Olaf Metzel
Gegenwartsgesellschaft (Contemporary Society)
Until January 5, 2014
HOOSEN
Es muss so sein (It has to be this way)
Until January 5, 2014
Der Kunstverein, since 1817.
Klosterwall 23
20095 Hamburg
In a major general exhibition, Kunstverein Hamburg is to pay tribute to three decades of artistic production by Olaf Metzel (born in 1952, lives in Munich). Titled Contemporary Society, the show brings visitors face to face with a collection of carefully selected pieces, which examine German themes and various aspects of German history. Metzel himself describes his works as “three-dimensional images, tenses.” He succeeds in giving shape to time, while never losing sight of the historical context. “We are forgetting where we are and who we were. Metzel’s works open our eyes to today’s world and awaken a need to communally view, experience and read in the present day all that has been forgotten or suppressed of this land and its history,” reads Felix Ensslin’s entry in the exhibition catalog. Thus seen, the “three-dimensional tense” is the present itself and Metzel is, in the most literal sense of the word, a contemporary artist, despite his preoccupation with the more negative aspects of present-day society. He could be aptly described as an “anti-contemporary artist,” someone who rubs salt into the open wounds of society, such as racism, terrorism, state violence, destructive recreational habits and the role that mass media plays in society. The exhibition at the Kunstverein is for this reason not a retrospective, but rather an installative route through German themes and preoccupations, which today remain as relevant as ever. The exhibition presents early works like Roter Beton (1981), Wurfeisen und Zwille (Entwurf Hafenstraße,1990/91) or Im Grünen (1992) as well as new works like NSU (2013). The most recent work, Sozialtapete, is however, utterly unique to its place of installation and has in fact been incorporated into the wall itself. After the exhibition ends, it will be removed and no longer exist in the same form.
On the ground floor, the Kunstverein Hamburg is hosting the first institutional solo exhibition of Berlin-based artist Christian Hans Albert Hoosen (born 1981). His drawings, paintings and collages conjure up countless stories and a huge variety of associations. Full of grandiose metaphor, imagery, colour symbolism and sometimes shocking moments, they call to mind expressionist poetry. They provide an open forum for our thoughts and shared experiences—thus functioning as a kind of collective memory and as a mine of history and culture. It is precisely in their universality that the mysterious accuracy of these works lies. The garish colours and multiple layers of hurriedly sketched motifs and forms create a chaotic visual flurry, the meaning of which is often only revealed after careful study. HOOSEN’s works are full of eccentric characters, wondrous beings, grimacing faces and comic-like figures, and these elements all mingle and intertwine to create wild, self-contained universes. His pieces present an eclectic mix of private worlds and seemingly unremarkable moments from everyday life. The images are a maelstrom of metaphors that hold social conventions up to view and thus open them up for discussion.
