Rudolf Belling Dreiklang 1919 Bronze 905mm Foto G Ladwig Sammlung Karl H Knauf VG Bild Kunst
Update: My article about this exhibition, Alfred Flechtheim: Kunsthändler der Moderne, has been placed in the Routledge / Taylor & Francis publication Journal of Visual Art Practice.
Unfortunately there are no photos with the story but there are many on the website of The Georg Kolbe Museum, (Sensburger Allee 25, Charlottenburg, Berlin).
I cannot explain better what 18 of the 21 photographs above are better than the Haus der Kunst press release about this very subject, so here it is, partially ellipsed for brevity:
Manfred Pernice ... will create an expansive, accessible installation consisting of various, often "recycled" works. The artist is interested not only in the reusing of found objects and materials of various origins, but also, what is more remarkable, he uses his own earlier works as architectural elements for new works or as installation pieces in altered contexts of meaning. Pernice's planned intervention for Haus der Kunst's central Middle Hall relates directly to the space's architecture and consists of two main elements: Pernice will place his architectural sculpture "Tutti" from the year 2010 in the middle of the room. A spiral staircase leads up to the sculpture's roof. From there, via a second staircase, the visitor reaches a bridge, which spans the Middle Hall and from which visitors can continually view the room from new perspectives. For the bridge, the artist will develop an installation, which, as a result of the work process, will evolve on site. This form of spontaneous response to the spatial conditions is characteristic of Pernice's sculptural approach.
My friend who came with me to the opening exclaimed more succintly: “Mager! Ich mochte lieber sehen…”
Additionally, the director of HdK, Okwui Enwezor (who is having a cusp birthday this week), described Pernice’s work as an “intervention in the global crisis of modernity.”
The artist and sponsors (the Friends of Haus der Kunst) also spoke at length about the sculptural installation, which seems to suggest they realize that even for HdK regular patrons it requires some type of backgrounding. I give HdK a lot of credit for trying out global-art-fair-type works in its austere central hall and for the integration (too seamlessly really) into the “renovation.”
Having just been in six airports in six days, the kind of indistinguishable elevations, chutes, and stopping spaces of those reminded me of Tutti IV in sort of a vague “I’m tired” (not “I’m aware of phenomenology) way. I think maybe also for people living in München the trappings of renovation – with both the Lenbachhaus and the Pinakothek der Moderne having recently reopened – plus the endless “installations” of scaffolding and rerouting at the Hauptbahnhof and Marienplatz – are part of the normal whirring scenic backdrop of the city.
Do you love Lupa Capitolina? Then you are going to be extremely happy with the forthcoming manifesto on the Capitoline Wolf.
Today at her home at the Capitoline Museum the wolf has many admirers, visitors whose fingers itch to twirl the regular, S-shaped curls of her mane and to caress her sinewy legs, her elegant tufted paws, and her smooth, distended udders. The infinitely abundant images of the wolf on Rome-affiliated merchandise seem to increase rather than dilute the potent aura of the statue herself. What is it about the she-wolf that makes her so compelling?
Scholarship on the origin of disputed bronzes such as Lupa Capitolina (in fact the origin of a number of works including some Etruscan hand mirrors is contested) tend to focus on issues of the absolute. Are the bronzes authentically Etruscan, Roman copies, or 19th Century knockoffs? Do they come from a single workshop? Are they cast by one artist and engraved by another? Whom were these objects made for? Were they part of one group?
I take it as a good thing that, even despite the most thorough scrutiny of Lupa Capitolina imaginable, we do not have answers to any of these questions about her, nor are we likely to find them. No matter what technology can eventually answer about when she was made, Lupa will be able to keep a lot to herself, rendering her enduring mystique, even in its ubiquity, largely impenetrable. Yet this does not mean that questions cannot or should not be asked of or about the wolf; there is satisfaction, not frustration, in this type of open-endedness.
Stay tuned…