Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt
03 Mar - 29 Apr 2012
MAGICGRUPPE KULTUROBJEKT
3 March - 29 April, 2012
The artist’s collective "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" stages materials taken from different formal and functional relationships as a spatial narrative, one that finds its own starting point in the exhibition site. The material used can be almost everything: building materials, things and forms from the urban surrounds and personal milieu of the artists, art and designer objects, plants, animals and communications media. The work emerges on site in a process of negotiation and concentration, borne by the group as a collective actor. In this sense the exhibition space is to be seen as a space of action. The new adjacencies between the materials brought together generate blind spots, where the usual categories are no longer cogent and an alternative mode of seeing and experience is cultivated.
"Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" is to be understood more as a working term than a group name. It means testing out a visual language in a collective. And it resonates with two central aspects of this work: the flexible constellation of the collective – the composition of the group changes from exhibition to exhibition – which makes the term a container for various artistic approaches, and the investigation of the construct "cultural object". Which contexts and social conventions make a thing into a cultural object, and which aspects of culture are reproduced in it? In the work of "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" the scope of the concept of the cultural object is extended programmatically: things that are found, things left over, and materials are all cultural objects, artifacts inscribed with cultural meaning just like objects in art and communication.
The "invention" of the Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt grew out of a series of collaborations which have brought forth a special form of collective practice. In 2010 Markus Hahn, Marcel Hiller, and Sebastian Walther conceived a room installation in the Municipal Gallery in Nevers, France, and featured jointly as authors of the work. Inner rooms and the façade were playfully reconfigured through built structures and objects in an extensive mise-en-scène. As the work evolved the group functioned as a filter and impulse for the individual artistic practice. The spatial structure that emerged was at once a response to the site and the expression of collective reflective work. In 2009 Marcel Hiller and Sebastian Walther conceived a joint work as part of the exhibition "Over and out – Strategien des Be- und Umnutzens sowie Ent- und Bewertens von Dingen und Zusammenhängen", staged in the Ausstellungshalle für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Münster, into which works of other artists flowed as "material". In the exhibition curated by Markus Hahn and Anna Zwingl, "The Merger – by following this 1 easy rule", held in Chicago in 2010, they developed together with Marcel Hiller and Roland Kollnitz a collective work as a spatial narrative ensuing from the exhibition space. For the exhibition "Becoming Ahh" at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Marcel Hiller invited Franziska Cordes, Markus Hahn, Suchan Kinoshita, Tamara Lorenz, Thomas Musehold, Sebastian Walther and Markus Zimmermann to take part in a collaborative project and came up with the term "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" as a programmatic characterization for a collective actor.
The exhibition is divided into two sections taking place parallel in the Ludwig Forum, Aachen, and Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp. While the exhibition sections are being setup, the involved artists will switch between the two locations. As the practice of the Magicgruppe demands, the two very specific exhibition rooms are approached as found material, and so form the starting point of their artistic work. The space of the room itself is not understood as a delimiting factor, but rather as part of a scenario. In line with our self-understanding as a forum and aware of our history, the Ludwig Forum is a perfect location, providing an action field for a contemporary, temporary artistic practice, while we have consciously selected a partner displaying a similar disposition. Located in a former factory building, Extra City is an internationally-oriented platform for the production, presentation and discussion of current art positions.
Artists of „Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" in this project: Michiel Alberts, Lara Dhondt, Michael Dobrindt, Markus Hahn, Stef Heidhues, Marcel Hiller, Suchan Kinoshita, Tamara Lorenz, Thomas Musehold, Martin Schepers, Sebastian Walther, Hans Wuyts, Markus Zimmermann und Anna Zwingl.
The Ludwig Forum Aachen warmly welcomes interested visitors to follow the creative process of the exhibition in a series of open work talks. The talks take place directly before and during the setup phase and will be primed by film screenings, readings and short accounts given by the artists. They shall provide a valuable insight into the visual worlds, lines of action and fields of interest merging into the work of the "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" while laying out a trail for approaching this artistic practice.
Curated by Anna Sophia Schultz in cooperation with Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen
The exhibitions of Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt are to take place within the framework of the cooperation project "European Partnerships" run by the Goethe Institute and the Kunststiftung NRW.
3 March - 29 April, 2012
The artist’s collective "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" stages materials taken from different formal and functional relationships as a spatial narrative, one that finds its own starting point in the exhibition site. The material used can be almost everything: building materials, things and forms from the urban surrounds and personal milieu of the artists, art and designer objects, plants, animals and communications media. The work emerges on site in a process of negotiation and concentration, borne by the group as a collective actor. In this sense the exhibition space is to be seen as a space of action. The new adjacencies between the materials brought together generate blind spots, where the usual categories are no longer cogent and an alternative mode of seeing and experience is cultivated.
"Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" is to be understood more as a working term than a group name. It means testing out a visual language in a collective. And it resonates with two central aspects of this work: the flexible constellation of the collective – the composition of the group changes from exhibition to exhibition – which makes the term a container for various artistic approaches, and the investigation of the construct "cultural object". Which contexts and social conventions make a thing into a cultural object, and which aspects of culture are reproduced in it? In the work of "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" the scope of the concept of the cultural object is extended programmatically: things that are found, things left over, and materials are all cultural objects, artifacts inscribed with cultural meaning just like objects in art and communication.
The "invention" of the Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt grew out of a series of collaborations which have brought forth a special form of collective practice. In 2010 Markus Hahn, Marcel Hiller, and Sebastian Walther conceived a room installation in the Municipal Gallery in Nevers, France, and featured jointly as authors of the work. Inner rooms and the façade were playfully reconfigured through built structures and objects in an extensive mise-en-scène. As the work evolved the group functioned as a filter and impulse for the individual artistic practice. The spatial structure that emerged was at once a response to the site and the expression of collective reflective work. In 2009 Marcel Hiller and Sebastian Walther conceived a joint work as part of the exhibition "Over and out – Strategien des Be- und Umnutzens sowie Ent- und Bewertens von Dingen und Zusammenhängen", staged in the Ausstellungshalle für Zeitgenössische Kunst in Münster, into which works of other artists flowed as "material". In the exhibition curated by Markus Hahn and Anna Zwingl, "The Merger – by following this 1 easy rule", held in Chicago in 2010, they developed together with Marcel Hiller and Roland Kollnitz a collective work as a spatial narrative ensuing from the exhibition space. For the exhibition "Becoming Ahh" at the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht, Marcel Hiller invited Franziska Cordes, Markus Hahn, Suchan Kinoshita, Tamara Lorenz, Thomas Musehold, Sebastian Walther and Markus Zimmermann to take part in a collaborative project and came up with the term "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" as a programmatic characterization for a collective actor.
The exhibition is divided into two sections taking place parallel in the Ludwig Forum, Aachen, and Extra City Kunsthal, Antwerp. While the exhibition sections are being setup, the involved artists will switch between the two locations. As the practice of the Magicgruppe demands, the two very specific exhibition rooms are approached as found material, and so form the starting point of their artistic work. The space of the room itself is not understood as a delimiting factor, but rather as part of a scenario. In line with our self-understanding as a forum and aware of our history, the Ludwig Forum is a perfect location, providing an action field for a contemporary, temporary artistic practice, while we have consciously selected a partner displaying a similar disposition. Located in a former factory building, Extra City is an internationally-oriented platform for the production, presentation and discussion of current art positions.
Artists of „Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" in this project: Michiel Alberts, Lara Dhondt, Michael Dobrindt, Markus Hahn, Stef Heidhues, Marcel Hiller, Suchan Kinoshita, Tamara Lorenz, Thomas Musehold, Martin Schepers, Sebastian Walther, Hans Wuyts, Markus Zimmermann und Anna Zwingl.
The Ludwig Forum Aachen warmly welcomes interested visitors to follow the creative process of the exhibition in a series of open work talks. The talks take place directly before and during the setup phase and will be primed by film screenings, readings and short accounts given by the artists. They shall provide a valuable insight into the visual worlds, lines of action and fields of interest merging into the work of the "Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt" while laying out a trail for approaching this artistic practice.
Curated by Anna Sophia Schultz in cooperation with Extra City Kunsthal Antwerpen
The exhibitions of Magicgruppe Kulturobjekt are to take place within the framework of the cooperation project "European Partnerships" run by the Goethe Institute and the Kunststiftung NRW.