Albert Serra: The Three Little Pigs / Peter Ernst Eiffe & Friends

The Kunstverein in Hamburg is delighted to present the exhibition Albert Serra: The Three Little Pigs and the group exhibition Peter Ernst Eiffe & Friends. We cordially invite you to our opening on July 18, 7pm or follow the opening on our social media channels.

Albert Serra: The Three Little Pigs
The Kunstverein in Hamburg presents the film The Three Little Pigs (2012) by filmmaker Albert Serra, developed for documenta (13), as a monumental installation. This shows a portrait of Germany and an illustrated reflection on the shaping of history and our perception of it. To this end, the film follows the stories of three main characters from German cultural history: Goethe, Hitler, and Fassbinder. The Three Little Pigs is as complex and challenging as the question of what constitutes an understanding of history today—and in Germany in particular. Its connection between form and content make it clear that there is work to be done for an enlightened image of history, and the attempt to undertake the difficult positioning of a so -called “cultural nation” in the present means one thing above all: a constant task, a continual coming to terms with the past in the present.

In Serra’s work, this takes place on different levels: first, on the artistic level of his film experiment; secondly, at the level of content with the (self­)narratives of the three protagonists, and their reception as key symbolic figures in central phases of the modern self-­image of the Germans—Weimar Classicism and the Enlightenment with Goethe; the fantasies of omnipotence and crimes against humanity in the Second World War; and the critical reappraisal of history in the Federal Republic of Germany, which is not without its contradictions.

The exhibition is kindly supported by the Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Hamburg, the Institut Ramon Llull and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg.

Curated by Bettina Steinbrügge.

Peter Ernst Eiffe & Friends
Artists: Yuji Agematsu, Christian Bau, K.P. Brehmer, Peter Ernst Eiffe, Jef Geys, iLL, Heino Jaeger, Jacqueline de Jong, Sigmar Polke, Recht auf Stadt und Alles Allen, Chris Reinecke, Annette Wehrmann, Laura Ziegler

Peter Ernst Eiffe became famous during the protests of May 1968 in Hamburg for the absurdist slogans that he wrote with a felt-tip pen on everything from traffic signs to mailboxes, subway walls to department store price tags. These activities aimed to expose what he saw to be the absurdity of daily life in post-war capitalist West Germany, and although an outsider to the formal art system, his singular and noticeably avant-garde activities were akin to many artistic and political strategies in post-war Europe.

The group exhibition shows documentation of Eiffe’s absurdist slogans and agit-prop activities in context with historic artistic positions of his time, while showing how the themes of this story are reflected in more recent artistic positions and forms of political protest today. Touching on the relationship between the urban subject and public space; the demand for art to take a position in public political life; the authority and function of the artist’s signature; and the use of satire, irony, and humor as a mode of critique.

The exhibition is kindly supported by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, the Mara & Holger Cassens Foundation, the Kursbuch Kulturstiftung, the Mondriaan Fonds and the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands

Curated by Nicholas Tammens.