Henrike Naumann: 2000 – Humankind. Nature. Twipsy.

Henrike Naumann’s (b. 1984) artistic practice takes “German-German unification” and its consequences as its starting point. What happened after 1989, and how has identity been shaped since then?

Using furniture which sometimes may express more than many words, Naumann creates sets of the German post-unification era with all its trashy objects and “post-post-modernist” wall units made of shiny surfaces rather than solid materials. Within these sets, the artist displays films she has made since completing her scenography studies (Potsdam 2012) showing young adults who became radicalized with right-wing attitudes in these very surroundings, so to speak—like the triad of far-right German neo-Nazi terrorists who conspired in Naumann’s hometown of Zwickau.

Naumann stumbled upon the figure of Birgit Breuel and consequently Expo 2000—the international world’s fair in which Germany as a whole was presented for the first time in the context of its theme “Humankind, Nature, Technology”—while searching for images of the “Treuhand-Abwicklung” [Treuhand agency phase-out] that involved the privatizing of industry in the former East German states. Her research led her to the EXPOSEEUM, an association which brings together countless leftover relics from the World Expo in Hanover including guest gifts, pavilion remains, and thousands of tapes of video documenting all the events that visitors more or less remember.

The exhibition at Kunstverein Hannover is the first one to bring together two long lines of research and—with an extensive new staging of the EXPOSEEUM collection at the Kunstverein—one which blends two institutions into a ”social sculpture.”

This exhibition has been developed cooperatively ever since the first institutional exhibition of Henrike Naumann’s work at Museum Abteiberg in Mönchengladbach (spring 2018), where the first artefacts from the EXPOSEEUM were already on display. The artist’s work has also seen a rapid spike in interest of late, generating a great deal of discussion in art-related press and feuilletons. She has participated in numerous exhibitions even since the Mönchengladbach museum exhibition, including the Busan Biennial in South Korea, MMK Frankfurt, Urbane Künste Ruhr (Urban Arts Ruhr), and—also deliberately right before the state elections in Saxony—several exhibitions in Chemnitz at Open Space, a venue located directly behind the Karl Marx bust, and at the Museum der Bildenden Künste, Leipzig. A solo exhibition will also be held at Belvedere 21 in Vienna this fall along with another group show at Haus der Kunst, Munich, and at Kunsthalle Düsseldorf.

The Kunstverein is holding a symposium around issues of Henrike Naumanns exhibition on Saturday, August 17, 2019 at 2pm on the Expo grounds in Hannover to reflect on Henrike Naumann’s ideas, with a look at the Expo and Treuhand agency from a current perspective. Guests will include Henrike Naumann, Dr. Sabine Schormann (formerly working as Exhibition Director for “Planet of Visions” and “The 21st Century” at the EXPO 2000 theme park in Hanover and currently Director General documenta and Museum Fridericianum gGmbH, Kassel), contemporary historian Dr. Marcus Böick (author of Die Treuhand: Idee – Praxis – Erfahrung 1990–1994 [The Treuhand Agency: Idea – Practice – Experience 1990–1994], 2018, and Professor of Contemporary History, Ruhr University Bochum) and Jörg Bergstedt (independent eco warrior and publicist). The symposium is conceived by Henrike Naumann along with Clemens Villinger (contemporary historian, Berlin) who will moderate the afternoon.

Curated by Kathleen Rahn (Director Kunstverein Hannover)

Press: Olga Isaeva (contact here)

With the kind support of: Ministry of Science and Culture of the State of Lower Saxony, Stiftung Kunstfonds, Karin und Uwe Hollweg Stiftung; Cultural education program is additionally supported by Klosterkammer Hannover, Sparkasse Hannover, VGH Stiftung; The Kunstverein is permanently supported by the Culture Office of the Landeshauptstadt Hannover.

Thanks to the generous collaboration with the EXPOSEEUM in Hannover.