Traces of Modernism

The Kunst­mu­seum Wolfsburg is celebra­ting its 20th anniver­sary in 2014 with a large-scale Kokoschka exhibi­tion, but is it also taking the oppor­tu­nity to conduct special thematic explo­ra­tions and is setting off in search of traces in its own collec­tion. The museum has been collec­ting inter­na­tional contem­porary art with emphases on Minimal Art, Concep­tual Art, Arte Povera, Body Art and Media Art since 1994. The collec­tion presen­ta­tion “Traces of Modernism” will be shown on an exhibi­tion area encom­pas­sing circa 1000 square meters on the museum’s upper gallery spaces.

“What looks good today may not look good tomorrow” is the title and content of a piece by Michel Majerus from 1999 in which he aptly encap­su­lated what Charles Baude­laire already described in 1863 when he coined the term modernity as an expres­sion of the zeitgeist: It is transient and fleeting. It is difficult to compre­hend the time scale of modernism—but some of its deter­mi­na­tive contents and aesthe­tics are irrefu­table. The question concer­ning the current influence of modernism will be posed in a thema­ti­cally struc­tured parcours combining the areas of portrai­ture, repre­sen­ta­tional painting, abstrac­tion, archi­tec­ture and design, science and techno­logy, enligh­ten­ment and spiri­tua­lity as well as global art. What does the reception of modernism look like in the works of such artists as Julius Popp, Elizabeth Peyton, Thomas Schütte, Cindy Sherman, Nam June Paik, Neo Rauch, Jeppe Hein, Jan Dibbets, John M Armleder, Tony Cragg, Gary Hume, Tobias Rehberger, Andreas Gursky, Philip Taaffe, Olafur Eliasson, Rebecca Horn, Gerhard Merz, Ola Koleh­mainen and James Turrell?

Today, in the Age of Globa­liz­a­tion, everything seems possible. Our present-day world hardly knows bounda­ries any longer. A simple mouse click or touch of a touch­screen connects us virtually with other countries, time zones and cultures—we visually take part in the lives of others via Skype and can be at two places simul­ta­ne­ously. The commu­ni­ca­tions theore­ti­cian Marshall McLuhan early on coined a term to describe this development—the Global Village. Actual distances will first become tangible again when non-European societies boast cultural and aesthetic cravings for recogni­tion that differ from Western notions. The contours of modernism in the Western sense seem to be dissolving.

The cultural inter­ac­tions in this Global Village give rise to new questions about modernism that also concern its currency within its original Western context. Pluralism has not only taken hold of art in the 21st century but also forms of society and government, lifestyles and religious orien­ta­tions. Is not modernism’s idea in fact outdated against this backdrop? What has happened to the unsha­kable belief in progress, the fasci­na­tion in science and techno­logy, the cultural desire for reform and art’s formal innova­tions and shifts in perspec­tive? The advances made by scien­tific research corre­sponded to the aesthetic revolu­tion in 20th-century classic modern art. Abstrac­tion asserted itself up to the point of freeing form from the object and color from form.

While attempts to distance themselves from these innova­tions are still notice­able among post-moder­nists, artists from the latter half of the 20th and the 21st century renego­tiated such modernist styles as Cubism (e.g. Jan Dibbets), Construc­ti­vism (e.g. Tony Cragg), Surrea­lism (e.g. Neo Rauch) and color field painting (e.g. Joseph Marioni, James Turrell). An attrac­tion to science and techno­logy is likewise reflected in the example of the artist-engineer (e.g. Panama­renko, Nam June Paik, Julius Popp) or in the staging of natural phenomena (e.g. Olafur Eliasson). The exhibi­tion encap­su­lates such relati­ons­hips and elected affinities.

With this exhibi­tion concept, the Kunst­mu­seum Wolfsburg is conti­nuing the equally scholarly and sensual expedi­tion that it has been on since 2006 and which is probably unique in the inter­na­tional museum scene: The Pursuit of Modernism in the 21st Century. This question has been the constant starting point for all of the museum’s inves­ti­ga­tions, parti­cu­larly for such thematic exhibi­tions as “The Art of Decele­ra­tion”, “Art & Textile” and “Interior/Exterior”.

In this context, the Kunst­mu­seum will publish its findings concer­ning the Future of Modernism in the 21st Century with texts by renowned authors from the fields of art, art history, philo­sophy, archi­tec­ture, sociology and cultural studies in the fall of 2014.

Artists

John Armleder, Richard Artsch­wager, Hussein Chalayan, Tony Cragg, Jan Dibbets, Olafur Eliasson, Helmut Federle, Andreas Gursky, Jeppe Hein, Georg Herold, Rebecca Horn, Gary Hume, Sergej Jensen, Anselm Kiefer, Ola Koleh­mainen, Michel Majerus, Joseph Marioni, Gerhard Merz, Nam June Paik, Panama­renko, Elizabeth Peyton, Julius Popp, Neo Rauch, Tobias Rehberger, Thomas Schütte, Cindy Sherman, Beat Streuli, Philip Taaffe, James Turrell, Luc Tuymans