HOMMAGE A MUSEUM ABTEIBERG – Sensational! The 2022 Annual Gifts

Museumsverein Abteiberg (Museum Association Abteiberg) landed a truly sensational coup! At the occasion of the triple anniversary of 120 years Museumsverein/50 years annual gifts/40 years Museum Abteiberg 66(!) artists followed the Association's unusual invitation to contribute to the creation of a HOMMAGE A MUSEUM ABTEIBERG, amongst them Andrea Bowers, Alexandra Bircken, Imi Knoebel, Thomas Rentmeister, Giuseppe Penone, Katharina Sieverding, Ulrich Rückriem, Monica Bonvicini, Jonathan Meese and Joanne Greenbaum. Thus sensational unique works of unbelievable diversity were created that are connected by only one common factor: A box measuring 28,0 x 33,5 x 2,5 cm – the same as the Grünen Schachtel by Marcel Duchamp from 1934 in the museum's collection. Why a box? Where did the idea come from? How are the artworks presented? Under which conditions is the acquisition at a flat rate of 1.200 Euros possible? You can find all the answers here. Because, as a member of the advisory board I have been involved from the start ,)
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INSTANT SOLUTIONS by Xenia Lesniewski – Between Concept Store, funeral parlour and travel agency

Bad-Gastein. Is that an urn in the window and a coffin at the back of the shop? Nonsense, it’s probably simply a vase and a trunk. After all, an exhibition is about to be opened within the context of the sommer.frische.kust art festival. While I am still shaking my head at my own thoughts, I pause, in a mixture of feeling dumbfounded and astonished, when I hear the opening speech: “Xenia Lesniewski created a room installation here that moves between a concept store, funeral parlour and travel agency […].” Is that possible? – My past just flitted through my mind at high speed and links up with the here and now. For those, who didn’t know this yet: Before I got involved in art, I was an undertaker….
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The toxic building – How Jan Glisman turned the deconstruction of the Deutsche Welle towers into a multimedia art project

All Jan Glisman really wanted to do was to "just" document a spectacular event in Cologne: The demolition of all three parts of the 138-metre-high Deutsche Welle broadcasting tower, the third-highest building in the city. The funding had been approved, the plans worked out, but then - everything turned out quite differently. The risk to the broadcasting operations of Deutschlandfunk, which is connected by a common foundation slab, and the spread of asbestos fibres feared by residents in the neighbourhood had prevented the blasting. “Blasting” therefore became "deconstruction". A process that was to extend over a total of five years and challenged Glisman to document precisely that period. Huge numbers of photos, video material and drawings were initially created without any concrete idea of what was to happen with them ...

Wilko Austermann – Focus on the curator, Episode 3 of the series “Behind the Arts”

Anybody travelling in the Rhineland and visiting the Upcoming artists exhibitions, is very likely to have come across his name. Whether the Antichambre in the Hotel Friends in Düsseldorf, Malkastenpark, MMIII Kunstverein Mönchengladbach, Quartier am Hafen Köln or Krefeld Kunstverein, you will find: Curated by Wilko Austermann. What exactly does a curator do? Or, to put it more accurately: How does Wilko Austermann personally define his responsibilities? We meet at MMIII Kunstverein Mönchengladbach, where he uses the example of Yoana Tuzharova's Plasma soil exhibition, that he conceptualised, to talk about his main ideas. It becomes immediately obvious, that here we have a classic case of being able to differentiate between profession and vocation.
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FACES OF EUROPE by Carsten Sander –  Interactive behind the scenes

Philipp Humm – Faust as Gesamtkunstwerk of the 21st century?

London, film premiere of The Last Faust. Both the trailer and even just a brief look at Philipp Humm's Gesamtkunstwerk*, his total work of art (graphics, photography, oil painting and sculpture) which now comprises one hundred and fifty works, astonished me beyond belief. Yet what I see today in the cinema hall and will see in his studio tomorrow is absolutely beyond my expectations. A fascinating mix of surreal, bizarre, comical yet also oppressively visionary images draws me directly into a cinematic future of the world. A world, where artificial intelligence has taken control over planet Earth ...
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A 4 Foundation – An innovative art lab

Cape Town. There are academies, galleries, museums, art exhibitions, festivals ... and now also a laboratory to experiment with art. At the initiative of the collector Wendy Fisher and her curator Josh Ginsburg, an innovative institute, the A4 Foundation, came into being in 2017, right in the middle of Cape Town. Here, space – literally and figuratively - was created for the passionate experimentation with art, new forms of art funding and communication of art and, particularly, for trying things out. Today, in our conversation with Josh Ginsburg, we hear some more about it ...

Mischa Kuball – Irritation as a concept

Berlin, Jewish Museum. I have an appointment with Mischa Kuball in the Libeskind building, one of THE contemporary architectural icons of Berlin. His light and sound installation res·o·nant, specially created for this location, remarkably illustrates the working method of this conceptual artist, who has been presenting his artistic statements in public and institutional spaces since 1977.