On the occasion of the exhibition WÜSTE – DSCHUNGEL / Omega UND Tunnel by Thomas Scheibitz, a discussion with Dorothea Schöne, Durs Grünbein, Thomas Oberender and Thomas Scheibitz will take place on Friday, December 13, 2024, moderated by Beate Söntgen.
Image above: Thomas Scheibitz, WÜSTE – DSCHUNGEL / Omega UND Tunnel, installation view, Sprüth Magers, Berlin, through January 11, 2025. Photo: Ingo Kniest.
On November 9th, the 35th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall is marked. In the context of Thomas Scheibitz’s current solo exhibition, Dorothea Schöne, Durs Grünbein, Thomas Oberender, and Thomas Scheibitz will discuss the forms that emerge from knowledge and ignorance of iconographies and content. They will explore how the readability of images and their functions in different visual systems shape the perception and understanding of history. Central to the discussion is how images function as models in their historical context and their significance in today’s engagement with the past. The artist’s publication accompanying the exhibition will be available for viewing.
Dorothea Schöne has been Artistic Director of Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin, since 2014. She studied art history, political science, sociology and philosophy in Leipzig and was a Fulbright scholar at the University of California, Riverside in 2005/06. From 2006-09 she was curatorial assistant for the exhibition Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures at LACMA. From 2010-14 she worked as a freelance curator and art critic and completed her PhD on post-war modernism in Berlin in 2015. She has been awarded several scholarships for her research. In 2024 she was Researcher in Residence in Norway and Advisory Scholar in Puebla, Mexico.
Durs Grünbein (*1966, Dresden) is one of the most important German poets and essayists. After reunification, he traveled through Europe, Southeast Asia and the USA and was a guest of the German Department at NYU and the Villa Aurora in Los Angeles. He has received numerous prizes for his work, including the Georg Büchner Prize, the Friedrich Nietzsche Prize, the Friedrich Hölderlin Prize, the Polish Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award and the Premio Internazionale NordSud of the Fondazione Pescarabruzzo. His books have been translated into several languages. The Comet was published by Suhrkamp Verlag in 2024.
Thomas Oberender (*1966, Jena) completed his doctorate at Humboldt University on Botho Strauß and later worked for the Salzburg and Berlin Festivals. He initiated the multi-year Immersion program series there in 2016 and transformed the West Berlin Festspielhaus into a palace of counter-narratives in the 30th year of the fall of the Berlin Wall. As an author and curator, Oberender is a central figure in the German cultural landscape, breaking new ground in exhibition and festival organization with projects such as Down to Earth at the Gropius Bau and The Sun Machine Is Coming Down at Berlin’s ICC. He initiated the citizens’ panel at the Dresden Bilderstreit and most recently published the books Occupy History. Gespräche im Palast der Republik 13 Jahre nach seinem Verschwinden and Empowerment Ost. How we grow together.
Thomas Scheibitz (*1968, Radeberg) lives and works in Berlin. He is one of the most important German painters and sculptors of his generation. Since the 1990s, he has been developing conceptual art that renegotiates figuration and abstraction and takes up art historical references. His work explores the limits and potential of his medium and questions the contemporary relevance of the antagonism between these two poles. He has also been active as a curator since 2003 and has held a professorship for painting and sculpture at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf since 2018.
Moderator: Beate Söntgen is Professor of Art History at Leuphana University Lüneburg. She previously taught at the Ruhr University Bochum and at the University of Basel. She is head of the graduate program Cultures of Critique and the research project Artistic Life Form as Intervention, was a critic at the FAZ for 20 years and is a member of the advisory board of Texte zu Kunst. Her research focuses on modern and contemporary art and art criticism. Her most recent book publications are Why Art Criticism? (ed. with Julia Voss, Hatje Cantz 2022) and Judgement Practices in the Artistic Field (ed. with Elisabeth Heymer et al., Edition Metzel 2023).
Due to limited capacity, admission is only possible after successful prior registration.
WHEN?
Friday, December 13, 2024.
6:30 pm: Admission
7 pm: Talk (in German)
WHERE?
Sprüth Magers
Oranienburger Straße 18
10178 Berlin
