20 Mar 2012

Beuys Warhol Polke & Co. 40 Years Kunsthalle Tübingen

On the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the Kunsthalle Tübingen, Cézanne Renoir Picasso & Co paid tribute to the most successful exhibitions. The second anniversary show, Beuys Warhol Polke & Co, is being mounted to call attention to the fact that from the very beginning, the Kunsthalle has also been a venue for the presentation of international avant-garde art. The public did not always appreciate this. In the 1970s, many of Tübingen's citizens felt 'put on' by Kunsthalle director Götz Adriani's 'practical jokes.' A local initiative against the misuse of the Kunsthalle was founded, the municipal council had a controversial discussion about 'artistic standards,' and the Schwäbische Tagblatt recommended attracting crowds to the building on Philosophenweg instead with 'table tennis games' or 'beat band' concerts. Things are different from today's point of view. The artists who were presented at the time have long since entered the annals of art history as outstanding representatives of their time, and Adriani was recently named an honorary citizen of the City of Tübingen.
In Beuys Warhol Polke & Co, several contemporaries from the era of the founding director are being singled out and placed in reference to one another. The defining element is the comparison of German and American stances. The social sculptor Joseph Beuys will be honored as the most important German artist with a selection of seventeen works on paper, which represents a small-scale, independent retrospective of thirty years of creative work. His American opposite number Andy Warhol will be more prominently featured with twenty-seven works from between 1953 and 1986: early drawings and monotypes from the 1950s by the young advertising artist will be presented alongside works from his most important early Pop Art series, such as Campbell's Soup Can or Disaster and Early Self. Two Cars paintings and Six Self-Portraits will also be on display, works he produced shortly before his death. The ironist Sigmar Polke adopts the position of intermediary between the capitalism-critical Beuys and the politically indifferent Warhol. The exhibition includes a total of fifteen in part very large-format works, including the famous works Modern Art and Higher Beings Command: Paint the Upper Right Corner Black! or Girlfriends. Ten of Polke's paintings were also part of the first retrospective devoted to him at the Kunsthalle Tübingen in 1976. Other Americans are also included with works on paper: the Pop Art artists Robert Rauschenberg and Claes Oldenburg as well as the Conceptual artist Bruce Nauman. These are augmented by works from German artists, such as a drawing by the postwar Surrealist Konrad Klapheck; Shaft Tower works by the founders of Conceptual Photography, Bernd and Hilla Becher; a serial work by Peter Roehr, a Conceptual artist inspired by Pop Art who died a premature death; the Process artist Franz Erhard Walther, who was the first contemporary artist to be exhibited at the Kunsthalle, with a Handlungsbuch (Instruction Manual) and four Körperformen (Body Forms); as well as Anselm Kiefer, whose pivotal Books series was celebrated publicly for the first time in 1990 at the Kunsthalle. The Italian Conceptual artist Piero Manzoni supplements the exhibition with his famous canned Artist's Shit, as does the British Pop Art artist Richard Hamilton with six works on paper, including his epoch-making collage Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?, which is considered a beacon of Pop Art and was purchased for the Zundel Collection, housed in the Kunsthalle Tübingen, in 1974 on the occasion of a Hamilton retrospective.
Beuys Warhol Polke & Co looks back at the contemporary aspect of the Kunsthalle Tübingen's exhibition history and pays tribute to the exciting entry of international avant-garde art into the university town—and beyond this a concentrated summary of an era characterized by Pop Art, Fluxus, Minimal Art, and Conceptual Art.
Cézanne Picasso Polke & Co, the 320-page catalogue published by the Cologne-based DuMont Buchverlag, encompasses both anniversary exhibitions. It includes texts on the Kunsthalle Tübingen'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.
Within the scope of the supporting program, the artist Franz Erhard Walther and his prominent student Christian Jankowski, who is today himself professor at the Stuttgart academy, will meet for the first time for a panel discussion. Daniel J. Schreiber will furthermore offer guided curator tours, during which the forms of action of Walther's works can be tested first-hand.

Special Event:
Protest, Provocation. Revolution
Talk with Franz Erhard Walther and Christian Jankowski
Moderation: Daniel J. Schreiber
Admission Fee for the talk: €5
Reduced admission fee to the exhibition for all visitors of the talk



Opening:
Friday, February 10, 2012, 7:00 pm

Exhibition length:
February 11–June 10, 2012

Opening Hours:
Wednesday–Sunday 10:00 am–6:00 pm, Tuesday 10:00 am–7:00 pm

Admission:
Regular: €9.00, reduced: €7.00, pupils: €3.00, school classes: €2.00 per pupil

Guided Tours for the Public:
Saturdays at 3:00 pm, Tuesdays at 5:30 pm
Fee per person: €2.50

Guided Tours with Advance Notice:
Tuesday–Friday: €50.00
Saturday, Sunday, and holidays: €60.00

Guided Tours for School Classes:
45 minutes: €38.00, with practical art experience, 90 minutes: €55.00 plus admission and material costs