DOUBLE AGENTS - TALK IV - 09.12.2019

Between Artists/Curators/Collectors
Rethinking Roles and Practices in the Arts

Next edition of our series “DOUBLE AGENTS” :
09.12. / from 19:00 Uhr
DOUBLE AGENTS / Talk IV

Wulf Herzogenrath, “DAS Bauhaus gab es nicht”

David Szauder, "Light Space Modulator" - Hommage an Moholy-Nagy

Das Bauhausjahr 2019 geht im Dezember zu Ende. Im Zentrum unserer Veranstaltung zum Bauhausjahr steht das Buch von Wulf Herzogenrath mit dessen zentraler These von den fünf Phasen des Bauhauses. Bauhauslehrer und Bauhausschüler waren immer auch “Double Agents”, denn ihre Zielrichtung ging weit über die Bildende Kunst hinaus, war Zukunftgestaltung.
Das Bauhaus wollte auf nachprüfbarer Grundlage Neues konzipieren, Zukünftiges erproben , das Machbare gestalten. Von 1919 bis 1933 durchlebte es, inspiriert nicht zuletzt durch den Wechsel seiner Direktoren, Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer, Mies van der Rohe, mehrfach grundlegende Veränderungen. Wulf Herzogenrath hat zwei wegweisende Bauhausausstellungen zum Bauhaus begleitet und kuratiert. Er bearbeitete 1968 in Stuttgart den Katalog zur epochalen Ausstellung “50 Jahre Bauhaus” und begleitete die folgende internationale Wanderausstellung über acht Stationen von Paris bis Tokio.
Er kuratierte 1988 für die Nationalgalerie Budapest, das Museum Reina Sophia in Madrid und den Kölnischen Kunstverein die Ausstellung “Bauhaus Utopien”. 1973 wurde Wulf Herzogenrath, nach der Dissertation über die Wandgemälde von Oscar Schlemmer, Leiter des Kölnischen Kunstvereins mit programmatischen Ausstellungen und wegweisenden Aktivitäten vor allem auch im Video-Bereich.
Von 1994 bis 2011 war er Direktor der Kunsthalle Bremen. Dazwischen von 1989 bis 1994 Hauptkustos der Nationalgalerie Berlin. Seit 2006 ist er Mitglieder Akademie der Künste in Berlin und leitet hier die Sektion Bildende Kunst. Das Buch erschien als Publikation des Wewerka Archivs, Magdeburg, im Alexander Verlag Berlin, es kann auf der Veranstaltung zu einem Sonderpreis erworben werden.
Wulf Herzogenrath wird es signieren!

English:
As this 100th year of the Bauhaus draws to a close in December, please join us for our 4th DOUBLE AGENTS discussion at Salon Villa Erxleben - the Bauhaus edition!
With:
Wulf Herzogenrath on his book "THE Bauhaus Does Not Exist"
David Szauder on his sculpture "Light Space Modulator"
"THE Bauhaus Does Not Exist"
Signed editions will be sold at a special price at this book presentation.

In this extraordinary book, published on the 100th anniversary of the Bauhaus, esteemed art historian, curator, and museum director Wulf Herzogenrath collects selected texts dealing with various aspects of the Bauhaus and its reception. 14 years - three directors - three places - five phases: In order to refute the idea of the Bauhaus, which is still prevalent today, Herzogenrath uncovers fundamental and contrasting aspects and illustrates the complexity and transformation of the school founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar in 1919 and closed in Berlin in 1933 by the Nazis. In addition to the rich illustrations of the individual contributions, the book contains a chapter with partly unpublished photographs from the estates of the two Bauhaus students Ruth Hollós and Erich Consemüller, which impressively depict everyday life, festivals and work at the Bauhaus. Bauhaus teachers and Bauhaus students were always "double agents", because their goal went far beyond the fine arts into shaping the future. The Bauhaus wanted to conceive the new on a verifiable basis, test the future, design the feasible. From 1919 to 1933, inspired not least by the changes in its directors, Walter Gropius, Hannes Meyer and Mies van der Rohe, it underwent several fundamental changes, which Wulf Herzogenrath dissects in his central thesis on the five phases of the Bauhaus.
Wulf Herzogenrath is currently the Director of the Visual Arts at the Akademie der Künste. As early as 1967/68 he compiled the catalogue "50 Jahre Bauhaus" for the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart and supervised the exhibition tour through eight different countries from Paris to Tokyo. In 1970, he completed his doctorate on Oskar Schlemmer's murals with Herbert von Einem at the Friedrich Wilhelm University in Bonn. In 1971 Herzogenrath became director of fine art at the Museum Folkwang in Essen, where he initiated the lecture series "Self-Portrayal - Artists about themselves", in which Joseph Beuys, Hans Haacke, Otto Piene and Timm Ulrichs, among others, took part. At the age of 28, Herzogenrath became director of the Kölnischer Kunstverein in 1973, where he organized Nam June Paik's first institutional solo exhibition in 1976, along with exhibitions by many other renowned contemporary artists. Herzogenrath was the first curator to show video art in Documenta 6 (1977) and 8 (1987). In 1980 he was one of the co-founders of the Association of German Art Associations (ADKV) and was its chairman until 1988. In 1988 he curated the exhibition "bauhaus utopien" for the Nationalgalerie Budapest, the Museum Reina Sophia in Madrid and the Kölnischer Kunstverein. From 1989 onwards, Herzogenrath was the Chief Curator of the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin and played a major role in setting up the Hamburger Bahnhof Museum. From 1994 to 2011 he was director of the Kunsthalle Bremen. In 2006 he also organized the large-scale thematic exhibition "40jahrevideokunst.de - Die 60er" there. Since 1995 Herzogenrath has taught as an honorary professor at the Hochschule für Künste Bremen. In 2006 he was accepted as a member of the Visual Arts Section at the Academy of Arts in Berlin, where he is now Director. He is the author and editor of numerous publications, including "The Bauhaus Does Not Exist" (2019, Wewerka Archives, Magdeburg, and Alexander Verlag, Berlin), presented here today.

"Light Space Modulator"
Taking as his inspiration the eponymous sculpture by Bauhaus legend Moholy Nagy, David Szauder has re-created his own large-scale 3.5m tall rendition of this work as a kinetic light and sound sculpture for public space.

The original Moholy-Nagy work (151.1 × 69.9 × 69.9 cm), one of the earliest electrically powered kinetic sculptures, Light Prop for an Electric Stage (Light Space Modulator) holds a central place in the history of modern sculpture. Representing the culmination of Moholy-Nagy’s experimentation at the Bauhaus, it incorporates his interest in technology, new materials, and, above all, light. Moholy sought to revolutionize human perception and thereby enable society to better apprehend the modern technological world. He presented Light Prop at a 1930 exhibition of German design as a mechanism for generating “special lighting and motion effects” on a stage. The rotating construction produces a startling array of visual effects when its moving and reflective surfaces interact with the beam of light. The sculpture became the subject of numerous photographs as well as Moholy’s abstract film Lightplay: Black, White, Gray (1930). Over the years the artist and later the museums made alterations to the sculpture to keep it in working order. It is still operational today. [citation from Harvard Art Museums]

Media artist David Ariel Szauder is one of the featured artists in "bonum et malum", the current exhibition at KleinervonWiese. Szauder (b. 1976 in Hungary) studied Art History at the Eötvös Loránd University and Intermedia at the Hungarian University of Fine Arts in Budapest, as well as the School of Arts, Design and Architecture at the Aalto University in Helsinki. From 2009
he worked as the curator at the Hungarian Cultural Institute in Berlin (.CHB). In addition to participating in a variety of international projects as artist and curator, David Szauder has been leading workshops on interactive media in Berlin and Budapest since 2010, and he is a visiting lecturer at the Film Academy, Potsdam.

This event takes place parallel to:
The Weihnachtsfeier - Christmas Art Market at Salon Villa Erxleben
https://www.facebook.com/events/548165432413339/
&
The exhibition "bonum et malum" at Gallery KleinervonWiese
https://www.kleinervonwiese.com/bonum-et-malum

co-hosted by:

FREEHOME, MOMENTUM and Gallery KLEINERVONWIESE