Intermedians
17 May - 24 Oct 2012
INTERMEDIANS
GABI DZIUBA ENCOUNTERS JONATHAN JOHNSON
May 17 - May 30, 2012
ARTHUR MORASS CERAMICS
June 14 - June 27, 2012
STEFAN STRUMBEL – HEIMAT (HOMELAND)
September 27 - October 24, 2012
Starting in April 2012, the Kunstverein Hamburg will launch a monthly series of exhibitions presenting a variety of different artistic positions and their aesthetic practice, which can be regarded as complementary to the annual programme. All the presentations are in effect interpolations, enhancing the regular exhibition programme either formally or in content. The effect of the additions will be to expand the concept of the annual programme to take in a range of objects and presentation types delivered in different media, thus developing further communicative potential. Fashion, jewellery and ceramics, as "Intermedians", introduce positions featuring both a purely artisan aspect and also thematic relevance to the successive exhibitions.
The Kunstverein can look back on numerous earlier occasions on which an exhibition provided the contextual setting for combinations of different media and different approaches, enabling the selected theme to be appreciated from differing perspectives, while also depicting and explaining the complexity of cultural production.
The juxtaposition of artworks, other artefacts and everyday objects in the context of their cultural history leads to productive associations of ideas. This is because the different perspectives offered (informative, interpretative, educational and creative) give exhibition visitors the chance to switch their reception level repeatedly and identify new cross-links and associations.
Overview:
KATHARINA KOPPENWALLNER PRESENTS: INTERNATIONAL WARDROBE
April 12 - April 25, 2012
"International Wardrobe" is an unusual type of fashion project, designed and presented by Katharina Koppenwallner (*1966, lives in Berlin). She travels nationally and internationally, beyond the well-trodden paths of the major cities, in search of local and regional folk art. Her principal interest, and the focus of her research is in the field of folk costumes and other textiles such as cushion covers, for instance, which traditionally tend to be hand-made. This is no dilettantish, tourism-inspired collector enthusiasm: Koppenwallner is committed to a serious study of specific dress styles, patterns and techniques. She acquires individual garments locally, some of them decades old, and all with a real-world history, having truly belonged to someone, having been made for and duly worn by that individual person, and indeed showing all the signs of wear.
While in some cases a garment may undergo slight modification, in principle all are preserved as originals and are made available in due course for purchase via the International Wardrobe website. In each case the description of the individual item outlines its context and explains its significance in the cultural history of its country of origin, so that one is not simply buying a jacket or a scarf, but rather a piece of cultural identity complete with historical context.
In a throwaway society of mass production and standardised clothing patterns these personal, hand-made items with their symbols and ornamentation, sometimes alluding to myth and legend, represent a fundamentally different understanding of what clothing means. The potential of such clothing in creating distinctiveness vis-à-vis other folk groups, its historical evolution and the impact of major migrations, displacements or the various more or less arbitrary nationality distinctions on clothing: such are the themes that Koppenwallner expounds in substantial scholarly articles – two so far having dealt with the cultural history of Rumania and Indochina – in the process illuminating the significance formerly invested in the objects discussed. She pays particular attention to craft techniques, symbolism and organisational structures that have nowadays largely faded from view.
"International Wardrobe" is therefore almost like an island of focused attention in an age of universal levelling, in which everything seems to be available – but in fact some things are not, as their original significance has been buried under an avalanche of the new – of Levi’s jeans und American Apparel T-shirts. During its two-week run, "International Wardrobe" will occupy a central spot in the exhibition by Gert and Uwe Tobias, thus beginning the series of four "Intermedians" that will lend further depth to the craft and folklore themes in this year’s exhibition programme and also illuminate them from quite different angles.
GABI DZIUBA ENCOUNTERS JONATHAN JOHNSON
May 17 - May 30, 2012
ARTHUR MORASS CERAMICS
June 14 - June 27, 2012
STEFAN STRUMBEL – HEIMAT (HOMELAND)
September 27 - October 24, 2012
Starting in April 2012, the Kunstverein Hamburg will launch a monthly series of exhibitions presenting a variety of different artistic positions and their aesthetic practice, which can be regarded as complementary to the annual programme. All the presentations are in effect interpolations, enhancing the regular exhibition programme either formally or in content. The effect of the additions will be to expand the concept of the annual programme to take in a range of objects and presentation types delivered in different media, thus developing further communicative potential. Fashion, jewellery and ceramics, as "Intermedians", introduce positions featuring both a purely artisan aspect and also thematic relevance to the successive exhibitions.
The Kunstverein can look back on numerous earlier occasions on which an exhibition provided the contextual setting for combinations of different media and different approaches, enabling the selected theme to be appreciated from differing perspectives, while also depicting and explaining the complexity of cultural production.
The juxtaposition of artworks, other artefacts and everyday objects in the context of their cultural history leads to productive associations of ideas. This is because the different perspectives offered (informative, interpretative, educational and creative) give exhibition visitors the chance to switch their reception level repeatedly and identify new cross-links and associations.
Overview:
KATHARINA KOPPENWALLNER PRESENTS: INTERNATIONAL WARDROBE
April 12 - April 25, 2012
"International Wardrobe" is an unusual type of fashion project, designed and presented by Katharina Koppenwallner (*1966, lives in Berlin). She travels nationally and internationally, beyond the well-trodden paths of the major cities, in search of local and regional folk art. Her principal interest, and the focus of her research is in the field of folk costumes and other textiles such as cushion covers, for instance, which traditionally tend to be hand-made. This is no dilettantish, tourism-inspired collector enthusiasm: Koppenwallner is committed to a serious study of specific dress styles, patterns and techniques. She acquires individual garments locally, some of them decades old, and all with a real-world history, having truly belonged to someone, having been made for and duly worn by that individual person, and indeed showing all the signs of wear.
While in some cases a garment may undergo slight modification, in principle all are preserved as originals and are made available in due course for purchase via the International Wardrobe website. In each case the description of the individual item outlines its context and explains its significance in the cultural history of its country of origin, so that one is not simply buying a jacket or a scarf, but rather a piece of cultural identity complete with historical context.
In a throwaway society of mass production and standardised clothing patterns these personal, hand-made items with their symbols and ornamentation, sometimes alluding to myth and legend, represent a fundamentally different understanding of what clothing means. The potential of such clothing in creating distinctiveness vis-à-vis other folk groups, its historical evolution and the impact of major migrations, displacements or the various more or less arbitrary nationality distinctions on clothing: such are the themes that Koppenwallner expounds in substantial scholarly articles – two so far having dealt with the cultural history of Rumania and Indochina – in the process illuminating the significance formerly invested in the objects discussed. She pays particular attention to craft techniques, symbolism and organisational structures that have nowadays largely faded from view.
"International Wardrobe" is therefore almost like an island of focused attention in an age of universal levelling, in which everything seems to be available – but in fact some things are not, as their original significance has been buried under an avalanche of the new – of Levi’s jeans und American Apparel T-shirts. During its two-week run, "International Wardrobe" will occupy a central spot in the exhibition by Gert and Uwe Tobias, thus beginning the series of four "Intermedians" that will lend further depth to the craft and folklore themes in this year’s exhibition programme and also illuminate them from quite different angles.