Drama Queens

With works by Joseph Beuys, Heinz Breloh, Anthony Caro, Roberto Crippa, Pia Fries, Thomas Grünfeld, Ernst Hermanns, Alexej von Jawlensky, Erich Lanz, Sherrie Levine, Henri Matisse, Gerhard Merz, Arnold Odermatt, Tony Oursler, Pablo Picasso, David Rabinowitch, Fiona Rae, Arnulf Rainer, Robert Rauschenberg, Gerhard Richter, David Reed, Oskar Schlemmer, Tim Scott, Bernard Schultze, Mary Vieira, Wolf Vostell, Andy Warhol as well as Lothar Götz, Christian Jendreiko, Michael Sailstorfer, Roland Schappert, and Heike Weber

Each and every artwork performs a drama of its very own. It posits claims and competes with other formidable perspectives on reality. It occupies space, or else withdraws politely. Some works want to be placed on a plinth, while others demand darkened surrounding so as to protect their complexion from the light. Works appear preferably in groups, but also as individual performers. In exhibitions they enter into relationships with one another.

The artworks that have been acquired for the collection of Museum Morsbroich in the course of the decades were always selected with a view to a particular issue, namely, whether they would cut a dash in the palace’s Baroque interior. Like in a film for which the settings have already been decided on and so now only the casting of the protagonists remains to be done, the presentation framework is given, but it still offers sufficient scope for artfully staged appearances.

The “Drama Queens” exhibition explores different possibilities as to how the experience of the art and the self might be heightened in a dialogue between work and viewer, artist and curator. With this exhibition, Museum Morsbroich aims to respond actively to the demands of the works. Which sounds drive the rhythm in the colour tones of individual paintings? What furniture do the works by David Reed require so as to feel really at home? How can the principle of good neighbourliness be implemented in the context of the exhibition? Who gets on with whom?

Museum Morsbroich is staging the collection as a drama on its late-Baroque stage and in close collaboration with the artists. By using the means of film and theatre, the exhibition sees itself as an experimental stage on which various forms of art presentation and perception can be played out. The staging of the collection is an act that involves changing role allocations—for the artists, the curators and the exhibition visitors.

Curators of the exhibition are Markus Heinzelmann, Fritz Emslander, and Stefanie Kreuzer.

Along with Drama Queens, we are showing on the Graphics Floor:

Peter Radelfinger. Aah … Aha !
October 7, 2016–April 23, 2017

Drama Queens is made possible by