwister-Scholl-Platz 4-6
42269 Wuppertal
COST?
Admission: free
