Alicja Kwade, Durchbruch durch Schwäche, 2011. Exhibition view Oldenburger Kunstverein, 2011. Courtesy Galerie Johann König, Berlin. Photo: Roman März
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Mike Bouchet, Diet Cola Pool outtakes, 2010. Video. Courtesy Parisa Kind, Frankfurt/Main
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Jorinde Voigt, Piece for Words and Views XXXII, 2012. Courtesy David Nolan New York. © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2012
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Dirk Dietrich Hennig, BUNTE 1974, 2010. Part of the project "Jean Guillaume Ferrée". Printed magazine
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Keren Cytter, Konstruktion, 2010. Digital Video. Courtesy SCHAU ORT. Christiane Büntgen, Zürich; Galerie Nagel, Berlin, Köln, Antwerpen; Pilar Corrias, London
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Cyprien Gaillard, Artefact, 2011. Film. Courtesy Sprüth Magers Berlin / London
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Simon Fujiwara, The Personal Effects of Theo Grünberg, 2010. Mixed media installation and performance. Courtesy Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt/Main; Gio Marconi, Milan. Photo Kay Riechers
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Reynold Reynolds, Group Portrait, Residents of Troika, Die Verlorenen, from a found negative, 1933. Courtesy Galerie Zink
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Breakthrough through Weakness is the title Alicja Kwade gave to the work she has contributed to the show Made in Germany Two.
For the installation, she suspended clock weights from the past four
centuries from the ceiling. Some of the metal weights seem to penetrate
the floor of the Kunstverein Hannover,
a symbol for the continuous, inexorable flow of time. At the same time,
Kwade’s title sounds like an ironic counterpart to slogans such as
“Progress through Technology” or, of course, “Made in Germany.”
After last summer’s Based in Berlin show attempted to represent the current Berlin scene, three Hanover institutions have joined together for Made in Germany Two to investigate what the younger generation of artists in Germany are concerned with. Starting in 2010, curators of the Sprengel Museum, the Kestner Gesellschaft,
and the Kunstverein researched and held joint discussions until they
decided on the list of participants: 45 artists are presented, ranging
from established positions such as Cyprien Gaillard, Klara Lidén, and Jorinde Voigt to less familiar names like Marcellvs L. or Gregor Gleiwitz. The title Made in Germany
is a reference to the production location Germany—and it’s clearly
multinational. 21 artists are from abroad, and most of them live in
Berlin, for instance Shannon Bool, whose work is part of the Deutsche Bank Collection.
The Canadian artist reconstructed the bars of a women’s prison and
chained gleaming bronze casts of everyday objects to the bars:
cigarette paper, lipstick, key chains. Things that speak of the lives
and yearnings of the women prisoners inside.
Simon Fujiwara’s work also invites the viewer to reconstruct a story from an ensemble of objects. As the winner of the Cartier Award at the 2010 Frieze Art Fair,
the British-Japanese artist created an archaeological excavation site
in the fair tents of Regent’s Park. In Hanover, his work involves a
library, allegedly a flea market find. The bizarre mix of books,
records, pictures, and even a snake’s skin behind glass could allude to
an Amazon explorer or even a sexual scientist. The personal effects of Theo Grünberg is a fascinating trip through a life that lasted 136(!) years, in which the boundaries between fact and fiction blur.
As mysterious as Fujiwara’s biography of Grünberg is the story of Keren Cytter’s video Construction (2010). In 2011, the Israeli artist took part in Globe, the art and performance program marking the reopening of the Deutsche Bank Towers in Frankfurt. In Made in Germany,
Cytter presents an 8-minute video drama in which she takes the chaos of
life and love to the extreme. In the Deutsche Bank Towers, an entire
floor is dedicated to Mike Bouchet,
where some of his drawings made with homemade cola can be seen, among
other works. But the pitch-black soft drink not only serves Bouchet as
a substitute for ink; it’s also the pool water in the setting for his
film Diet Cola Pool Outtakes (2010). Their skin reddened by
carbon dioxide, two actors indulge in clichéd erotic scenes that
resemble a commercial. In this work, as well, the Frankfurt-based
Californian subverts advertising’s promise of happiness that consumer
products are supposed to bring.
During their preparations for Made in Germany,
the curators detected six core themes: “Medium as Material,”
“Narrativity,” “The Yesterday in Today,” “the Supernatural,” “Spaces,”
and “Networks.” Particularly noticeable is that the theme of politics,
which the current Berlin Biennale
has so aggressively dedicated itself to, is not an essential factor in
Hanover. Instead of addressing social issues, the artists prefer to
retreat into retro-fictions. Dirk Dietrich Hennig,
for example, reconstructed the hospital room of a psychiatric clinic
where the Fluxus artist Jean Guillaume Ferrée withdrew to to escape the
strain of life and the art market. Magazine covers from the seventies
testify to his past fame. Reynold Reynolds looks further back, to the thirties, in his partial film reconstruction of the story of a vampire film.
At times, Made in Germany
conveys a somewhat backward-looking image of the production location
Germany. Perhaps, particularly in a time of accelerating globalization,
one should simply give up on the idea of doing any real justice to a
entire country’s art scene with a single exhibition. Freed from this
agenda, visitors to the Hanover show can discover what inspires a young
international scene of artists in Germany today.
A.D.
Made in Germany Two
International Art in Germany
Sprengel Museum, Kestner Gesellschaft, Kunstverein Hannover
May 17 – August 19, 2012
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