Marcel Odenbach
Caught while escaping
Plans 1975-1983. Video installations. New drawings
6 April – 8 June 2008
Am Wall 207
D – 28195 Bremen
T +49 (0)421 329 08-0
F +49 (0)421 329 08-47
office [at] kunsthalle-bremen.de
For ten years now, the Kunsthalle Bremen has been devoting major exhibitions with catalogues to the most influential artists of video art, like Nam June Paik or Peter Campus, but also to successful younger artists such as Björn Melhus, Diana Thater or Yves Netzhammer.
This year, we will be focusing on one of the most significant, internationally productive and – for several decades – successful German artists: Marcel Odenbach.
The exhibition and the catalogue concentrate on his “Plans” from 1975 – 1983; these are fascinating collage sheets with texts and drawings relating to the artist’s performances and installations employing video. The “Plans” will be exhibited and published in their entirety for the first time, whether they were realised or remained concepts. One highlight in this context is the 22-metre-long collage “Freeing myself from my thoughts”, which combines everyday and personal observations made by the 22-year-old artist with pieces torn from newspapers, and drawings. During a performance in 1976, Marcel Odenbach tore up this strip after he had wrapped himself in it. The collage will be reassembled for the first time for our exhibition, and the full work is reproduced in the catalogue.
At the centre of this exhibition, we are showing one of Odenbach’s main works, “Oh, how good that no-one knows” dating from 1999. In this large-format, four-part projection, historical recordings (“found footage”) from German history are combined with the artist’s own new images and then interwoven with his own and cited film images showing past and contemporary Africa. Personal responsibility, emotional proximity and the presence of history are united on four large-format picture surfaces within a single room, and the viewer stands at their centre. Three more prize-winning video tapes illustrate the links between Odenbach’s paper “Plans” and the realised works and offer a vivid insight into the artist’s œuvre. Our survey is completed by four new large-format works on paper.
The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue:
Marcel Odenbach – “Caught on the Point of Escape”
Plans 1975-1983. Video installations. New drawings
With texts by Wulf Herzogenrath, Angela Breidbach and Sabine Maria Schmidt
as well as over 70 coloured images on 180 pages
german/english
Verlag Walther König
An exhibition by the Förderkreis für Gegenwartskunst in the Kunstverein Bremen.
The exhibition is kindly supported by Bremer Landesbank.
Opening Hours
Wednesday to Sunday
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
Tuesday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m.
Monday closed
Easter Sunday and Easter Monday
1 May/Ascension Day, Whit Monday and Whit Sunday
10 a.m. – 5 p.m.
