09 Nov 2011

Cézanne Renoir Picasso & Co. Anniversary Exhibition Kunsthalle Tuebingen

Cézanne Renoir

Picasso & Co
40 Jahre Kunsthalle Tuebingen

September 17, 2011–January 29, 2012

On the occasion of its 40th anniversary, the Kunsthalle Tuebingen looks back at its history in two successive exhibitions. The first anniversary exhibition, Cézanne Renoir Picasso & Co, runs from September 17, 2011, to January 29, 2012. Its theme is the development that commenced in 1982 and frequently referred to by the media as the 'Miracle of Tuebingen': with an exhibition of watercolors by Cézanne, founding director Götz Adriani succeeded for the first time in attracting far more than 100,000 visitors. An exhibition of pastels and oil sketches by Edgar Degas two years later attracted an even larger crowd. In the years and decades that followed, a number of further successful shows ensued, for instance of Pablo Picasso, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec or Henri Rousseau. The 430,000, respectively 420,000 visitors to each of the exhibitions of paintings by Paul Cézanne in 1993 and Auguste Renoir in 1996 represent the highlights of the Adriani era.

The first anniversary exhibition is not only an extract from these great Tuebingen events, but at the same time a uniquely concentrated presentation of major works of the classic modern period in France: Paul Cézanne is prominently represented by 18 works, paintings, watercolors, and drawings. Works by other artists who drew large numbers of visitors to the Kunsthalle will also be on display: Edgar Degas, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Henri Rousseau, Alberto Giacometti, and Pablo Picasso, whose 22 works present the largest group, none of which have never previously been shown in Tuebingen. His oil paintings and works on paper constitute a self-contained, independent small-scale retrospective that pays tribute to his special role within art history as a salient mediator between the 19th and 20th centuries. A selection of posters that provide an overview of the famous exhibition history of the Kunsthalle Tuebingen as well as three oil paintings by the Wuerttembergian painter Georg Friedrich Zundel are also part of the anniversary show. It was in his honor that his wife Paula Zundel and her sister Margarete Fischer-Bosch founded the Kunsthalle Tuebingen, which opened in 1971. The paintings feature a self-portrait as well as the founders, both of whom were daughters of the Stuttgart industrialist Robert Bosch.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a program that includes lectures and panel discussions: Daniel J. Schreiber, Managing Curator of the Kunsthalle Tuebingen, will talk about its past and its future. Together with Uwe Schneede, the former director of the Hamburger Kunsthalle, and Christoph Vitali, who most recently directed the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn, Götz Adriani will participate in a panel discussion on the success and quality demanded of art exhibitions. In a round of talks broadcast by RTF 1, Director of the Foundation Kunsthalle Tuebingen Götz Adriani, Chairman of the Board Hans J. Baumgart, Director of the Municipal Office of Culture Daniela Rathe, the Chief Curator Daniel J. Schreiber, as well as the artist Franz Erhard Walther will talk about the history of the Kunsthalle Tuebingen. And Werner Spies, who has curated important exhibitions at the Kunsthalle, will read from his memoirs.

The title of the second anniversary exhibition, which will take place from February 11 to June 10, 2012, is Beuys Warhol Polke & Co. It makes reference to the first ten years of the Kunsthalle Tuebingen, during which founding director Götz Adriani presented primarily contemporary art. Highlights were exhibitions on the German avant-garde artists Joseph Beuys, Bernd and Hilla Becher, and Sigmar Polke, as well as the great names of Pop Art such as Richard Hamilton, Robert Rauschenberg, and Andy Warhol.

The 320-page catalogue Cézanne Picasso Polke & Co accompanying both anniversary exhibitions, published by the Cologne-based DuMont Verlag, includes contributions on the Kunsthalle Tuebingen's success story by Heiner Bastian, Hans J. Baumgart, Frieder Burda, Josef Wolfgang Froehlich, Boris Palmer, Martin Roth, Daniel J. Schreiber, Klaus Albrecht Schröder, Werner Spies, Franz Erhard Walther, and Peter Weibel.