Passages. Art in Public Space Hamburg since 1981
Exhibition: 11 April–25 May 2015
Kunsthaus Hamburg
Klosterwall 15
20095 Hamburg
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 11am–6pm
It might be possible the world itself is without any meaning*
Installations: June–July 2015
Opening with performances and actions:
30–31 May
City of Hamburg
Stadtkuratorin Hamburg
Stadtkuratorin Hamburg (Curating public art of the city of Hamburg) is a project initiated by the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg and a reorientation of the program Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Hamburg (Art in public space Hamburg). Sophie Goltz serves as Artistic Director of Stadtkuratorin Hamburg in 2014 and 2015.
Following the international symposium “Europe, the City Is Burning” (May 2014), the opening of the “Silent University Hamburg,” initiated by Ahmet Öğüt (since October 2014), and the launch of the “Stadtgespräche: Metropolitane Perspektiven” series (since December 2014), the exhibition Passages: Art in Public Space Hamburg since 1981 at the Kunsthaus Hamburg represents another focus within the Stadtkuratorin Hamburg program. With “It Might Be Possible the World Itself Is Without Meaning*” the urban art program of 2015 will start.
Passages: Art in Public Space Hamburg since 1981
The Passages exhibition looks at the topicality and history of urban art. In the mirror of social history, a selection of international art projects from thirty-five years of the Kunst im öffentlichen Raum Hamburg (Art in public space Hamburg) is presented.
With its close connection to the cultural and social space, Hamburg’s grant program also reflects the epochal transformation of art in public spaces since 1981. To dare to produce more art was a Social Democratic project, harnessed between cultural reform and responsibility. With the political change of 1989 and the consequences of neoliberal globalization, the conditions of democratic art policy have transformed fundamentally. Global competition, crises, and migration are changing the political system of the European city. The very concept of the public sphere is becoming ambiguous; its promise of social recognition and justice is no longer credible. In the face of the rapid transformation of cities worldwide and the associated social consequences, art here is trying to provide critical impetus. Despite artists’ enduring eagerness to experiment and new role models, they find themselves confronted once again with expectations to be conventional and representative. Under those conditions, the exhibition offers a look backward into the future.
With contributions by Margit Czenki, Antje Feger / Benjamin Stumpf, Brigitta Kuster / Angela Melitopoulos / Vassilis S. Tsianos, Sylvi Kretzschmar, Christian Philipp Müller, Proll Positions, Christoph Schäfer, Thomas Schütte, Schwabinggrad Ballett, WCW Gallery (Oliver Bulas / Björn Beneditz / Martin Blumenthal), Lawrence Weiner, Susanne M. Winterling, and archival materials (drawings, models, photographs, documents) of more than hundred artists
Curated by Sophie Goltz, Felix Fiedler
It Might Be Possible the World Itself Is Without Meaning*
Working with international artists, the summer program will examine the question of a contemporary world society. Interventions, performances, and actions will take place in prominent locations in Hamburg, studying the specifics of current and historical global entanglements and sounding out a decolonial option: as a political-aesthetic question, as a cultural form of knowledge, and as fiction. They are forms of thinking and acting beyond the modern logic of economics and the state, toward “boundary thinking.” The experiences of migration and transculturalism become a leitmotif for the question: Where/how can art be socially effective in public spaces today? The idea of a world (as complete whole) is radically undermined in favor of many worlds within a planetary reality.
With new commissions by Georges Adéagbo (in cooperation with the curator Stephan Köhler, Kulturforum Süd-Nord e.V.), Ricardo Basbaum, Cevdet Erek, Etcetera, Omer Krieger, Michaela Melián, Ingo Niermann, Dan Perjovschi, Johannes Paul Raether, Juan Pablo Renzi, Martha Rosler / Miguel Roblés-Duran, Horacio Zabala, et al.
Mobile architecture with art students from Hochschule für bildende Künste Hamburg, Aalto University Helsinki, Kunstuniversität Linz
The program will be continued with a performance festival, screenings, and an open campus in fall 2015. Please contact Lisa Britzger, presse [at] stadtkuratorin-hamburg.de, for further information and detailed program, or visit www.stadtkuratorin-hamburg.de.
