Toter Raum 2006
- Jade Goody's death in the public eye, Welt Online, 23rd March 2009
- Der öffentliche Tod darf auch ein Kunstwerk sein, Welt Online, 23rd March 2009
- There is nothing perverse about a dying person in an art gallery, The Guardian, 26th April 2008
Gregor Schneider. Fotografie und Skulptur, Gallery Sadie Coles HQ, London, Great Britain (Solo)
01.09.2010 - 02.10.2010
GREGOR SCHNEIDER
Fotografie und Skulptur
01 September – 02 October 2010
69 South Audley St London W1
Gregor Schneider's first solo exhibition at a London gallery for thirteen years presents key photography and sculpture from the last decade. Gregor Schneider came to international prominence with Haus u r/Totes Haus u r in Rheydt (now a province of Mönchengladbach), a suburban German house which he has continually reconfigured and duplicated since 1985, in an ongoing project amounting to a total work of art
or gesamtkunstwerk. Using machines, Schneider shifts walls, ceilings and entire rooms, to create an onion-like layering of shifting spaces whose original arrangement is progressively effaced. The artist has built rooms within rooms that precisely replicate one another; and parts of the house have also been doubled on a 1:1 scale and transposed into different locations.
From the start of the project, Schneider has methodically photographed each room of Haus u r, and has also produced a series of photographs of the dark interstices between the rooms.
Since Schneider's earliest museum exhibitions in Museum Haus Lange (1994) and Kunsthalle Bern (1996), he has exhibited photographs as independent artworks, commenting that The photographs and videos are essences, freezing everything.
This exhibition focuses on both his photographs and sculptures as essences
of his art. The photographs relate to projects including CUBE HAMBURG (2007) a monumental black cube reminiscent of Mecca's Kaaba outside the Hamburger Kunsthalle, as part of the museum's Homage to Malevich
exhibition in celebration of that artist's 1915 work Black Square. Schneider's original unrealised proposal for an equivalent cube in St Mark's Square, Venice, is also documented. END (2008), an architectural intervention at the Museum Abteiberg, Möchengladbach, Germany, consisted of a vast black portal receding into a blind passageway.
In a blacked-out room downstairs, visitors will encounter a tableau of spot-lit sculptures of human bodies. These half-concealed, supine figures form an enigmatic group of family members
– Hannelore Reuen, N.Schmidt, the son
– and suggest the aftermath of some violent crime, as well as calling to mind Duchamp's celebrated installation Etant Donnés (1946-66). At first glance, it is unclear whether we have been presented with models or real human bodies, an ambiguity that pervades much of Schneider's work: for instance, N.Schmidt, Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst Bremerhaven (2001; now part of the collection of the Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt) consists of a room in which a pair of legs protrudes morbidly from behind a wall.
Like Schneider's rooms, these sculptures are repetitions of existing constructs
. N.Schmidt is a replica of a character originally presented as a living sculpture
by the artist. HANNELORE REUEN. ALTE HAUSSCHLAMPE (2001) is a mannequin cast from the artist's body, and reincarnates the character of Hannelore Reuen whom he first created at the Foksal Gallery, Warsaw (2000) and afterwards in GARAGE at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2003) – a replica of a garage from his childhood. Also on display are throwaway items deriving from Schneider's WUNDERKAMMER project (1989) and from the passageways and interspaces
of Haus u r/Totes Haus u r. The pitch black environment recalls the blind tunnel of END and Schneider's 2006 work BLACK DEAD END at the Fondazione Morra Greco in Naples, a four hundred metre unlit passageway that engulfed visitors. The darkness arrests our sense of space and volume, working both to disorientate and to induce a sense of isolation. As the critic Anita Shah has revealingly observed of the experience evoked by Schneider's exhibitions: our shadow is part of our own personal unconscious and is made up of repressed emotional processes which are felt to be negative and dark as soon as they penetrate their way into consciousness. Encountering oneself thus means, in the first instance, the inescapable, painful encounter with our own shadow.
Since 2003 Gregor Schneider has moved increasingly outside the private topos of the house – a shift reflected in a number of the photographs on display. His works have focused increasingly on social topics, for example his open-air reconstruction of a street at the Hamburger Kunsthalle (2003), a street in Hamburg notorious for child prostitution and the site of the infamous Al-Quds Mosque, often visited by the assassins of 9-11.
Gregor Schneider (b. 1969, Rheydt) has exhibited internationally since his first exhibition in 1985, at the age of sixteen, at Galerie Kontrast, Mönchengladbach. In 2010, as part of the inauguration of the Treffpunkt Düren at the Leopold-Hoesch-Museum, Düren, Germany, the artist was presented with this award and created a new, expansive and site-specific installation, Marienstraße. In 2008, Gregor Schneider was awarded the prestigious Peill Prize by the Günther Peill Foundation, and in 2001 he was awarded the Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale for Totes Haus u r.
For further information please contact James Cahill on +44 [0] 20 7493 8611 or james@sadiecoles.com
Opening hours Tuesday – Saturday 10 – 6pm
COMING SOON:
La Disparition, New Galerie, Paris, France
11.09.2010 - 30.10.2010
Toter Raum, Tokio 2010, Gallery Wako Works of Art, Tokyo, Japan (Solo)
12.10.2010 -
special vision: deeper than surface, Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V., Berlin, Germany
29.10.2010 - 17.12.2010
neues rheinland. die postironische generation, Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen, Germany, Curator: Stefanie Kreuzer
28.11.2010 - 06.02.2011
Cube Neuchâtel 2011, Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Curator: Arthur de Pury
July 2010
Curator: Arthur de Pury, Director of CAN (Centre d’art Neuchâtel), Switzerland
Mid-July through September 2011, in conjunction with the City of Neuchâtel’s 1000th anniversary
It was in 2003, having teamed up with a Muslim believer, that the idea of a black CUBE first cropped up in Gregor Schneider’s mind, incited by the remark If you want to learn more about space, you should focus on the Kaaba in Mecca.
For a quarter of a century, Schneider has indeed been building spaces—spaces both visible and invisible, spaces that are totally isolated, including some into which no human being will ever again be able to set foot. The most famous of these to date is his Dead House u r of 1985, which won the Golden Lion award at the Venice Biennale in 2001. Taking the Muslim believer up on his word, the two delved into the Kaaba in Mecca. I simply felt a deep, instinctive need to learn more about this unfamiliar space,
Gregor Schneider comments. Kaaba
translates into cubic building
, that is a cube
.
According to Islamic tradition, the building came first and its significance only later. Every cube thus harks back to the Kaaba. The main thing here is that Islam prohibits idolatry—neither the stone nor the Kaaba are to be worshipped. Schneider notes: The Kaaba is one of the world’s most impressive, mysterious and beautiful buildings.
It is a stone-walled sanctuary in Mecca. No one will ever be in a position to displace this sanctuary. Islam historically attributes the creation of the Kaaba to Abraham/Ibrahim. Hence, all three monotheistic religions can identify with the origin of this building in pre-Islamic times. Setting aside all the trademark features associated with the Kaaba in Mecca (the gold lettering, the rain water roof outlet, the white inwardly shifted roof), what remains is an abstract cube.
Gregor Schneider’s inspiration to build a black CUBE stems from both the Kaaba and the Western icon that is Malevich’s Black Square
. Moreover, chronologically speaking, the CUBE was preceded by various sculptural works accomplished by Schneider in relation to the CUBE theme and black space.
The CUBE is a formally abstract, oversize sculpture. It is not a reconstruction of the Kaaba in Mecca
, Schneider points out, and this statement alone already says it all: in its mass, its appearance and its function, the CUBE is a sculpture in its own right. All the rest is pure interpretation. The strength of the form is that it is free. The CUBE is no mirror reflection of the Kaaba, for as such it would look differently
.
Schneider emphasizes that Its association with both the Kaaba in Mecca and the basic shape of modern art’s
.black square
is deliberate
The CUBE was politically censored in both Venice and Berlin. I was shattered to experience political censorship in the heart of Europe, and dismayed at how difficult it was to render public the reasons underlying the work’s banning
. Schneider’s CUBE was successfully set up in Hamburg in 2007. Its realization did away with all the fears and uncertainties surrounding the project; instead, the people of Hamburg and well beyond adopted CUBE HAMBURG as a positive sign. Any ingrained cultural mistrust was forgotten; as a constructed symbol of the convergence of cultures, the CUBE had the power to evoke the historic connections between cultures. As such, it could even serve as a platform for peace.
Describing his own impression of the CUBE, Schneider says, It was a physically overwhelming experience for me to stand before this black, abstract cube. Automatically, I began running around it, as if running along the pathway towards myself. Standing in front of the CUBE was like standing in front of a mirror; looking up at the CUBE, the black wall turned into an expanse of space, and I had the optical impression I could run along that black space. It was the first time anyone told me :
. For the first time, too, a delegation of fourteen imams visited the Hamburg Kunsthalle. A speech Schneider gave at a mosque to an audience of some 2500 Muslims, inviting them to visit the CUBE HAMBURG, won heartfelt applause. Despite the success of CUBE HAMBURG, a number of topnotch exhibition curators, all of whom have assured Schneider of how greatly they appreciate the CUBE, have failed to obtain permission to mount the project in Saragossa, Paris, London or New York. You have built something beautiful
In my opinion
, the artist asserts, the CUBE has long proven its aptness for travel
.
Schneider takes pleasure in the fact that CUBE NEUCHATEL 2011 represents a second place in the world for the CUBE to be visited, and he hopes that in the coming years such a work will at last be welcomed in other cities as well: for instance, in Venice, Berlin, New York and London. Surely, CUBE NEUCHATEL 2011 will serve to demonstrate for all of Switzerland how the population deals with the distrust and misgivings between cultures. Describing the beauty of a cube invisible under its jet-black shrouding, Yasar Erdogan was put in mind of ...when one begins seeing black roses in the night
.
- 14x14x14m including the concrete pedestal. Free-standing.
- Steel construction encased in woodbr
- Jet-black fabric cladding. Fabric: Trevira CS
Information on Gregor Schneider at:
German: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Schneider
English: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gregor_Schneider
www.gregor-schneider.de, ur@gregor-schneider.de
English translation © Margie Mounier, April 2010
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS:
Intensif-Station, K21, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, Germany, Curator: Susanne Meyer-Büser
10.07.2010 - 04.09.2011
ISTANBUL, ATHENS, MARRAKECH, PALERMO, CATANIA, museo d'arte contemporanea della sicilia, Catania, Italy, Curator: Rita Bertoni
10.07.2010 - 28.10.2010
Away and Boil Your Head, Fondazione Puglisi Cosentino, Catania, Italy
09.07.2010 - 07.11.2010
More is more, Center of Contemporary Art Znaki Czasu
, Toruń, Poland, Curator: Joanna Zielińska, Agnieszka Pindera, Daniel Muzyczuk
25.06.2010 - 24.10.2010
En Privat 2. L'opció desamble, Museu d'Art Modern i Contemporani de Palma, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, Curator: Carlos Jover
20.05.2010 - 05.09.2010
With a Probability of Being Seen. Dorothee and Konrad Fischer. Archives of an Attitude, Museu D'art Contemporani De Barcelona, Barcelona, Spain, Curator: Friedrich Meschede
15.05.2010 - 12.10.2010
Wegen Sanierung der Toilettenanlage ist das Kabinett geschlossen, Kabinett für Aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven, Germany
24.01.2010 -
GARAGE 2009, Städtisches Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, Germany (Solo)
13.12.2009 -
DOUBLE, 40 Jahre Kabinett für Aktuelle Kunst, Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
07.03.2009 - autumn 2010
Double - 40 Jahre Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven
Eine Ausstellungsreihe kuratiert von Gregor Schneider und Moritz Wesseler in Zusammenarbeit mit dem MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
7. März – Herbst 2010
Im Jahr 2003 erwarb das MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt am Main mit dem Werk „N. Schmidt“ von Gregor Schneider den Nachbau eines Raumes, der nun zum Ausgangspunkt der Ausstellungsreihe Double wird: das Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven. 1967 von Jürgen Wesseler als nicht-kommerzielle Ausstellungsplattform gegründet, dient es seitdem als Experimentierraum der nationalen und internationalen Avantgarde. Eine große Zahl heute international bekannter Künstler, wie Gerhard Richter, Hanne Darboven, Sigmar Polke, Bernd und Hilla Becher oder On Kawara stellten in dem 33 Quadratmeter kleinen Ladenlokal sehr früh aus oder gaben ihre erste institutionelle Einzelausstellung, unter anderem Andreas Slominski und Isa Genzken. Viele kamen im Lauf ihres Lebens mehrfach an diesen Ort zurück und bezogen sich in ihren Werken immer wieder auf vorangegangene Ausstellungssituationen. Blinky Palermo stellte dort dreimal aus und realisierte 1970/71 seine legendäre Wandmalerei, die sich auf die Fensterfront des Kabinetts bezog.
Gregor Schneider nahm seine eigene performative Ausstellung „N. Schmidt“ aus dem Jahr 2001 zum Anlass, sie zwei Jahre später hier in Frankfurt am Main noch einmal aufzuführen. Dazu installierte er eine nahezu identische Version des Kabinetts dauerhaft im MMK, die nun den Rahmen der Ausstellungsreihe bildet. Bei dieser künstlerischen Strategie der Wiederholung beziehungsweise der Verdopplung seiner eigenen Arbeit handelte es sich bereits um ein Double.
2006/07 kam es anlässlich der großen Andreas Slominski-Werkschau im MMK zu einer direkten Kooperation mit der Bremerhavener Institution. Andreas Slominski und Gregor Schneider präsentierten gemeinsam, sowohl im Bremerhavener als auch in dem Frankfurter Raum simultan, zwei nahezu identische Werke, die sie speziell für die Schau konzipierten.
Die Ausstellungsreihe Double knüpft nun an dieses Konzept an. Neun historische Ausstellungen werden vom MMK in enger Zusammenarbeit mit Gregor Schneider rekonstruiert, der der Reihe auch den Titel gab. Im Rahmen von Double nimmt sein Kunstwerk damit die zusätzliche Funktion eines Ausstellungsraumes an, der zu einem Doppelgänger seiner selbst wird und damit Fragen nach Endgültigkeit und Einzigartigkeit aufwirft. Die Ausstellungen vermitteln einen Eindruck von der legendären und vielschichtigen Tätigkeit des Kabinetts und repräsentieren zugleich einen Querschnitt durch die Sammlung des MMK.
Wir danken der Stiftung Kunstfonds für ihre großzügige Unterstützung.
* * *
Double - Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst, Bremerhaven: Forty Years
An exhibition series curated by Gregor Schneider and Moritz Wesseler in collaboration with the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main
March 7 – Autumn 2010
In 2003, the MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst Frankfurt am Main acquired the work N. Schmidt by Gregor Schneider, the reconstruction of an exhibition space – the Kabinett für aktuelle Kunst in Bremerhaven – which is now the point of departure for the exhibition series Double.
Since its founding in 1967 by Jürgen Wesseler as a non-commercial exhibition platform, the Kabinett has served as an experimental forum for the national and international avant-garde. In what was originally a shop salesroom measuring a mere thirty-three square metres in area, a substantial number of meanwhile internationally renowned artists – among others Gerhard Richter, Hanne Darboven, Sigmar Polke, Bernd and Hilla Becher and On Kawara – presented their work at a very early stage in their careers. Some of them – for example Andreas Slominski and Isa Genzken – even held their first institutional solo exhibition there. Many of the artists returned to the Kabinett over the years to show new works frequently bearing a relationship to a preceding exhibition situation. Blinky Palermo exhibited there three times, and in 1970/71 realized his legendary wall painting based on the Kabinett’s shop front.
Two years after its original presentation in the Bremerhaven Kabinett in 2001, Gregor Schneider repeated his performative exhibition N Schmidt here in Frankfurt am Main. To this end, he permanently installed a nearly identical version of the Kabinett in the MMK which will now form the setting for the exhibition series. This artistic strategy of repetition, in other words the duplication of one’s own work, can already be understood as a double.
In 2006/07, as part of an extensive Andreas Slominski show at the MMK, a cooperation was carried out with the Bremerhaven institution. Andreas Slominski and Gregor Schneider jointly presented two simultaneous and nearly identical works especially conceived for the spaces in Bremerhaven and Frankfurt.
The exhibition series Double is a further exploration of this concept. In close collaboration with Gregor Schneider, who also gave the series its name, the MMK will reconstruct nine historical exhibitions. Within the framework of Double, his artwork will thus assume the additional function of an exhibition space, thus raising questions about the finality and uniqueness of art. The exhibitions will convey an impression of the legendary and multi-faceted activities of the Kabinett, while at the same time representing a cross-section of the MMK collection.
We are grateful to the Stiftung Kunstfonds for its generous support.
KONTAKT / CONTACT
MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst
Domstraße 10
60311 Franfurt / Main
T +49 (0)69.212 304 47
F +49 (0)69.212 378 82
mmk@stadt-frankfurt.de
www.mmk-frankfurt.de
ÖFFNUNGSZEITEN / OPEN
Di, Do bis So 10-18 Uhr
Mi 10-20 Uhr
Mo geschlossen