On Easter Sunday and Monday the museum is open from 11 to 18hrs
We are closed on Good Friday

Specific educational programs are elaborated in the context of the respective exhibitions to suit the needs of the various visitor groups. Marta Herford offers a diverse educational program for children, teenagers, adults, schools and kindergartens in collaboration with a wide range of educational and childcare institutions and associations. There are also guided tours available for people who are visually impaired or suffering from dementia.

Every Tuesday pupils and students can visit the exhibitions free of charge during the last two hours
(as of 16.00 hrs) before the museum closes.

On Christmas eve (Monday, 24.12.), Christmas (Tuesday, 25.12.) and New Year’s eve (Monday, 31.12.) the museum is closed. On Wednesday, 26.12. opened from 11 – 18 hrs. New Year (Tuesday, 1.1.2013) open from 13 hrs.

What makes art

2 February – 5 May 2013, Marta Herford (Gehry Galleries)

Twelve international artists and artist groups nail their colours to the mast on socio-political issues against a background of global networks. They do this using the primeval means of art – with poetry, striking pictures and irritating subjectivity.

Who can we or do we even want to believe nowadays? In western societies trust in political decision-makers, the media and the principles of a free market has been seriously damaged. Credibility has become a rare commodity. What can art contribute in a world of power games, profit maximisation and perfect styling? Does it offer worthwhile alternatives, does it have other, more persuasive ways of taking a stand in public?

With “showing your colours” Marta Herford examines these topical questions. A passionate belief in the special power of art is the starting point of the project. On the basis of selected artistic positions, the exhibition examines what art does (with us) and how it can formulate a sincere social commitment going beyond daily events.

Art shines a new, brighter light on life: Its sharp, always critical view allows an exhaustive interrogation of the self-evident. Art translates ideas into images and images into ideas. Particularly through its unsettling interventions in our visual habits, art develops its extraordinary power of fascination, which always raises it up above the everyday and gives it its timeless relevance.

Artists and artist groups

Sam Durant, Claire Fontaine, Thomas Hirschhorn, Korpys / Löffler, Aernout Mik, R.E.P., Wilhelm Sasnal, Peter Sauerer, Tino Sehgal, Nasan Tur, Brigitte Waldach

Museum education

1 February – 5 May 2013, on appointment
Arno Breker: Modelling course for visitors, groups of senior citizen, handicapped, and children
more information (German)

Exhibition Views

Catalogue

Texts: Friederike Fast/ Antje Nöhren, Michael Kröger, Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer, Hajo Schiff, Raimar Stange Format: 17 x 23 cm 240 pages app. 120 ill. Gate-folded softcover Language: German | English Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Design: Weiss–Heiten Publisher: Kettler, Bönen Price: 28 Euro order

Exhibition sponsors

Exhibition supporter

Mit freundlicher Unterstützung des Büros für Bildende Künste / Institut français in Zusammenarbeit mit dem französischen Ministerium für Kultur und Kommunikation / DGCA
    

The borehole to New Zealand

Opening of the exhibition on Sunday, 23. September 2012,
at 11.30 a.m. on the farm yard of the Bröer family

Where do you end up if you start digging under your feet and keep on going? For the artist Ralf Witthaus this question is the starting point for his lawnmower drawings which will be created within the framework of his project “International Lawn Show 2012″. And he also provides the answer: in New Zealand.

On the occasion of the exhibition “Nutzflächen – OWL3”, which will be presented from 16 to 18 August in the Marta Herford, Ralf Witthaus will be the first artist to realise his project in the group exhibition.

Dressed in black uniforms, bright orange helmets and equipped with a motor mower, the artist and his team will mow a circular drawing with a diameter of 92 metres in the lawn at two locations on opposite sides of the planet. Each circle will contain a mirror image of the corresponding surface on the other side of the world.

After carrying out an intensive search with the participation of the public, Ralf Witthaus, whose “National Lawn Show 2010” received a lot of attention, chose two very different types of location – the farmyard of the Bröer family in Löhne and the botanical gardens in Auckland, New Zealand.
The characteristic elements such as benches, trees and rocks from the botanical gardens will be reflected in sketched outlines on the grounds in Löhne. In turn, the scenario in East Westphalia with the historical and modern farmhouses will be transferred to the lawn in the botanical gardens in Auckland.

A project in cooperation with Marta Herford and the Cultural Office of the city of Löhne.

Three photographers – one field of experiment

21 January – 17 February 2013, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

Monika Czosnowska, Ingo Mittelstaedt, Markus Uhr: Three former winners of the ‘good prospects’ award present their recent works within an interactive laboratory for individual experiences of the visitors.

This is the second time that Marta Herford has addressed young German photography in connection with the ‘gute aussichten’ (‘good proscpects’) awards. Whereas photographs by the 2012/2013 prize-winners moved on to Haus der Photographie in the Deichtorhallen in Hamburg on 21 January, for ‘zoom’ three internationally successful winners of the competition are occupying exhibition rooms at Marta for another four weeks.

‘zoom’ focuses on the different photographic strategies of Monika Czosnowska, Ingo Mittelstaedt and Markus Uhr. Moreover, for this exhibition the museum is embarking on an untried format. Visitors enter a hands-on laboratory in which they can actively experience key questions of the photographic works and their presentation. For example, they are able to explore different forms of self-portraits for themselves, discover interactions between light and shadow, and experiment with collages.

This exhibition project has been organized in collaboration with the Education Department.

new german photography 2012/2013

24 November 2012 – 20 January 2013, Lippold-Galerie (1st floor)

The selection of young German photographers gives a look at current developments and new trends in photography, extending to installative forms. Thus Marta Herford is again placing the focus on an artistic discipline which in recent years has been receiving important impulses.

With a record number of entries this time of 108 participants, “gute aussichten” (good prospects) has now firmly established itself as one of the most important prizes for up and coming photographers in the field of contemporary photo art. Once again, the winners of this prestigious competition will first be presented in the Museum Marta Herford before the exhibition embarks on a tour of numerous international locations. The successful project offers outstanding photography graduates a framework to present their work to a wider public.

While “gute aussichten – new german photography 2012/13” will be heading off to the next major presentation in the House of Photography, Deichtorhallen Hamburg on 21 January, the exhibition at Marta Herford will be extended with “zoom”, in which three internationally successful prize winners from past years will take over the exhibition rooms for a further four weeks. In collaboration with Marta Herford’s education department, current works by Monika Czosnowska, Ingo Mittelstaedt and Markus Uhr will be brought together in a kind of interactive lab where the visitors can actively live out central themes of the photographic works and their presentation.

Artists/Winners

Henning Bode (Fachhochschule Hannover), Susann Dietrich (HBK Braunschweig), Saskia Groneberg (Staatliche Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart), Svetlana Mychkine (Fachhochschule Dortmund), Nicolai Rapp (Fachhochschule Bielefeld), Fabian Rook (Muthesius Kunsthochschule Kiel) und Jakob Weber (HAWK Hildesheim).

Exhibition views

Link

News about the competition good prospects-blog

Enigma – Works 1985–2012

6 October 2012 – 13 January 2013

A few painters reinvent their work as regularly as Olav Christopher Jenssen (born in Norway in 1954) does it for almost thirty years.

His pictorial worlds continue to astound with stimulating and fresh abstractions, delicate linear fabrications, and colourful spheres in intense hues. His pictures often seem like pieces from a vibrant cosmos: it is up to each viewer to intuit secrets, or to recognise a constructive form of the unknown in these works.

The exhibition “Enigma” enables both intense and sensual insights into a pictorially evolving world. It repeatedly repositions itself from work to work, and from series to series, and then develops itself further on the basis of a few reduced, and often unexpected means. Like a wide river that is fed by separate streams, Jenssen’s œuvre evolves from a constantly spreading chain of variations on painting that combine imagination and retrospection, and vitality and art.

The show consists of almost 200 mostly large-sized paintings and works created between 1985 and 2012, and presents a lively cross section of a large part Jenssen’s pictorial, graphic, and sculptural oeuvre.

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Introduction by Roland Nachtigäller
Texts by Kåre Bulie, Olav Christopher Jenssen und Viola Varzon
Format: 23,5 × 33 cm
208 pages
Brochure with poster cover
numerous colour ill.
German/ English
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH
Publisher: Kerber

Price: 44 €
order

Exhibition sponsor

Exhibition supporter

GIOM Millipede

26 August – 4. November 2012, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

In his first major museum exhibition, French graphic artist, painter, sculptor and performance artist Guillaume Bruère will be providing an insight into his diverse activities.

The young French graphic artist Guillaume Bruère is a truly exceptional artist with a grandiose oeuvre. Marta Herford is organising a double exhibition of his work with the Municipal Gallery of Backnang.
In his first major museum presentation, the French graphic artist, painter, sculptor and performance artist Guillaume Bruère provides some insights into his multi-facetted work.

Guillaume Bruère (born 1976 in Châtellerault/Poitou-Charentes, living and working in Berlin) is an exceptional artist in many different respects. When we look at his practically exploding work, we are fascinated, above all, by the diversity of styles, the variety of colours and the contradictory nature of the motifs. With a highly sensitive antenna, he allows images of the day and the night to merge into each other. He uses drawing, painting, sawing, gluing, sketching as well as performance to transfer these impressions into new, artistic existences.

Thus GIOM, as Bruère signs his works, slips again and again into the classical role of the copier, when he sits in the major European museums translating famous pictures into vibrating, energy-charged drawings. But then the motifs develop a highly irritating life of their own, become mirrors of looks and emotions, reflecting the living experience of a very personal encounter with the original.

Whether in these countless drawings, his reliefs or “saw-cuts”, again and again Bruère opens up a very personal, almost childish world of symbols which – somewhere between traditional coats of arms, puzzling portraits and trendy poster motifs – draws the viewer into its spell. What emerges is a mysterious world of lines and colours that launches the observer on a fascinating visual journey.

A Marta Herford project in cooperation with Galerie der Stadt Backnang (22. September – 18. November 2012).

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Guillaume Bruère, Eric Darragon, Friederike Fast, Mark Gisbourne, Roland Nachtigäller, Martin Schick
Format: 19 x 26 cm
176 pages
143 mostly coloured ill.
Softcover
German/ English
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH
Publisher: Kettler, Bönen

Price: 34,90 €
bestellen

Exhibition supporter

With kind support of the Institut français

Catalogue sponsor

Material sponsors

CARAN d’ACHE, Thônex-Genève (Schweiz)
RecyclingBörse! / Der Arbeitskreis Recycling e.V.

Atelier + Kitchen = Laboratories of the senses

Friday, 11 May 2012, at 7:30 p.m.

We cordially invite you and your friends to the opening of the exhibition.

With over 150 exquisite works of art from the sixteenth century to the present day, this large thematic exhibition addresses the astonishingly close association between the artist’s studio and the kitchen. In five stimulating sections, these two areas are presented together as mysterious scenes of activity, as settings blending inspiration with alchemy as well as creative chaos with classificatory thought, and as both representative meeting places and individual retreats. The exhibition concept was developed in conjunction with Prof Hubertus Gassner, the director of Hamburg Kunsthalle.

Justus Bier Curators Prize

At the opening, Roland Nachtigäller, Friederike Fast, Michael Kröger and Markus Richter will be presented with the 2011 Justus Bier Curators Prize. Awarded since 2009 by the >Helga Pape Foundation: Jens and Helga Howaldt<, this prize has been won by the team for their outstandingly written and beautifully worded publication >>We’re All Astronauts – Richard Buckminster Fuller’s Universe<< produced to tie in with the eponymous exhibition held at Marta Herford.
 
SPEAKERS:
Bruno Wollbrink, Major of the city of Herford
Roland Nachtigäller, Artistic Director Marta Herford and
Prof. Dr. Hubertus Gaßner, Director Hamburger Kunsthalle
Dr. Carl Haenlein, Justus Bier-Preis, Vorsitzender der Jury
 
AWARD CEREMONY
Dr. Jens Howaldt

Wednesday, 2nd May 2012, 6 to 9 pm

Marta Herford invites anybody who is interested in art to visit the exhibition on the first Wednesday of every month free of charge between 18.00 and 21.00 hrs. As an additional service for our visitors, on the Marta Art Evenings there will be art mediators in the galleries to answer any questions on the exhibition and the artists personally and individually.
You will recognize the art mediators by their pink t-shirts.

Welcome!

admission free

We would like to thank the Sparkasse Herford for their generous support of the Marta art mediators.

= Laboratories of the Senses

12 May – 16 September 2012

The striking similarities between the artist’s studio and the kitchen have sadly been neglected – until now, that is, because for the first time Marta Herford is taking a concentrated look at these two spheres of work together.

Featuring about 150 exquisite works of art, this group exhibition isn’t confined to any particular era. Instead it covers plenty of ground from sixteenth-century woodcuts of cooks and artists to genre paintings and still lifes of the ‘Golden Age’ as well as important works of modern and contemporary art.
In addition, the exhibition addresses various aspects of the diverse relationship between these two workspaces: these scenes of mysterious activity, workrooms of unfettered inspiration and alchemical formulations, places of creative chaos and classificatory thought, yet also prestigious meeting places and individual retreats.

Both domestic and professional settings are included, as are artists’ tongue-in-cheek depictions of themselves as chefs, harking back to the nineteenth century when painters were sometimes dismissed as nothing more than “bad cooks”. This fascinating, informative display also compares and contrasts outstanding images of studios and kitchens.

The project was devised in conjunction with Prof Hubertus Gassner, the director of Hamburg Kunsthalle.

Artists

Chantal Akerman, Sonja Alhäuser, Jost Amman, Arman Denise A.Aubertin, Jessica Backhaus, Benjamin Bergmann, Joseph Beuys, Irene Bisang, Norbert Bisky, Anna & Bernhard Blume, Balthasar van den Bossche, Pieter Bruegel d. Ä., Nina Canell, Jan De Cock, Josef Danhauser, Wim Delvoye, Thomas Demand, Fortunato Depero, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Marcel Duchamp, Julius von Ehren, James Ensor, Andreas Fischer, Lili Fischer, Georg Flegel, Pierre Edouard Frère, Martin Galle, Rodney Graham, Asta Gröting, Reto Guntli, Jürgen Heinert/ Michael Sailstorfer, Thomas Huber, Christian Jankowski, Carl Ludwig Jessen, William Kentridge, Martin Kippenberger, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Jürgen Klauke, Barbara Klemm, Imi Knoebel, Frederik Kochbeck, Jannis Kounellis, Werner Krüger, Jean-Baptiste Lallemand, Eugène Leroy, Max Liebermann, Atelier Van Lieshout, James Lloyd, Dieter Mammel/ Friederike Walter, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti & Fillìa, Pia Maria Martin, Pietro Antonio Martini, Przemysław Matecki, Paul McCarthy, Aernout Mik, Jan Miense Molenaer, Giorgio Morandi, Bruce Nauman, Abigail O’Brien, Jan Olis, Sigmar Polke, Man Ray, Lois Renner, Thomas Rentmeister, Johannes Rochhausen, Martha Rosler, Dieter Roth, David Ryckaert, Herman Saftleven, August Sander, Otto Marseus van Schrieck, Emil Schumacher, Cindy Sherman, Andreas Slominski, Daniel Spoerri, Michael Sweerts, Norbert Tadeusz, Johann Heinrich Wilhelm Tischbein, Rosemarie Trockel, Gerrit van Vucht, Dominicus Gottfried Waerdigh, Martin Walde, Franz Erhard Walther, Andy Warhol, Matthias Weischer, Jürgen Wolf, Erwin Wurm, Thomas Wyck

Guided Tours

Regular tours: Saturday, Sunday und on bank holidays at 12.00 and 15.00
Special guided tours with the exhibition curators:
Tuesday, 5 June, 3 July, 7 August, 4 September 2012,
at 4 pm
Ticket: 1,50 Euro plus entrance fee, no registration required
max. participants: 25

Exhibition Views

Catalogue

Introduction: Hubertus Gaßner / Roland Nachtigäller
Texts: Sabine Autsch, Friederike Fast, Hubertus Gaßner, Michael Kröger, Herbert Molderings, Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer, Jürgen Raap, Sabine Schütz, Oliver Seifert, Philip Ursprung, Monika Wagner
Format: 23 x 29 cm
272 Pages
Softcover with jacket
app. 200 colour ill.
German/ English
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH
Publisher: Hatje Cantz

Price: 39,80 €
order

Exhibition supporter

Exhibition sponsor

Photographs 1969–2009

22 April – 5 August 2012, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

The photography of Roger Ballen, who was born in 1950 in New York and has spent many years in South Africa, continues to bewilder. His pictures turn people and places around Johannesburg into surreal documents of a way of life on the edge of society.

In several extensive series, Ballen tackles subjects such as the descendants of the South African Boers, their lifestyle, and the image they maintain. His approach is to try and pinpoint both the unfamiliar and emotional turmoil. When Ballen published his series of photos entitled ‘Dorps’ (1994), it triggered strong reactions at home and abroad which repeatedly questioned the relationship between documentation and fiction.

Roger Ballen’s photographs convey aggression and vulnerability, yet also reflect his search for concealed, unconscious elements – which frequently take on a nightmarish appearance. They open up views of “a quiet, introverted, vulnerable and wounded world” (Evelyn Weiss). His imagery often resembles daydreams. Especially in his younger works, each photo is regarded by the artist as part of a cryptic self. As a result, his photography is an encounter between real places and a world perceived as a surreal.

This representative compilation of more than 200 photos (some large-format) includes examples from throughout his career and was a resounding success when displayed at Munich Stadtmuseum in 2010.

Exhibition sponsor

Exhibition images

Catalog

Roger Ballen. Photographies 1969—2009
Format: 30 x 30 cm
Pages: 148
Illustrations: 268 b/w illustrations
Hardcover, bound
Language: German (English Edition available)
Publisher: Kerber

Obsidian

10 March – 26 May 2013, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

Opening on Sunday, 10 March 2013, at 11:30 a.m., the artists are present

John Cage’s ‘The Perilous night’ (1944) for prepared piano will be performed by Marc Awolin, Bielefeld at the opening
 

For the first time EVA & ADELE present their pencil drawing oeuvre in a comprehensive exhibition. In conjunction with the series of nine vinyl costumes, they provide a haunting, touching view on the radicality of a lifelong performance.

EVA and ADELE come from the future. Since 1991 they have been appearing in the international art world all around the globe, always together, always dressed the same, always smiling, and transforming the places they appear. “Wherever we are is a museum”. Alongside their extensive performance and media works, in recent years they have also appeared in public with a broad artistic oeuvre.

Less well known, however, is the graphic work arising in large cycles and which, particularly in recent times, has become obviously darker and more private. For the first time here EVA & ADELE will be punching holes in the perfect cocoon of their twin identity and using artistic means to grant insights into highly personal matters beyond the sensations of their public appearances.

“Obsidian” is the name for a black, volcanic glass and the title of the first exhibition showing the other side of EVA & ADELE. It draws us into an interim world between pink light and shadows soaked in black.

Guided Tours

Thur, May 5; Sat/Sun May 11/12; Sat May 18; Sun/Mon, May 19/20 (Pentecost),
always at 12 and 3 p.m.
Extra guided tour with the curator: Tue, May 7, 4 p.m.

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Reinhard Ermen, Jan-Philipp Fruehsorge, Roland Nachtigäller
Format: 22 x 28 cm
240 pages
180 b/w and colour ill.
Hardcover, cloth binding
Languages: German | English
Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH
Publisher: Distanz, Berlin
Price: 32 Euro

Exhibition support

Catalogue support

An atmosphere of change

25 May – 8 September 2013, Gehry Galleries

Opening on Friday, 24 May 2013, at 7:30 p.m.

 
For the first time an exhibition is dedicated extensively to the phenomenon of vision in contemporary art. In what way does it differ from the utopia, what energies does it hold for the active shaping of the future?

Inspired by the first apparition of the Virgin Mary north of the Alps, the Herford apparition from the 10th century, “Visions” embarks on an unconventional, highly stimulating journey through a wide range of contexts and phenomena, allowing the viewer to trace the spirit and the atmosphere of visionary thought and formation. In our pragmatically organised times the question of the power of visions is just as necessary as it is – in the form of this exhibition – unique. In keeping with the intangible nature of a vision, this exhibition is conceived as a kind of living membrane, an experience space within the biomorphous, open architecture of Frank Gehry, thus giving expression to the character of the Museum Marta Herford as a laboratory for progressive ideas.

Artists

Franz Ackermann, Francis Alÿs, Benjamin Bergmann, Michaël Borremans, Guillaume Bruère, Mel Chin, Walter Dahn, Christoph Dettmeier, Felix Droese, Carola Ernst, Andrea Fogli, Andrew Gilbert, Lothar Götz, Jana Gunstheimer, David Hammons, Steven C. Harvey, Jeppe Hein, Peggy & Thomas Henke, Christian Jankowski, Almut Linde, Christof Mascher, E. S. Mayorga, Gianni Motti, Matt Mullican, Mwangi Hutter, Panamarenko, Dan Perjovschi, Ulrich Pester, Anne-Julie Raccoursier, Werner Reiterer, Thomas Ruff, Andreas Slominski, Johanna Tiedtke, Jorinde Voigt, Lawrence Weiner

Guided tours

Regular tours: on Saturdays, Sundays and bank holidays 12 a.m. and 3 p.m.
Extra tours with the curators:
Tuesday, June 4, August 6, September 3, 2013,
always at 4 p.m.
Ticket: 1,50 Euro plus entrance fee, no application,
max. number of participants: 25
“Letzte Blicke” (final views) with Roland Nachtigäller: September 8, 3 p.m.

Catalogue

Texts: David Ganz, Michael Kröger, Roland Nachtigäller, Wolfgang Ullrich, Jutta Zaremba, Oliver Zybok Format: 21 x 28 cm 352 pages 180 illustrations Softcover with jacket Language: German | English Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Publisher: Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern Price: order

Exhibition sponsor

Exhibition supporter

Cultural cooperation

Roger Ballen: Fotografien 1969-2009

Sonntag, 22. April 2012, um 11.30 Uhr, Lippold-Galerie (1. Stock)

Expectations are high – for photographer Roger Ballen himself will be travelling from Johannesburg to Herford to attend the opening of the exhibition. After a brief welcome from Marta’s director Roland Nachtigäller, Dr Ulrich Pohlmann, the head of the Photographic Collection at Munich Museum, will introduce the exhibition, which was jointly compiled by him and the artist in 2010.

Following the opening, Roger Ballen will give a talk about his work (in English) in his inimitable, charming manner.

Admission to the Roger Ballen exhibition on the day of the opening will be free until 1pm.

OWL3

16 June – 18 August 2013, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

Opening on Sunday, 16 June 2013, at 11:30 a.m.

 
For the third time the Marta Herford takes a look at the works of artists with biographical links with the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL). In the juxtaposition of different perspectives, the group exhibition develops an exciting dialogue.

Usually only used in the context of agriculture or buildings, the term “Nutzflächen”, or “useable areas” is given a new meaning in the mirror of art. The exhibition extends this term to the artistic sphere by putting it – beyond all functional purpose – in relation to the place of presentation, to the meaning of displays, right up to the projection surfaces in the minds of the artist and the observer.

In the run-up to this exhibition in 2012, the project “The borehole to New Zealand” by the artist Ralf Witthaus took place with great media attention.

Exhibition furtherer

Exhibition sponsor

Outstanding Ideas

8 September – 10 November 2013, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

Opening on Sunday, 8 September 2013, at 11:30 a.m.

 
In its sixth year, the Recycling Design Prize is awarded for new developments in sustainable design and presents outstanding ideas in a varied exhibition.

Original new uses for long-disused articles or the narrative charm of used surfaces – in the search for the “hidden meaning of discarded things”, there are no limits to the imagination. From 1 January to 15 July 2013 designers from all over the world are invited to submit their designs. An international jury of experts will then select the best designs.

As the first station, the Marta Herford is showing this special selection in the Lippold Gallery of the museum before the exhibition travels on to other venues.

The project is sponsored by the Arbeitskreis Recycling e.V. Herford.

In cooperation with

Forays into the worlds of collage

28 September 2013 – 26 January 2014, Gehry Galleries

Opening on Friday, 27 September, at 7:30 p.m.

The Kunstmuseum Ahlen and the Museum Marta Herford present a joint exhibition project on the contemporary significance of collage and the related forms of expression in art.

Two museums, two cities, one connection: in two renowned exhibition houses in NRW simultaneously, the technique of collage will be newly questioned in the form of a unique cooperative project – a cursory rather than a systematic journey through the history of collage from the beginnings around 1910 right up to contemporary revivals.

In contrast to its historical origins, collage is no longer bound to the use of paper and shears, but manifests itself in a lively engagement beyond the boundaries of genre and material. It is almost as if these techniques with cutting and pasting somehow correspond to contemporary attitudes towards life. In a heterogeneous world, whose full complexity can be barely grasped, the fragment receives a new function between reconstruction and the creation of new totalities.

“Ruhe-Störung” (disturbing the peace) moves between analysis and synthesis, reduction and accumulation, destruction and construction, devaluation and revaluation. Protest and resistance, unrest and upheaval, escapes and dreams, recycling and renewal, diversity of voices and cacophony, appropriation of space and the building of worlds are the thematic guiding stars that the exhibition follows.

With the Kunstmuseum Ahlen and the Marta Herford two exhibition venues are pursuing a joint idea in completely different buildings, rooms and museum focal points.

Architecture photography [working title]

1 December 2013 – 16 February 2014, Lippold Galleries (1st floor)

Opening on Sunday, 1 Dezember, at 11.30 a.m.

Focussing on the special architecture of Marta Herford, the untiring, globally active photographer develops a retrospective presentation of his photographs and projects.

Born in 1975 in Amsterdam, Iwan Baan has been a globally operating, internationally acclaimed architecture photographer for some years now. Baan, who works for Rem Koolhaas, Herzog & de Meuron and Zaha Hadid among others, has influenced our contemporary image of architecture like no other photographer.

The exhibition presents selected highlights from the past and current work of the young Dutchman, who has already done spectacular work for the Marta Herford in the context of the exhibition “Richard Neutra in Europe”.

amongst others with Rolf Schönlau

Wednesday, 4th April 2012, 6 to 9 pm

Marta Herford invites anybody who is interested in art to visit the exhibition on the first Wednesday of every month free of charge between 18.00 and 21.00 hrs. As an additional service for our visitors, on the Marta Art Evenings there will be art mediators in the galleries to answer any questions on the exhibition and the artists personally and individually. You will recognize the art mediators by their pink t-shirts.

Welcome!

Entrance free

We would like to thank the Sparkasse Herford for their generous support of the Marta art mediators.

Outstanding Ideas

18 February – 1 April 2012, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

Now in its fifth year, the Recycling Design Prize is awarded for new developments in sustainable design and presents outstanding ideas in a varied exhibition.

In their search for the ‘hidden meaning of discarded items’, entrants’ creativity knows no bounds with their inventive upcycling of long-discarded items coupled with the narrative charm of worn surfaces. The best designs from over 600 submissions have been chosen by an international jury. This special selection will be displayed in Marta Herford before moving on to other venues.

Designers

Philipp Bauer, Constance Becker, Anna Bormann, Samuel Coendet, Marina Eggen, Bernhard Faiss, Larissa Frank, Simon Gandler, Julia Gebhardt, Lea Gerber, Patric Günther, Angelika Heß, Sabrina Höllrigl, Axel Huhold, Felix Kaiser, Claudia Kappenberger, Cecil Leonel Karges, Andrea Kessler, Silke Koch, Marek Kostykiewicz, Wolfgang Kowar, Alexandra Lippert, Peter Mahlknecht, Hanna Moosbauer, Waltraud Münzhuber, Lana Niestegge, Stefan Oßwald, Andrè Osthaar, Katarzyna Pawlik, Thomas Schiefer, Valentin Schmitt, Maren Schmitz, Samuel Soetebeer, Marius Temming, Rob Vencl, Juri Welsch, Dirk Wember, Michael Wollke, Maja Zalewska

In cooperation with

Exhibition images

Following exhibition tour

8/5–18/6: Umweltbundesamt, Dessau, Bauhaus Dessau
20/6–28/7: stilwerk Berlin
6/8–2/9: stilwerk Düsseldorf
17/9–7/10: stilwerk Vienna
15/10–4/11: stilwerk Hamburg

Catalogue

Fünf Jahre RecyclingDesignpreis
Five years of RecyclingDesign Award
Editor: Udo Holtkamp, Arbeitskreis Recycling e.V., Herford
119 pages, 220 mostly colour ill.
17 x 24 cm, Softcover
German/ English

Price: 7.90 €
order

A World’s Journey

28 January – 22 April 2012, Gehry Galleries

This exhibition for the first time combines two specific materials in contemporary art which could hardly be more different in terms of their cultural significance.

Gold is, therefore, not only an elementary natural material, but also a valuable resource par excellence and an expression of man’s desire for the exclusive, the rare, the unique. Ash, on the other hand, appears as its dark, opposite side. It is the residue of the combustion process, the last stage in material transformation, irreversible and final. In the field of tension between these highly symbolic but opposite materials we enter a sensually palpable space between nature and culture, value and myth, between life and death.

As materials in art ash and gold are anything but superficial, because they always speak of an open spirit which invents them, stages them and thereby permanently changes itself. And as symbols of cold, eternal material and hot, material-consuming energy, they are materials with great symbolic power which address the observer almost directly. The high-carat exhibition with numerous renowned artists offers a stimulating parcours through the history of art in the last 40 years.

The exhibition was created in collaboration with Dr. Anne Schloen, Cologne.

Made possible by

Artists:

Pawel Althamer, Gili Avissar, Massimo Bartolini, Lore Bert, Joseph Beuys, Guillaume Bijl, Marcel Broodthaers, James Lee Byars, Jacques Charlier, Paolo Chiasera, Anja Ciupka, Thomas Demand, Igor Eskinja, Luka Fineisen, Lucio Fontana, Michel François, Félix González-Torres, Filip Gilissen, Subodh Gupta, David Hammons, Douglas Henderson, Andy Hope 1930, Rebecca Horn, Alfredo Jaar, Anish Kapoor, Yves Klein, Stefanie Klingemann, Jannis Kounellis, Gereon Krebber, Bruno Krenz, Marie-Jo Lafontaine, Maik und Dirk Löbbert, Heinz Mack, Yaël Nazé, Louise Nevelson, Navid Nuur, Wolfgang Paalen, Mimmo Paladino, Otto Piene, Sigmar Polke, Friederike von Rauch, Man Ray, Erich Reusch, Gerhard Richter, Lars Rosenbohm, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Jürgen Stollhans, Ines Tartler, herman de vries, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Claudia Wieser, Richard Wright.

Exhibition images

Catalog

Format: 20 x 28 cm
240 pages
121 colour and 28 b/w ill., Softcover
German / English
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH

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On the first Wednesday of every month, the museum opens its doors to all free of charge from 18.00 to 21.00 hrs. At these times the “Marta Art Speakers” will be available for discussions, introductions and further information. Artists and other people involved in the exhibitions are often present in the galleries for discussion events, performances or other contributions.

GWK Art Awards 2011

26 November 2011 – 29 January 2012, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

For the first time Marta Herford is host to the winners of the art awards worth Euro 8,000 each of the GWK-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der Westfälischen Kulturarbeit, the Society for the Promotion of Westphalian Cultural Work, Münster.

A high-calibre expert jury selected the sculptors Kristina Berning and Benjamin Greber as prize winners for 2011. They are exhibiting selected works in the Lippold Gallery in the Museum Marta Herford:

“No More Illusions” gives us an insight into Kristina Berning’s sculptural oeuvre. Her objects are made from everyday materials which retain their raw, untreated character and are developed to form fragile constructions by the artist. With “Almagia 2” Benjamin Greber presents an installation which gives his sculptural project of an imaginary, globally operating corporation the space-encompassing form of a large warehouse.

The opening of the exhibition will take place within the framework of the award ceremony for the GWK prizes in literature, music and art in the Marta Forum, at which the music and literature award winners will provide a high-quality program.

Exhibition images

Catalog

Catalogs for both artists will be published at the end of the exhibition.

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External Link:

www.gwk-online.de

Art auction for the Marta collection

Sunday, 4 November 2012, opens at 11.00 hrs, event starts at 12.00 hrs in the Marta Forum

Following two successful auction events already, a third public, professional auction of contemporary art works is to take place in the Marta Herford under the auspices of Prof. Henrik Hanstein, owner of Kunsthaus Lempertz in Cologne. Well-known artists close to the museum will be making their own works available for auction. The revenue will be used to develop the Marta collection.

Why don’t you make an offer? Written bids are also welcome.

Preview of the works on auction in the Marta Forum:

from 31 October every day from 11.00 to 18.00 hrs and on the auction day from 11.00 hrs.

Start of the auction on 4 November: 12.00 hrs

The auction catalogue and the form for written bids (page 29 of the catalogue) can be downloaded here, or are also available (as PDF file) at tel. no. 05221 94430-28 or e-mail franziska.brueckmann@marta-herford.de.

An event by Friends and Sponsors of Marta.

Entrance free of charge

Young Photo Art at Marta Forum

12 November 2011 – 8 January 2012

For the fourth time, awards will be granted in the internal college photo competition initiated by Leica France for selected works by the best students from three European colleges.

The participants from the Royal College of Art, London, the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs, Paris, and the Fachhochschule Bielefeld of the year 2010 will be introduced to a wider audience for the first time at the Marta Herford. Alongside professors from the three colleges – Christophe Bourguedieu (Ensad, Paris), Rut Blees Luxemburg (RCA London), Roman Bezjak (FH Bielefeld) – the jury also included Gaëlle Goinguené (Leica France), the artist Bernhard Prinz and the director of the Bielefeld Art Society Thomas Thiel.

In addition to works by the two award winners, Sebastian Keitel (FH Bielefeld) and Benjamin Klintoe (Ensad, Paris), the exhibition also shows twelve further photo and video projects which in many ways illustrate the special situation of the students. The everyday routine of the young photographers between college training and professional work is expressed as an extremely productive situation which opens up a sensitive view for the interpersonal, while highlighting various other aspects of our existence from the bizarre to the dangerous.

Entrance free

Architecture at the Marta Forum

14. October – 29. October 2011, Marta Forum

The BDA East-Westphalia Lippe (OWL) has granted its “good buildings award” for the fifth time. A total of 25 entries will now be presented in a touring exhibition.

The prize is aimed at developing public consciousness for quality in planning and building, and at setting quality standards in contemporary architecture. Of all the designs entered, the jury awarded three a “distinction” and one an “acknowledgement”. The “good buildings award” is a prize granted every three years which acknowledges the good collaboration between architects and building owners in OWL and thus their joint contribution towards the creation of outstanding works of architecture and municipal construction.

The Memory of Form

An exhibition within the framework of the project “Powerhouse Depot”

8 Oktober 2011 – 8 Januar 2012, Marta Dom

Franz Erhard Walther, four-times documenta artist, leads the visitors into a unique sensual world of experience.

With their whole bodies they perceive the room-filling, colour-intensive large-scale installation which transforms the floor and the walls in the Marta Dom into a fascinating field of tension of stitched forms and radiant colours.

Born in Fulda/Germany in 1939, around 1960 the artist developed a substantially new concept of the work. Since then he presents his mainly textile objects with equal status alongside their installation in the room, but just as they would be found in the warehouse: folded, stacked, laid out in compact blocks. This makes the work inviolably linked with the actions of the artist or the audience. They are the starting point for processes of sensual perception and physical experience. This takes place in the so-called work actions and work performances.

For the first time the whole bandwidth of his “Store of Sample Stitchings”, which has been constantly evolving since 1969, is to be shown in an exhibition project. Wall and floor pieces, soft and solid coloured bodies of fabric – folded, stored, stood up or hung – all combine to create a grandiose spatial form. The visitor finds himself before a precisely balanced, walk-in picture which is determined less by dramatic tension than by the profound, inner equilibrium of the colours and forms. At the same time, the pillars of a work developed uncompromisingly over more than 40 years are made clear.

Exhibition images

Catalog

Format: 20 cm x 25 cm
Softcover with firm book jacket
64 pages
Numerous color installation views
German/ English
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH

Price: 15 €
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Personal Map (to be continued …)

An exhibition within the framework of the project “Powerhouse Depot”

8 Oktober 2011 – 8 Januar 2012, Marta Dom

The performance artist Nezaket Ekici spreads out her own personal world map: her intensive works tell a story of the persistent questioning of cultural identity, gender roles and globalisation.

The “art nomad” Nezaket Ekici seems to have travelling in her blood: born in 1970 in Turkey, she emigrated with her family to Germany at the age of three. Later she moved to serve her apprenticeship from Duisburg to Munich, and then for her studies to Braunschweig. Since then she has travelled on three continents, in more than 30 countries and more than 100 cities with over 120 performances. She also regularly participates in exhibitions at home and abroad with films and installations.

In her first major museum exhibition Nezaket Ekici shows a selection of her works precisely conceived for specific locations which developed within the framework of her worldwide artistic work over ten years. There are also some projects which were created especially for the exhibition. A key question of the exhibition: How can performance art, which is distinguished specifically by its uniqueness and the presence of the artist, be shown in a museum, let alone collected? Marta Herford illuminates the diverse options for the presence and the presentation of this time-specific art.

Exhibition images

Catalog

with texts by: Nezaket Ekici, Friederike Fast, Andrea Jahn, Beral Madra and Roland Nachtigäller
Format: 23.5 × 29 cm
Pages: 288
Illustrations: 504 color and 8 b/w
Cover: Softcover with flaps, bound
Languages: German | English | Turkish
Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH
Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld
ISBN: 978-3-86678-591-5

Price: 36,50 €

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How Art Ages

An exhibition within the framework of the project “Powerhouse Depot”

8 Oktober 2011 – 8 Januar 2012, Marta Dom

A trenchant compilation of works from the depots of three very different museums: the LWL Landesmuseum for Art and Cultural History in Münster, the Stedelijk Museum of Contemporary Art (S.M.A.K.) in Ghent and Marta Herford.

Works of art can’t always be looked at and admired; from time to time they also need to rest, to be stored, conserved and restored in specially prepared rooms. This turns museum depots into powerhouses of energy which is periodically released for particular exhibitions. The “Powerhouse Depot” exhibition project explores issues of the storage of art, its aging processes and its conservation and restoration along with questions of how we perceive and attach value to works of art. This three part exhibition marks the opening of the new Marta Depot for the Marta Collection.

Joseph Beuys’ installation “Wirtschaftswerte” (Economic Values) serves as the starting point for an inspiring dialogue with photographs, paintings, installations and objects by Matthew Barney, Dieter Roth, Ulrich Rückriem, Nedko Solakov, Marcel Broodthaers and many others.

Participating artists

Susanne Albrecht, Matthew Barney, Robert Barry, Joseph Beuys, Sergey Bratkov, Marcel Broodthaers, Peter De Cupere, Franky DC, Heinrich F. Funk, Carl Heinrich Lorenz Funk, H.F. Gaudenz von Rustige, Loek Grootjans, C. Keller, Louise Lawler, Sol LeWitt, Richard Long, Pierro Manzoni, Navid Nuur, Wilfredo Prieto, Tobias Rehberger, Dieter Roth, Ulrich Rückriem, Wilhelm Sasnal, Julia Schily-Koppers, Oskar Schlemmer, Nedko Solakov, Pascale Marthine Tayou, Friedhelm Tschentscher, Gavin Turk, Aaron van Erp, Hannes Van Severen, Jan Vercruysse, Rudolph von Normann, Lois Weinberger, Jens Wolf

Exhibition images

Perceptions of Time and Contemporary Design

10 September – 6 November 2011, Lippold Gallery (1. Floor)

The exhibition takes a humorous and critical look at contemporary design. It appears as a multifaceted medium equally skilled at negotiating a number of different arenas – postmodern consumer culture and art, seduction and self-referential presentation.

Shining golden over-dimensional household objects mounted on plinths like so many radiant icons, a chrono-shredder meticulously shredding not paper documents but the passage of human life, a leather clad human skeleton strumming an e-guitar, china crockery sporting the traces of its usage as ornamental decoration – the spectrum of design objects in the “Perceptions of Time and Contemporary Design” exhibition ranges from annotated timepieces and critical reflections on consumer culture to explorations of the canon of representations of time in painting (vanitas and human mortality) and contemporary themes such as vintage, retro and sustainability.

Artists and Designers
Yves Behar, Natalia Brilli, Nacho Carbonell, Michel Charlot, Oscar Diaz, Delphine Frey, Front / Sofia Lagerkvist, Charlotte von der Lancken, Anna Lindgren mit Thokozani Sibisi und Loholile Ximba, Martí Guixé, Studio Gorm / Wonhee Jeong und John Arndt, Susanna Hertrich, Studio Job / Job Smeets und Nynke Tynagel, Joris Laarman, Via Lewandowsky, Tomáš Gabzdil Libertiny, Alexa Lixfeld, Thomas Lommée, Maison Martin Margiela, Jo Meesters, Sander Mulder, Shinichiro Ogata, Wieki Somers, Unplug Design Studio / Hwang Kyung Chan, Jin Song Kyou, Lee Hak Su, Han Min Hyun und Jun Jin, Bas van der Veer, Anders Wilhelmson, Samuel Wilkinson, Bethan Laura Wood

Exhibition images

Video

Catalogue

Texts: Friederike Fast, Rainer Funke, Jörg Hundertpfund, Michael Kröger, Tido von Oppeln, Wolfang Pauser, Wolfgang Ullrich Format: 12 × 19,40 cm 200 pages 115 colour and 7 b/w ill. Paperback Languages: German | English Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld Price: 15,95 € order

A project by Norman Foster

11 June – 18 September 2011, Gehry Galleries (Dome)

A complete biographic overview of the work of Richard Buckminster Fuller, from the trailblazing Dymaxion House to his famous geodesic domes.

The exhibition was compiled by the architects Lord Norman Foster, with whom Fuller worked closely in the last 12 years of his life, and Luis Fernández-Galiano, professor at Universidad Politécnica in Madrid. The works featured, which include photographs, films, drawings, sketches, structures, and models (e.g. the spectacular reconstruction of his futuristic Dymaxion Car #4), represent key moments in Buckminster Fuller’s life and work. His synthesis of architecture, design and art, visionary spatial concepts and technological innovations is absolutely unique.

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Supporters

COR Sitzmöbel
Ellmer
Multiplex-Werbung
Poggenpohl Möbelwerke
Sparkasse Herford
Wemhöner Surface Technologies
Westfa-Werbung Modersohn

Exhibition images

Catalogue

Texts: Joachim Krausse, Dana Miller, Roland Nachtigäller, Markus Richter Format: 27 x 21 cm 248 pages 148 colour and 46 b/w ill. Softcover Languages: German | English Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld Price: 30 € Museum’s edition out of print

Universe Richard Buckminster Fuller reflected in contemporary art

11 June – 18 September 2011

The exhibition illuminates the contemporary interest in the spectacular ideas and visions of Richard Buckminster Fuller with fascinating projects and installations by 22 international artists.

The great visionary Richard Buckminster Fuller saw openness, a willingness to experiment and intuition equally as fundamental principles of his work. His fusion of precise thinking and spontaneous, creative insight, his holistic view of the universe, have fascinated many artists – particularly again at the dawn of the 21st century.

The exhibition at Marta Herford highlights this interest in the ideas and visions of the early 1960s with works by more than 20 international artists. They embrace Fuller’s geometric discoveries, further develop his social utopias, critically question his innovations and adopt his humour and playful approach.

In Cooperation with Markus Richter, european art projects.

Artists

Attila Csörgö, Björn Dahlem, José Dávila, Simon Dybbroe Møller, Michel François, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Lucas Lenglet, David Maljkovic, Hermann Maier Neustadt, N55, Olafur Eliasson, Riccardo Previdi, Tobias Putrih, Pedro Reyes, Silke Riechert, Tomás Saraceno, Albrecht Schäfer, Kai Schiemenz, Kerstin Stoll, Ai Weiwei, Tilman Wendland, Beat Zoderer

Exhibition views

Video

Exhibition sponsor

Exhibition supporter

Other supporters

COR Sitzmöbel
Ellmer
Multiplex-Werbung
Poggenpohl Möbelwerke
Sparkasse Herford
Wemhöner Surface Technologies
Westfa-Werbung Modersohn

Catalogue

Texts: Joachim Krausse, Dana Miller, Roland Nachtigäller, Markus Richter Format: 27 x 21 cm 248 pages 148 colour and 46 b/w ill. Softcover Languages: German | English Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld Price: 30 € Museum’s edition out of print

Art Portfolios from the Collection Marzona

22 May – 21 August 2011, Lippold Gallery (1st floor)

With this exhibition Marta Herford offers an impressing tour through a slightly different history of art in the last 100 years, compiled from one of the most important private collections.

At the threshold to the 20th century art began to discover numerous new options for the wider distribution of images. Traditional artisan techniques such as wood engraving, copper engraving and lithography were refined and advanced by artists as Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Wassily Kandinsky or Henri Matisse. Marcel Duchamp started to use modern technologies for print and reproduction such as photography and offset. Yet not only the individual image gained new forms of expression. Increasingly, artists like Le Corbusier, Asger Jorn and Cy Twombly began to experiment with work series, variations and narratives.

As a result, a wealthy culture of artistic publications emerged, which as original prints in exclusive limited editions and precisely in a highly personal, indeed private handling, develop an extraordinary impact. The exhibition presents over 40 high-calibre, and occasionally rare portfolios and artist editions of the 20th century.

Artists

Marc Chagall, André Breton, Marcel Duchamp, Giorgio de Chirico, Max Ernst, Gilbert & George, Erich Heckel, Asger Jorn, Wassily Kandinsky, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Klee, Le Corbusier, Franz Marc, Henri Matisse, Meret Oppenheim, Pablo Picasso, Ulrich Rückriem, Antoni Tàpies, Jean Tinguely, Cy Twombly and many other

Exhibition views

Video

Catalogue

Texts: Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer Format: 24 cm x 16,5 cm 96 pages 91 colour ill. Softcover Language: German Editor: Marta Herford gGmbH Price: 18 € order

Insights into a private collection

30 January – 18 April 2010

When someone allows you to look at their private collection it is effectively a journey into the unknown. No subject imposes itself onto the works, no historical context jostles for attention, instead paintings, sculptures and installations open up a space in which they develop their very own artistic dialogs. Yet simultaneously, you enter the sphere of a personal passion for collecting.

In the slender selection of works by reputable international artists that generally stem from the second half of the 20th century, the aim is to discover totally different expressions in the context of their time: The exhibition guides visitors by means of an array of devices, from poetic narrations via highly individual commentaries through to potent challenges, which enter into a multilingual relationship in this collection exhibition. While the works speak expressively for themselves they simultaneously allude to the concealed history of their common origins: What do the individual works reveal about a particular view of art?

The show will feature works by Richard Artschwager (USA), Nicos Baikas (GR), Lore Bert (D), Joseph Beuys (D), Bram Bogart (NL), Armin Böhm (D), Herbert Brandl (A), Marcel Broodthaers (B), Michael Buthe (D), Amédée Cortier (B), Thierry de Cordier (B), Raoul de Keyser (B), Jessica Diamond (USA), Helmut Dorner (A), Marlene Dumas (NL), Miklós Erdély (UNG), Jan Fabre (B), Barry Flanagan (GB), Carmela Garcia (E), Robert Gober (USA), David Hammons (USA), René Heyvaert (B), David Hockney (GB), Andreas Hofer (D), Thomas Huber (D), Jan Kromke (D), Eugene Leroy (F), Kris Martin (BE), Ulrich Meister (D), Piotr Nathan (P), Bruce Nauman (USA), Cady Noland (USA), Panamarenko (B), Roger Raveel (B), Gerhard Richter (D), Pietro Roccasalva (I), Peter Rostovsky (RU), Thomas Ruff (D), Costas Tsoclis (GR), Luc Tuymans (B), Juan Uslé (E), Jan Vercruysse (B), Martin Walde (A), Andy Warhol (USA), Franz West (A), Jens Wolf (D).

Images

Catalogue

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OWL2

18 July – 6 September 2009

Marta Herford not only sees itself as a place for collecting, research and education but primarily as a place of communication. And in active exploration of the present the museum also constantly strives for a lively exchange with its immediate surroundings. First held in 2007, this exhibition provides a second opportunity for a more intensive encounter with artistic energies in and around the region Ostwestfalen-Lippe (OWL).

The group exhibition presents a concentrated selection of artists, whose biographies link them in various ways with the OWL region. While the term “here” is generally associated with what is close or familiar and “elsewhere” with the unknown what is distant can become a place of longing and projection precisely because of its different quality. To a particular degree artists number amongst the “nomads” of our society, which is also reflected as a topic in the exhibited works. However, the exhibition title not only alludes to the aspect of an increasingly more mobile society but also stands for a mental state of suspense. Several exhibits communicate the feeling of social insecurity or not belonging in a specific place, which can alter in the encounter with art – both here and elsewhere so that new means of creating an identity emerge from this confrontation.

Artists

Dennis Feser, Dirk Dietrich Hennig, Käthe Kruse, Judith Michel, Michael Nowottny, Veronika Radulovic / Nguyen Minh Thanh, Iris Selke, Dagmar Weiß / Carsten Benger, Patrick WEH Weiland, Klaus Wittkamp, Tim Rehm / Tim Sürken

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Friederike Fast, Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer Format: 17 x 24 cm 103 pages 96 ill. Softcover Language: German Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld Museum edition out of stock

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Under the Open Sky

9 May – 28 June 2009

For all the diversity in terms of the artistic means he employs, and they range from painting and drawing via sculpture and installation through to video and performance, Paolo Chiasera always uses a recurring set of motifs.

Born in 1978 in Bologna, he has for years addressed that complex relationship that unites young people with their (role) models and traditions. The figure of the hero plays just as important a role in his projects as does the process of destruction and new beginnings. The latter idea also contains the metaphor and familiar conflict artists face between art history bearing down on them and the need to set themselves apart from it in favor of the new. Chiasera employs this drama for his paintings and installations not only with intellectual reflection and conceptual detachment but repeatedly with relish and great emotionality, nor does he shy away from the pathos of grand gestures.

For the Marta Paolo Chiasera has created two installations both of which deal with the classic topic of landscape. In the first instance a series of gouaches from the work cycle The Trilogy produced in 2006 is integrated into the new context of a panoramic mural. However, the exhibition does not address landscape as such, but rather explores how its artistic portrayal conflicts with the museum’s spectacular architecture. This is particularly evident in the second installation when an entire mountain in the form of a monumental painted stage set swallows the museum.

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Lorenzo Benedetti, Carson Chan, Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer Format: 24,2 x 32,2 cm 72 pages 52 b/w ill. Softcover Language: German | English Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Price: 22,00 € order

Electric Kisses

9 May – 28 June 2009

His creative output covers 40 years and in his work US artist Dennis Oppenheim (born 1938) has repeatedly explored the limits of art. His work ranges from Land Art via performance, video, film and photography through to sculptures and installations (indoor and outdoor).

Already in the late 1960s Oppenheim extended the range of his sculptural activity moving out of the gallery and museum rooms to take in the landscape. His current sculptures for public spaces hark back to his early works. However, in contrast to the land and body art projects it is not the artist himself who explores the various locations but the observer becomes a discoverer in his encounter with the artwork and alters his role from passive recipient to actor.

The exhibition at the Marta covers a wide range from the early projects dating back to the 1960s and 1970s to current projects, which are being shown to a wider public for the first time. The focus is on models and large-format installations for public spaces: worm-like bus stations, flying caravans and habitable pylons. With his fantastic housings and hybrid objects Dennis Oppenheim invites us to fathom the meaning of the respective place. In their ambivalence the works become the catalysts of events, which question prevailing concepts of the world.

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Friederike Fast, Aaron Levy, Roland Nachtigäller. With a conversation between Vito Acconci, Aaron Betsky, Liam Gillick and Dennis Oppenheim Format: 21 x 27,5 cm 160 pages 138 colour and 25 b/w ill. Softcover Language: German | English Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Publisher: Edizioni Charta, Milano Price: 30 € order

Nieuwe German Gestaltung

14 February – 19 April 2009

This exhibition shows a subjective selection of the current groundbreaking design positions currently being produced in Germany. Guest curator of this exhibition, which is taking place in the four external galleries, is Max Borka / Brussels.

Born in 1954, Max Borka has been working as a journalist and author in the fields of arts, architecture and design for 25 years. He is one of the co-founders of DAM, a magazine on art, architecture, design and fashion.
Max Borka is Art Director of designbrussels and a founding member of the Belgian Ministry of Design. He is the author of various books on architecture (Jo Crepain), fashion (Walter Van Beirendock) and art (Picasso, Koen Theys et al.).

Designers

Werner Aisslinger, Mirko Borsche, Bless, Mark Braun, Heike Buchfelder & Jan Peter E. R. Sonntag, Matthias Dietz, Stefan Diez, El Ultimo Grito, Ett la Benn, Farsen & Schöllhammer, Fehling & Peiz, FremdKörper, Fuchs & Funke, Konstantin Grcic, Marti Guixé, Jörg Hundertpfund, Aylin Kayser & Christian Metzner, Silvia Knüppel, Linda Kostowski & Mashallah design, David Krings, Alexa Lixfeld, Julia Lohmann, Olze & Wilkens, Valerie Otte, Redesigndeutschland, Tina Roeder, Judith Seng, Jerszy Seymour, Katrin Sonnleitner, Tido von Oppeln & Museum der Dinge, Katharina Wahl, Hermann Weizenegger, Dirk Winkel

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Introduction: Roland Nachtigäller Text: Max Borka Format: 11 x 18 cm 336 pages app. 150 colour ill. Paperback Language: German | English Editor: Max Borka und MARTa Herford gGmbH Publisher: Kerber Verlag, Bielefeld Price: 16,95 € order

14 February – 19 April 2009

For the first time in 20 years in Germany, an extensive collection of works by the Canadian Sculptor Royden Rabinowitch will be on display at the Marta. This show will comprise floor and wall sculptures made of metal and also a series of large drawings which were produced in the 1990’s. Furthermore, this collection will be supplemented by sculptures and objects from the 1960’s. These works mark the beginning of Rabinowitch’s career and illustrate the basis of the whole of his later work in a concise manner.

Royden Rabinowitch was born in 1943 in Toronto. His artistic work is closely related to Minimal Art. However, initially he did not break with the formal domain of classic Modernism as radically as his American colleagues did. In fact, his early works show distinct references to the pioneers of modern sculpture, such as Alberto Giacometti, David Smith and Constantin Bancusi. Apart from art, Rabinowitch also concerns himself with the study of music and science. These studies led him to the conclusion that the shape of reality which is clearly defined by the rationality of science, is not compatible with the realm of sensual and physical experience. For him, the contradiction between knowledge and experience became the subject of an intense examination which has lasted to this day. Consequently, this contradiction has always had a crucial influence on the development of his systematic pictorial language.

These works seem both simple and also enigmatic: simple because the elements and constructions are always easy to identify and enigmatic because the area they occupy remains strangely exposed. In fact it almost seems to disintegrate at the very moment in which a precise description is attempted. Rabinowitch sees his sculptures and drawings as choreographies for the body and eyes. His works are always the result of simple forces and movements: flat pieces of tin explore the area through bends and folds. In doing so, they always follow new directions. Lines swing according to similar but never identical rhythms. Royden Rabinowitch’s art is an invitation to observe movement but also to reflect.

Exhibition views

Catalogue

Texts: Friederike Fast, Roland Nachtigäller, Thomas Niemeyer, Royden Rabinowitch Format: 24 x 28 cm 68 pages 37 b/w ill. Gate-folded softcover Language: German | English Editor: MARTa Herford gGmbH Price: 18 € order

Variations on Max Bill

2 February – 9 March 2008

In connection with the retrospective on Max Bill, selected works by German and foreign artists of the young generation will be shown which are visually related to Max Bill’s oeuvre.

Artists

Christoph Haerle, Guillaume Leblon, Olaf Nicolai, Manfred Pernice, Riccardo Previdi, Bojan Sarcevic, Katja Strunz, Jens Wolf, Richard Wright

Catalogue

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Crossing the boundaries to art from Félicien Rops to the present

1 November 2008 – 25 January 2009

One of the great “secret” subjects of the art of the 19th century is called into question in Jan Hoet’s valedictory exhibition LOSS OF CONTROL and updated right up until the present day – the permanent exchange between art and life, between madness and genius, between death and sexuality.

“This strange predilection for confusing the flesh, this urge for ribaldry for the sake of ribaldry, this fire that occurs only in the soul without the body investigated participating in the process, this vapid and limited urge that, in the final analysis, is only very distantly related to the procreation instinct remains strangely mysterious when one thinks about it. Cerebral erethism, lasciviousness of the brain, says science and when this condition lasts, becomes worse and causes certain disturbances in the organism it talks about “mental hysteria” and recommends soothing agents: lupulin, camphor, bromide, potassium and showers. […]. In the field of art one expects this mental hysteria or this fractious pleasure to be reflected in work that banishes the images that it has itself called forth.” Written by famous French author and critic Joris-Karl Huysmans on Félicien Rops, two years before the latter’s death in 1898.

Since the 19th century artists’ work has consisted of attempting to express the paradises of their imagination and the hell of their inner obsessions. Is Félicien Rops’ Pornocrates (1878) – an heroically proud and only scantily clad woman being led by a pig – not a congenial expression of the male obsessions of the late 19th-century?

Superb works on loan from the Musée Félicien Rops in Namur, the Musée royaux des Beaux Arts de Belgique, the Collection Musée Royal de Mariemont, Morlanwelz, the Bibliothčque Royale de Belgique and from other private collections offer insights into thematic pictorial contexts enlarging the collective decadent mentality of the bourgeoisie towards the end of the 19th century as if through a magnifying glass and transcending it aesthetically.

However, at the center of Jan Hoet’s last major exhibitions is not only an exhibition with a selection from all the important periods in the creative work of Félicien Rops, that contemporary of James Ensor; the exhibition also boasts the close involvement of contemporary Belgian artist Jacques Charlier. There are all kinds of different connections to be found between Rops and Charlier, a type of common ground somewhere between past and present times: the caricaturing view of world, the way they “stage” women, their daring and the pleasure they take in shocking but also their ability to profoundly encourage people to engage in intimate self-observation.

Artists such as Louise Bourgeois, Hans Bellmer, Jean Dubuffet, Tracey Moffatt, Francis Picabia, Bjarne Melgaard, and Yue Minjun have been placed in dialogue with the great Belgian symbolist as have a string of others engaged in artistic activity, people who live and work on the boundaries between art and extreme psychic conditions, their work designated as Outsider Art. LOSS OF CONTROL is flanked by other independent pictorial worlds in which the historical tension between art and psychiatry is revealed: the famous photo-documentation of the hysterical female patients of psychiatrist Jean Martin Charcot, selected works from the Prinzhorn Collection and the ART EN MARGE Collection, Brussels along with works by artists associated with Art Brut.

On the first floor Marco den Breems presents a room-filling installation that subverts the pretensions of Western avant-garde art and is completely suffused with a kind of magic “put into practice” that is inspired by Africa.

Artists

Antonin Artaud, Hans Bellmer, Louise Bourgeois,Jacques Charlier, Jean Dubuffet, Jörg Immendorff, Bjarne Melgaard, Henri Michaux, Yue Minjun, Tracey Moffatt, Francis Picabia, Félicien Rops, Hana Shaikholeslami Kordestan, Adolf Wölfli and appx. 40 more

Joint project by and with

Jan Hoet, Marta Herford
Véronique Carpiaux, Musée Provincial Félicien Rops
Carin Fol, ART EN MARGE, Brüssel
Jacques Charlier and Marco den Breems

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sad facets

16 August – 5 October 2008, Marta Herford (Gehry galleries)

The exhibition itself embraces some 50 large-format paintings of the Swiss artist Thomas Huber (born in 1955). Alongside a few works from the early years the exhibition presents various work series from the last five years providing visitors with a broad selection of the artist’s oeuvre.

His paintings do not so much offer us realities as places, which call on us to think about their fiction; the picture space as a place where the visibility of creation is manifested. Hubers work unites the search for the origin of the painted place with the process of presentation in a museum or collection. Not only does the artist reflect on modernist myths such as the cube and the rhombus, he also gives them an ironic turn by infusing them with a melancholy feeling. A fascimile edition of a sketch book recently produced by the artist will be published to coincide with the exhibition.

Following the first presentation in MARTa Herford in 2009 the exhibition will be shown in the Museum of Contemporary Art in Nîmes and in the Kunsthalle in Tübingen, Germany.

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Table Works

16 August – 28 September 2008

Siegfried de Buck (born 1949) is jewellery designer and silver-smith , designer multi-media and professor at the design academy Sint-Lucas in Antwerp. Marta Herford presents a certain choice of his works for the table.

He is one of the pioneers of the contemporary silversmithing, not only because of his performance in jewellery arts,but also because of his silverware. Siegfried de Buck plays an important role in the development of the silversmith’s trade in Belgium.

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A pioneer of modern design

16 August – 28 September 2008, Marta Herford (Lippold Gallery, 1st floor)

Even though he is less well known than say his contemporary William Morris native Glaswegian Christopher Dresser (1834-1904) can most definitely be described as the first industrial designer. The trained botanist relied on flora as a source of inspiration for his design language, whose functional appearance and appropriate material use anticipated fundamental aspects of 20th century design.

Following a trip to Japan in 1876 to 1877 the brilliant designer Christopher Dresser created several objects that were quite clearly influenced by oriental models. These objects characterized by a minimalist design with which he later made a name for himself will be on show in the exhibition.

Christopher Dresser largely worked with standardized elements. He produced designs for metal, ceramics and glass. Today, his creations have something almost minimalist about them. Characterized by breath-taking beauty they represent a precise fusion of function and material. Christopher Dresser is no longer an unknown quantity amongst design connoisseurs. No less a person than Alessi has realized re-editions of Dresser’s designs. Visitors are given a fascinating insight into a little known chapter of early English industrial design …

A Hunter’s Story

16 August – 28 September 2008, Marta Herford (Lippold gallery, 1st floor)

Born in Brugge in 1955 Robert Devriendt is currently one of the most interesting Belgian painters. His pictures are mostly series of extreme small sizes, composing open stories as associative series.

Pictures harbour secrets. They “tell” us how they create individual worlds within the world of art. They also show us how we, the observers, respond to these “self-made creations”. Pictures are more than mere effigies – they are images in their own right. Seen in this light, they express some of the magic which enables a picture to materialise on the screen of its surface thus unfurling illusions as in a film.

“A Hunter’s Story”(2008) – the title of the exhibition showing at MARTa Herford is full of allusions. Does it refer to art’s hunt for its own aesthetic effects, that is for unfettered life with all its passions, and for pictorial surfaces with their finesse? Either way, the artist sets the stage for a pictorial world en miniature which reveals as much as it conceals and leaves as much in the background as is not shown. If the artist is the hunter here, who is his prey?

A puzzle made up of stories and multiple truths within images unfolds before the observer’s eye …

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Energies of the absurd
from modernism till today

18 April – 27 July 2008, Marta Herford (Gehry galleries)

Where does life begin and when does art end? How is the absurd manifested when it has become reality? Phenomena of the absurd are only seemingly an expression of senselessness – energies of the absurd take visible heigtenings to the extreme.

A mountain of sugar weighing a ton from which a shopping cart looms; an enormous looking airplane tire attached to a museum wall spins at high speed; two art transport boxes, which in a real moment of fictional mishap became wedged together; a hair-dryer whose sound is magnified and transported via a microphone into the exhibition room …

Absurd things confront us with an irritating, unaccustomed question: How are realities revealed if they function differently than expected and appear to be senseless, illogical and paradox? Logic is (also) a kind of experimentation and surprises even come about where you expect them. In the exhibition Ad Absurdum Jan Hoet presents a selection of works from classic modernity through to contemporary art, each of which in its own way reveals some aspect of what the absurd means in the modern world. Anyone who becomes accustomed to the absurd, will cope well in our age, claimed Absurd playwright Eugene Ionesco.

This exhibition not only marks the start of Jan Hoet’s departure from MARTa Herford, but also a new beginning. Art is intellectual venture capital. This lends it an irregular force, which you can call productive or provocative. Or … absurd.

Artists

Jost (Jodocus) Amman, Joseph Beuys, Jurgen Bey, Guillaume Bijl, Erwin Blumenfeld, Michaël Borremans, Katharina Bosse, Constantin Brancusi, Sebastian Brant, George Brecht, Marco den Breems, André Breton, Marcel Broodthaers, Veronica Brovall, John Cage, Rui Chafes, Jake and Dinos Chapman, Giorgio de Chirico, Kathryn Cornelius, Philipp Corner, matali crasset, Wim Delvoye, Matthias Drechsler, Felix Droese, Marcel Duchamp, Jimmie Durham, Elmgreen & Dragset, Max Ernst, Nick Ervinck, Robert Filliou, Katharina Fritsch, Dorothee Golz, J. J. Grandville, Kristján Gudmundsson, David Hammons, Al Hansen, Raoul Hausmann, Jürgen Heckmanns, Dick Higgins, Andreas Hofer, Ottmar Hörl, Séverine Hubard, Jan Van Imschoot, Marcel Janco, David Kaller, Tadeusz Kantor, Allan Kaprow, Kristof Kintera, Martin Kippenberger, Milan Knízák, Imi Knoebel, Arthur Koepcke, Surasi Kusolwong, Ulrich Lamsfuß, Le Corbusier, Zoe Leonhard, Via Lewandowsky, Zbigniew Libera, Edward Lipski, René Magritte, Jacques Mahé de la Villeglé, Dirk Martens, Fabio Mauri, Jonathan Meese, Rik Meijers, Otto Muehl, Bruce Nauman, Chris Newman, Honoré d’O, Meret Oppenheim, Eduardo Paolozzi, Anna Lange, Francis Picabia, Pablo Picasso, Sigmar Polke, Emilio Prini, Royden Rabinowitsch, Man Ray, Odilon Redon, Tobias Rehberger, Tejo Remy, Thomas Rentmeister, Jason Rhoades, Georges Ribemont-Dessaignes, Mimmo Rotella, Dieter Roth, Michael Rutkowsky, Michael Sailstorfer, Takako Saito, Fabian Sanchez, Wilhelm Sasnal, Sebastian Schmieding, ManfreDu Schu, Thomas Schütte, Kurt Schwitters, Michael Sellmann, Hannes Van Severen, Floria Sigismondi, Nedko Solakov, Louis Soutter, Klaus Staeck, André Thomkins, Rosemarie Trockel, Susan Turcot, Pieter van der Heyden, Koen Vanmechelen, Ben Vautier, Wolf Vostell, Friederike Warneke, Emmett Williams, Carmelo Zagari

Cooperation

“Ad Absurdum” is a joint project by MARTa Herford and the Städtische Galerie Nordhorn. Under the title “Ad Absurdum – Contemporary Apparatus” from April 19 to June 8, 2008 projects exploring the absurd by young, contemporary artists will be on display. Städtische Galerie Nordhorn, Vechteaue 2, 48529 Nordhorn, Tel. +49.5921.971100, www.staedtische-galerie.nordhorn.de

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27 March – 27 July 2008, Marta Herford (Lippold gallery, 1st floor)

An exhibition with more than 150 drawings, collages, prints and paintings from the visitors’ book of an art bookstore, compiled by Ronny Van de Velde, Antwerp (Guest curator).

It was the center of the world’s most important art scene: George Wittenborn’s art bookstore was located amidst New York’s art galleries. And it was frequented by a constant stream of artists and gallery owners. Wittenborn’s friends and acquaintances immortalized themselves in his visitors’ book with works of art featuring outlines of their hands. The tradition was continued by Belgian gallery owner Ronny Van de Velde and developed into a comprehensive, highly expressive “Who is who” of the art world.

Artists

Marina Abramovic, Jean Arp, Ilan Averbuch, John Marina Abramovic, Jean Arp, Ilan Averbuch, John Baldessari, Bernd und Hilla Becher, Michaël Borremans, Louise Bourgeois, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Braco Dimitrijevic, Marlene Dumas, Marcel Duchamp, Jean Dubuffet, Max Ernst, Jan Fabre, Thomas Hirschhorn, Asger Jorn, Per Kirkeby, Raoul de Keyser, Yayoi Kusama, Le Corbusier, Fang Lijun, Edward Lipski, Richard Long, Paul McCarthy, Man Ray, Joan Miró, Robert Motherwell, Bruce Nauman, Claes Oldenburg, Hans Op de Beeck, Dennis Oppenheim, Panamarenko, Ad Reinhardt, Anette Rose, Dieter Roth, Ed Ruscha, Thomas Schütte, Klaus Staeck, Richard Serra, Antoni Tapiés, Luc Tuymans, Günter Uecker, Timm Ulrichs, Henk Visch, Andy Warhol, Erwin Wurm and many more.

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no beginning no end

2 February – 30 March 2008

To honor the 100th anniversary of the year of the birth of the Swiss multi-talent Max Bill (1908-1994), MARTa Herford is staging a major exhibition featuring his entire oeuvre of painting, sculpture, architecture, design and graphic design. The wide range of his output as artist, designer, exhibition organizer, author, publicist, theorist, and teacher earned Max Bill the label “the last Leonardo”.

Having graduated from Bauhaus Dessau he settled in Zurich. His works from this period put him among the most well-known representatives of the “Zurich Concrete” group, which very much followed in the tradition of Constructivism and the Dutch group “De Stij”. Max Bill’s work is to be seen as an expression of a clear spiritual order, and as such as a model for a better social order. It displays an idealizing response to the horrors of the Second World War, in the same manner as previously the avant-garde of Modernity in response to the First World War. Offering more than just pure aesthetics, Max Bill aimed to formulate the ideal of a political and social order. Wholly in line with this commitment, in 1951 Max Bill was involved in the founding of the Hochschule für Gestaltung in Ulm, of which he was the very first Rector.

The exhibition extends its focus to include the artist’s cultural surroundings. In addition to being part of the French group of artists “Abstraction Création” he was also a member of “Allianz”, a Swiss group of artists, and kept in contact with important 20th century artists. These links are demonstrated by the presentation of various works by Josef Albers, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, and Kurt Schwitters to Friedrich Vordemberge-Gildewart, thereby revealing a discourse with the spiritual environment of his time.

Catalogue

The exhibition in MARTa Herford Museum is documented in a catalog of about 200 pages.
The museum edition is sold out.
 

Art in East Westphalia–Lippe

1 November 2007 – 13 January 2008

Expanding the usual angle taken by a regional art exhibition, in this case the comprehensive group exhibition combines works from 26 artists who live and work in the region alongside those by artists who came from the region originally but now live in Berlin or Cologne.

“Over the thousand fountains
Close by the thirsty one
In the desert.”
(Johann Wolfgang von Goethe)

Contemporary art does not contain a uniform style or use the same points of reference, consisting instead of a huge variety of individual positions. By contrast, the notion of a divide between the avant-garde tendencies mainly found in a cultural centre and locally moulded identities has persisted for centuries. The history of art has repeatedly shown that a key role is played by both artistic creativity in a cultural centre and that taking place on the periphery. Therefore, a reliable impression of the situation at any one time can only be obtained from the complex interaction between them – yet needs to be constantly revised since it is subject to constant change.

This first exploratory exhibition devoted to art in and from the East Westphalia–Lippe region focuses on artists from the district around Bielefeld and Herford. It covers a wide range of media, including painting, drawing, photography, sculpture, video, installation and performance.

Artists

Susanne Albrecht, Ellen Brusselmans, Anika Budde, Jan Fuchs, Christine Gensheimer, Asta Gröting, Angelika Höger, Timo Katz, Thomas Lison, Elisabeth Masé, Sandra Stephanie Meinders, Gabriele Undine Meyer, Martin Mühlhoff / Christan Vossiek, Matthias Müller, Andreas Neumann, Emanuel Raab, Anette Rose, Lars Rosenbohm, Erik Schmidt, Nicole Schuck, Alexandra Sonntag, Jürgen Stollhans, Wolfgang Waesch, Kristine Wedgwood-Benn, Weizenfeld

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Ausstellungssponsor

Kindly supported by the Kulturstiftung der Westfälischen Provinzial Versicherung

The Long Tomorrow

1 November 2007 – 13 January 2008

Since the early 1990s Andreas Hofer has been developing his art with such different sources as American comic strips, German art from the Nazi ear, painting of Malevich, the world of dinosaurs and science fiction.

Andreas Hofer discovers in diverse media – including paintings, furniture, action figures and computer printouts – images conjuring up horror, amazement and heroes in an unpredictable manner leading to the present day. Attributing the same importance to jumble sale pictures as to icons of modern art and combining religious symbols with youthful fantasies, he operates on the edge of art and questions the fundamental principles of accepted values in the system of art.

In his subjective com-bination of motifs, Hofer stimulates various possible interpretations whose validity looks doubtful. Andreas Hofer withdraws from the one-dimensionality of individual systems of interpretation with the idea of an ‘end to grand narratives’ and creates a mysterious, pluralistic ‘world without end’ or ‘long tomorrow’, with no clear distinction between good and evil.

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Garde le silence, le silence te gardera

2 June – 14 October 2007

This exhibition draws a bow on the theme of silence and emptiness spanning European civilisation from its early days to the present, from the culture of the Etruscans to recent works of contemporary art.

This year we’ll be able to experience a veritable summer of art, the like of which only occurs once a decade, when the Venice Biennale, documenta in Kassel and Münster Sculpture Projects – along with many, many other exhibitions and outstanding art events – are all held. Yet in stark contrast to all the hubbub generated by the art scene this year, Marta Herford will be devoting an entire exhibition to the topics of emptiness, silence, and remaining silent.

Candida Höfer photographed a library with no people but full of books; Hai Bo took photographs of the dreary loneliness in a landscape empty of people. Joseph Beuys’ Das Schweigen makes us aware that without observers, a work of art is damned to silence; Gerhard Richter’s large, grey monochrome canvases represent the silence of an artist’s ideas hatched during a personal low in which all figurative pictorial statements are impossible. And in Jan Schoonhoven’s uniform, clinically white motifs, any conceivable message is replaced by sublime aesthetics.

In Micol Assael’s ‘Vorkuta’ we encounter a loneliness, that signifies human isolation. Richard Long arranges circles out of branches whose absence of life is not immediately apparent owing to their aesthetic composition. Carsten Nicolai reduces art to silence by making the picture itself disappear in a work of art. Finally, in ‘Electric chair’, Andy Warhol emphasises a conclusive aspect of silence: another term for killing somebody is to ‘silence’ a person – and the work tackles the desire for the definitive conclusion of any dispute.

The culture of the Etruscans underwent an equally definitive conclusion of exchange. It initially formed an important link between Greek culture and Ancient Rome before being almost totally eliminated by the hegemonic Romans. Nowadays everything we know about this Etruscans’ once prominent culture comes solely from their enemies’ sources – and the silent monuments of their tombs.

Nowadays Etruscan culture is mysterious and veiled in silence and ignorance. So distrustful were the main archaeologists of the sketchy sources (such as Herodotus’s report on the origin of the Etruscans) that biochemical and genetic analyses were required to prove the Etruscans had indeed come from the Middle East.

As well as two sarcophaguses decorated with figures, the exhibition also displays painted vases and urns, now the only direct evidence of this silenced culture. These exhibits represent a historical backdrop to recent history.

Artists

Josef Albers, Micol Assael, Georg Baselitz/Samuel Beckett, Joseph Beuys, Max Bill, Maurice, Blaussyld, Hai Bo. Alighiero Boetti, Marcel Broodthaers, John Cage, Thierry de Cordier, Walter De Maria, Marcel Duchamp, Heinz Gappmayr, Mekhitar Garabedian, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Candida Höfer, Manfred Hoinka, Jonathan Horowitz, Bethan Huws, Magdalena Jetelová, Tom Jooris, Donald Judd, Kazuo Katase, Raoul de Keyser, Anselm Kiefer, Martin Kippenberger, Yves Klein, Joseph Kosuth, F. Laudage, Marvin Lazarus, James Lee Byars, Manfred Leve, Edward Lipski, Bernd Lohaus, Richard Long, Rita McBride, Xavier Mellery, Helen Mirra, Giorgio Morandi, Philippe Morel, Juan Muñoz, Carsten Nicolai, Nam June Paik, Manfred Pernice, Royden, Rabinowitch, David Rabinowitch, Arnulf Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Gert Robijns, Ulrich Rückriem, Robert Ryman, Anri Sala, Hans Schabus, Gregor Schneider, Jan Schoonhoven, Andreas Slominski, Ettore Spalletti, Jürgen Stollhans, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Susanne Tunn, Luc Tuymans, Andy Warhol, Lawrence Weiner, Jordan Wolfson, Rémy Zaugg, Heimo Zobernig

Video exhibition

25 May – 25 June 2006

Parallel to the Tupperware design exhibition, artists will be addressing banal items and consumer goods in a critical, poetic manner extending beyond the sphere of their conventional usage.

A room installation by Margreet Bulthuis and new video works by international artists – some referring directly to the design exhibition – will be on display in the four other galleries of the museum. Two works have been specially commissioned for Marta Herford:

Echoing Tupperware’s aim of preserving food, Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller goes in for the editing and montage of found footage–sequences taken from old advertising films from the cosmetics industry. Daniele Puppi will be transforming the galleries’ extraordinary architecture into a surreal piece of scenery in order to confront space with objects and violent gestures.

Meanwhile, Anette Rose will be focusing on industrially shaped movements and gestures resulting from production processes. Using a mysterious game involving for example three men and a rubber ball, Annika Larsson will be unveiling sex-specific rituals and modes of behaviour. The movements of a female body filmed by Pipilotti Rist will be projected onto an outsize kitchen frontage. Runa Islam’s video depicts a young woman smashing precious items of porcelain on the floor, while in Adel Abdessemed’s exhibit a naked foot crushes a Coca-Cola can. Hans op de Beeck’s moving camera highlights the monotony of a huge supermarket, and Yves Netzhammer’s animation explores in its own world of images the boundaries between objects and bodies.

Artists

Adel Abdessemed, Margreet Bulthuis, Runa Islam, Annika Larsson, Antoni Miralda, Christoph Girardet & Matthias Müller, Yves Netzhammer, Hans Op de Beeck, Stefan Panhans, Daniele Puppi, Pipilotti Rist, Anette Rose, Aïda Ruilova

Photographs of the Collection Marta

from March 24 on, Marta Café

Born in 1939 in Antwerp, photographer Benjamin Katz is nowadays one of the most distinctive photographers to specialise in portraits of artists. In fact he has been shooting portraits of internationally famous artists for more than four decades.

Katz’s portraits show the individual artists as personalities complete with their very own intensity and chosen role, be it prince of painting or dandy, genius or intellectual, observer or self-exposer. Benjamin Katz’s photographs discreetly capture in the manner of an accomplice that decisive, fleeting instant that gives outsiders an understanding of the artist – and the person – in question.

Benjamin Katz has been a friend to many of his subjects for decades, and this closeness – and distance – are reflected in the photographer’s gaze. Through his documentations of important exhibitions such as Jan Hoet’s documenta IX, Westkunst and Bilderstreit, and in his portraits of exhibition curators, collectors and gallery-owners, Benjamin Katz has lent the art scene’s key facets and elements an individual ‘face’.

he would definitely have visited MARTa Herford

24. März – 13. Mai 2007

Panamarenko, Marliz Frencken, Children’s furniture, Historical toys, Children’s portraits and childhood motifs in painting

 
“How she longed to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get her head though the doorway….” (Lewis Carroll: Alice in Wonderland)

Lewis Carroll prosaically demonstrates how difficult it is to enter the fairytale realm once we’ve settled down in the normative world of grown-ups. This was probably why Peter Pan, the hero of James Barrie’s popular classic, refused to grow up. The wonderland of children’s fantasies is a charming place moulded by a delightful playfulness – but also full of shadows, fears and nightmares. Children live in mystical, imaginary world which they constantly recreate when playing. A chair can be a funny animal with four legs; an eerie shadow may suddenly seem to move. Adults can only hazard a guess at what this mysterious world harbours – unless they can manage to shrink like Alice or fly like Peter Pan and hence reach Wonderland or Neverland.

The exhibition ‘If Albrecht Dürer were a child today, he’d definitely visit MARTa Herford’ is dedicated to this children’s world torn between the norms and rules of the adult realm and the world of children’s imagination.

Sculptures, objects and drawings by Belgian artist Panamarenko are displayed alongside a selection of international designs for children’s furniture while shimmering figurines created by Marliz Frencken from the Netherlands are juxtaposed with a collection of historical children’s rattles. The exhibition also features historical paintings showing childhood motifs and an experimental film on childhood on the streets of New York made by Helen Levitt in 1944. As well as showing that each era and each society creates its own concept of childhood, the examples of Panamarenko and Marliz Frencken demonstrate that children’s imagination really can penetrate and enhance the adult world.

To quote Hugo von Hoffmannsthal: “Only artists and children see life as it really is.”

Hunting Grounds

27 January – 11 March 2007

With this first major museum exhibition Marta Herford presents a selection of older works from Erik Schmidt’s touch-up stick scribbles and his ‘Timecode’ pieces as well as paintings, photographs and films produced in connection with his most recent series of works.

Erik Schmidt certainly caused a stir when he embraced the historical genre of hunting paintings, exploring their potential in the present day with his two cycles The Finest Hunters in Germany and Hunting Grounds. Beforehand he had already made a splash on several occasions with solo gallery exhibitions and in group exhibitions at various prestigious institutions such as Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin, the Artists Space in New York, and the Barbara Gladstone Gallery.

Hunting Grounds builds on his earlier cycle of photographs entitled The Most Beautiful Hunter in Germany. Examining motifs related to the sport of hunting as cultivated among the mobility, Hunting Grounds is actually rooted in Erik Schmidt’s own experience, the artist having been invited to numerous hunting parties. Supported by photographic documentation, it comprises large-format paintings, a series of photographs, and an expertly produced film co-financed by GWK (the Association for the Advance of Westphalian Cultural Activities) and Marta Herford.

‘Hunting Grounds’ has nothing to do with the prestigious treatment of hunting in historical pictures. As in his earlier works, in Hunting grounds Erik Schmidt uses contemporary art to examine contemporary society in his very own way.

Catalogue
The exhibition catalogue has been published by Hatje-Cantz:
Erik Schmidt: Hunting Grounds
Ostfildern: Hatje-Cantz 2006
ISBN 3-7757-1827-3, German/English, about 160 pages, about 120 colour illustrations, 23  32cm, hardback, price: €35/58 Swiss francs

An Encounter

27 January – 11 March 2007

In this joint exhibition, MARTa Herford will be paying tribute to two doyens of contemporary art who both achieved important positions in the postwar Italian avantgarde and gained international recognition.

Whereas Lucio Fontana dissolved the barriers between painting and sculpture by physically perforating the canvas, in Carla Accardi’s work the medium itself appears to be dissolved, enabling her to attain new artistic concepts.

The exhibition will be juxtaposing seven works executed by Lucio Fontana between 1949 and 1966 with six pieces by Carla Accardi. Carla’s 1996 12-metre-long wall installation entitled ‘Si dividono invano’ will be on public display for the very first time.

Lucio Fontana commenced his ‘perforation’ of the surfaces of his works, disclosing new worlds to observers, in the late 1940s. Perforating and slashing the canvas made not just its physical substance but also its spatial effect perceptible. In Fontana’s oeuvre, the borders between painting and sculpture became increasingly permeable, literally revealing both inside and out.

“[When] I puncture, infinity passes there, light passes, there’s no need to paint … Everyone thought I wanted to destroy, but it’s not true, I’ve created …” (Lucio Fontana)

The works of Carla Accardi are characterised by a perceptible lightness and transparency as well as a sense of opening in all dimensions. Her pulsating colour symbols form a visible opening in diverse ways. It was back in the 1960s that Carla Accardi pioneered painting on Sicofoil®. The symbols, wavy lines and other repeating structures she painted on this transparent foil mediate intuitively and visibly between inside and out. The result is an oscillating exchange between the paint and the background.

“My aim was for people to respond to our heart and to develop a feeling for what interconnects art and life.” (Carla Accardi)

Catalogue

To tie in with the exhibition, a publication featuring articles by Lorenzo Benedetti and Achille Bonito Oliva will be on sale containing some 44 pages and priced of € 12.

Designing a New World

16 September 2006 – 7 January 2007

This comprehensive exhibition concentrates on the years 1914-1939, in order to present the basic ideas and themes of the regarding artists, designers, architects, photographers and directors in an unique
compilation of international exhibits.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century our relationship to Modernism is complex. The built environment that we live in today was largely shaped by Modernism. The buildings we inhabit, the chairs we sit on, the graphic design that surrounds us have all been created by the aesthetics and the ideology of Modernist design. We live in an era that still identifies itself in terms of Modernism, as post-Modernist or even post-post-Modernist.

Modernism was not conceived as a style but a loose collection of ideas. It was a term which covered a range of movements and styles that largely rejected history and applied ornament, and which embraced abstraction. Born of great cosmopolitan centres, it flourished in Germany and Holland, as well as in Moscow, Paris, Prague and New York. Modernists had a utopian desire to create a better world. They believed in technology as the key means to achieve social improvement and in the machine as a symbol of that aspiration. All of these principles were frequently combined with social and political beliefs (largely left-leaning) which held that design and art could, and should, transform society.

Modernism: Designing A New World is the first exhibition to explore the concept of Modernism in depth, rather than restricting itself, as previous exhibitions have, to particular geographical centres or to individual decades. Many forms of art and design are represented in the show. But as befits a period when the debates surrounding how people should live took centre stage, the exhibition focuses on architecture and design. The range of objects – including architectural, interior, furniture, product, graphic and fashion design as well as painting, sculpture, film, photography, prints, collage – reflects the period’s emphasis on the unity of the arts and the key role of the fine arts in shaping contemporary visual culture.

Exhibition concept Victoria & Albert Museum, London

Baudart, Sánchez Castillo, van Erp, Fogli, Roberts, Van Severen, Stollhans

9 July – 27 August 2006

The exhibition brings together seven artists from six different European countries who are still relatively unknown in Germany. Each of these artists works in a specific contemporary manner with painting, drawing, architecture or design.

• Eric Baudart, France – sculpture/objects
• Fernando Sánchez Castillo, Spain – installation
• Aaron van Erp, Netherlands – painting
• Andrea Fogli, Italy – drawing
• Perry Roberts, Great Britain – architecture/design
• Hannes Van Severen, Belgium – sculpture
• Jürgen Stollhans, Germany – mixed media

The exhibition ‘Seven at Once’ brings together seven young artists from five European countries whose works will be shown as autonomous individual presentations in the galleries of Marta Herford. The confrontation of the seven young positions will reveal a (subjective) cross-section of their respective oeuvre – and spotlight MARTa Herford as an interface of creative extension. The projects by all seven artists play with open aesthetic and/or non-aesthetic functions and fictions, historical and contemporary surfaces and formats. The historical present opens up to the space of sensory reflection: forms become functional – and the functional becomes fiction. The resulting entanglement of forms, fictions and functions enables diverse views of the ‘interior’ and ‘exterior’, of art and communication, in which very different manners of self-observation are activated.

During the exhibition, seven independent artistic positions will be displayed which each express in their own way the tension between the historico-political search for identity and autonomous aesthetic self-positioning. ‘Seven at Once’ will be moulded by not only processual, performative methods of production but also traditional aesthetic genres and functional self-reflection, also expressing dysfunctional states of affairs crossing the boundaries of art.

Jürgen Stollhans deals with contexts from art and everyday life as well as scientific and popular image forms by relating them to and against each other. Perry Roberts works in areas of space-related wall arrangements poised between conceptual materiality and applied design. The works of Hannes Van Severen and Eric Baudart operate with and within ready-made traditions by formulating complex relationships between authentic fiction and aesthetically highlighted lack of function. Aaron van Erp and Andrea Fogli are something of an exception since, seemingly anachronistically, they remain inside the boundaries of historical artistic genres. Fernando Sánchez Castillo works with collective figures of power, repression and recollection in his use of sculpture, performance and video to explore references to Spanish history. The projects by all seven artists reveal autonomous modes of expression – yet simultaneously emphasise that different forms of artistic expression deserve equal respect.

Artificialia

3 June – 23 August 2006

Inspired by nature’s botanic diversity, Susanna Taras translates flower motifs into outsize plants and ornaments, transforming the Marta Forum’s curved architecture into an unreal sea of flowers.

Being artificial objects they refer to two opposites: nature and artificiality. Occupying a space between decorative objects and painting, they question our relationship with our natural habitat.

In cooperation with

Connexions

27 May – 7 July 2006, Exhibition in public spaces

In close cooperation with Marta Herford, the shops in Radewig will for the fourth time be turned into a stage for young artists.

About 40 postgraduates from HISK (Antwerp Higher Institute for Fine Arts) from a variety of countries appearing in shops as well as on public and vacant premises will be entering into a dialogue with the urban setting. They will create change in everyday urban life, open up new prospects, spawn fresh visions and dreams – and produce new connexions. Art is part of life – especially when it takes part in life …

Guest curator: Dr Maïté Vissault

Quesitions concerning guided tours and events

phone 0049 (0) 52 21-99 44 30 0

Transparent

25 May – 25 June 2006

Marta Herford presents in his spectacular galleries a surprising design exhibition on the cultural history of “Tupperware”.

Those colourful, translucent containers used to keep food airtight are a familiar sight in most kitchens – surely everyone knows Tupperware! During the past sixty years since it was invented by Earl Silas Tupper, it’s gone on to conquer almost every household.

In conjunction with the Design Museum in Ghent, Marta Herford will be hosting an exhibition taking an extensive look at the triumphal march of Tupperware – from an unprepossessing plastic container in the 1940s to the prize-winning phenomenon of recent years. The main gallery will take a sometimes surprising, playful look at Tupperware’s historical development, striking qualities and production techniques. Moreover, a host of ways in which Tupperware products can be used will be displayed. Tupperware – the prototype and history of a successful design.

Exhibition sponsor

Translations in Tupperware

In the lobby of the Elsbach-Haus” Marta Herford presents a selection of the winners of the challenge “Translations in Tupperware Global Design” parallel to the show “Tupperware.Transparent”.

V+W DESIGN_MATRIX

25 March – 7 May 2006, Gehry galleries

The exhibition project devised by Vogt + Weizenegger fronts the creation of a laboratory exclusively for Marta Herford where the design object can be observed in all its development phases in a sequence of five thematically related rooms.

The Factory of Tomorrow marks the transformation of the museum’s main gallery into an industrial production centre, while the theme of the factory is combined with a social experiment in the Imagination Room organised in close cooperation with the Bethel workshops and studios. Meanwhile the Memory Room will show video fragments from the history of V+W in a setting where overlap, association and presentation are reminiscent of the human memory. The interactive installation will make design immediately perceptible as a lifestyle via a series of monitors controlled by a billiard table.

The Living-Room is actually a house inside the museum where V+W will live and work for the duration of the exhibition together with their team. And in the Presentation Room, the designers will be showing products made since 1993 in illuminated display cases. Between the shop-window aesthetics of ultramodern design boutiques and the swift consecration of design objects when they are presented in a museum, the objects appear as hybrid phenomena between art and design, between aesthetic form and functional merchandise.

The Factory of the Future
For the Factory of the Future, the large gallery will be turned into an industrial workshop. The use of state-of-the-art technology to turn computer sketches into prototypes and small batches of 3-D machines will be demonstrated. This technique enables mass-produced goods to be manufactured individually, turning consumers into designers of their own products and making design a medium of social and aesthetic communication.

The Imagination Room
The Imagination Room will create a studio atmosphere in which production methods going back to traditional modes of craftsmanship are demonstrated. Here, V+W will be integrating previous experience from their collaboration with a Berlin workshop for the blind which starting in 1998 under the name ‘The Imaginary Manufactory’ hit the headlines and became a commercial success to boot. In close cooperation with the Bethel workshops, the idea of the manufactory will be combined with a social experiment, with brand new objects being made by personnel from the weaving mill, the bookbindery and slat production. Konrad Giebeler and Eva-Katrin Kocks from the Lydda artists’ workshop at Bethel will be supporting the creative process by contributing their ideas and projects.

The Living-Room
For the Living-Room, V+W have come up with a complete scenario including a house and interior furnishings. Every aspect of the Living-Room from the kitchen to the carpets and sofas in the lounge and even the clothing has been designed in cooperation with firms based in and around Herford such as Interlübke, Poggenpohl, COR, JAB, BRAX and MANUFACTUM. Here, V+W will be demonstrating and practising the development of a formal language taking into account the totality of our forms of life. During the exhibition, the designers will live in this house and literally turn the museum into a temporary ideas lab that can also be experienced at first hand by visitors as a place of communication.

Partners

Sincere thanks are given to:
Alphacam Fertigungssoftware GmbH
Blase GmbH & Co. KG
Jürgen Bode GmbH
v. Bodelschwinghsche Anstalten
BRAX Leineweber GmbH & Co. KG
COR Sitzmöbel Helmut Lübke GmbH & Co. KG
cp Baustatik
CROMA
Deutsche Bank: Deutschand Land der Ideen
DuPont Corian
Elsbach Restaurant & Bar
Halemeier GmbH & Co. KG
Hasenkopf Holz + Kunststoff GmbH & Co. KG
Herforder Brauerei GmbH & co. KG
Interlübke Gebr. Lübke GmbH & Co. KG
INVINO
JAB Josef Anstoetz KG
Kolb Technology GmbH
Loewe AG
Manufactum Niedrigenergiehäuser GmbH
Miele & Cie. KG
Möve Frottana Textil GmbH & Co. KG
Nike Deutschland GmbH
Poggenpohl Möbelwerke GmbH
Prowerk Bethel
Stalform GmbH & Co. KG
Wiesmann GmbH & Co. KG

The Inner Voice

22. January – 5 March 2006

At the Marta, sculptor Asta Gröting will for the first time be presenting an extensive retrospective of the video work which has characterised her artistic activity over the past decade. Fourteen films made between 1993 and 2005 are to be shown in individual installations.

The core of Asta Gröting’s video work consists of the group of now twenty-nine films entitled The Inner Voice, six of which will be projected on the big screen at the Marta. Each video in The Inner Voice shows a single ventriloquist with a dummy. The ventriloquists are always different, but the dummy (designed by Asta Gröting) is always the same. The various dialogues were all written by Asta, too. Topics such as the conscience and the soul as well as less deep issues like love and friendship are dealt with in a humorous, sometimes philosophical manner, using an approach which at times is full of conflict and very emotional.

The dialogues are about such ordinary matters that the vocabulary is familiar to everyone. Asta Gröting uses the combination of dummy and ventriloquist to deconstruct dialogue – not just difficult self-appraisal and self-mollification but also the uncertainties that occur in conversation with others. As a result, these dialogues are a way of questioning our communicative culture.

Passione, Giustizia, Libertà

22 January – 5 March 2006

Letizia Battaglia has portrayed Sicily, using her camera to break the Mafia’s omertà or conspiracy of silence. Her pictures show a clear, inescapable portrait of her violated homeland.

Passion, Justice, Freedom: The slight girl leans up against the scratched wall seeking support. Her expression is frozen in her furrowed brow. This is what poverty looks like.

A boy sucks his thumb while his two friends brandish their weapons. The link with a picture showing women weeping in a cemetery arises spontaneously through each of Letizia Battaglia’s photos.

Streets full of processions; corpses in front of buildings, in their cars, in wells; tears and mourning; improvised celebrations in dilapidated surroundings; weapons in people’s hands outdoors – a world that’s underdeveloped, full of male rituals, full of violence and suffering, and yet teeming with life.

This is the Sicily that Letizia Battaglia has portrayed. Her pictures extend an invitation that can’t be ignored to participate in the Sicilian renaissance.

A selection

29 October 2005 – 8 January 2006

This first presentation of the collection concentrates on works by young artists dealing with everyday life, design and industrial forms of expression.

While in the Marta Dome Anton Henning’s “Ocotogon for Herford” is presented, in the surrounding galleries the Marta Herford Collection, which is evolving since 2001, will go on display with work a. o. by Joep Van Lieshout, Raphael and Tobias Danke, DeAnna Maganias, or Silke Schatz.

The display will feature a selection of installations (by Art & Language and Manfred Pernice), individual pieces (Robert Wilson, Reinhard Mucha, Kendell Geers, Thomas Rentmeister and Martin Walde), paintings (Thomas Huber, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jörg Ernert and Lars Rosenbohm), video work (Erik Schmidt and Alexandra Zwaal-Kallos), photography (Sergey Bratkov), drawings (Andrea Fogli) and graphics (Hans Op de Beeck).

Catalogue

A Selection

29 October 2005 – 8 January 2006

Parallel zu der eigenen Sammlung hat Marta Herford die Sammlung des in Bielefeld lebenden Verlegers Karl Kerber als Dauerleihgabe erhalten, von der nun ca. 35 Arbeiten neu präsentiert werden.

Die in vielen Jahrzehnten kontinuierlich gewachsene Sammlung offeriert einen ganz subjektiven Blick des Sammlers auf die Kunst der 70er und 80er Jahre. Mit Arbeiten von Georg Baselitz, FelixDroese, Jean Fautrier, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Emil Schumacher stellt sie eine spannende Auswahl der Malerei zwischen Figuration und Abstraktion dar.

Architectural Photographs 1969-1982

29. October – 20. November 2005

MARTa Herford is presenting a unique cycle of architectural photographs taken between 1959 and 1982 from the estate of Berlin photographer Reinhart Wolf (1930–88).

It includes the New York cycle published in 1980 – Wolf’s sumptuous, lethargic view of the city and simultaneously an outstanding photographic document of Manhattan’s architectural values which has become all the more important since the 9/11 tragedy.

An initiative by

Hettich International Germany

Octagon for Herford

29 October 2005 – 8 January 2006

“Octagon for Herford” is an octagonal room, especially designed for Marta, in which the environment, sculpture, design, a picture that visitors can walk through and painting all fuse to form a single work of united art.

The installation has been designed to parallel Henning’s large exhibition at the Haus Esters gallery in Krefeld and augments his “Frankfurt Salon”, which has been on display at Frankfurt Museum of Modern Art since March 2005.

Catalogue

Rendez-vous

16 September – 16 October 2005

Although the exhibition provides an overview of how Tayou’s work has developed over the years, it is not a retrospective in the traditional sense. Apart from a selection of works first shown by SMAK, Rendez-vous includes a number of revised and even brand new installations by the young artist.

Tayou’s native Cameroon always figures strongly in his work, symbolised by certain objects and expressed in photos and films. Yet Tayou also deliberately involves certain aspects of Western culture in his work and hence attains intercultural importance.

Inspired by the specific spatial elements of Frank Gehry’s architecture, at MARTa Herford he’ll be transforming the exhibition into a sort of anthropological laboratory with a passageway through a world of art which is partly fictitious and partly rooted in reality.

Pascale Marthine Tayou was born in Yaoundé, Cameroon, in 1967. After periods spent in Stockholm and Paris, he now lives and works in Ghent. Tayou belongs to the group of African artists who redefine post-colonial culture and blend experiences of their birthplace with those of Europe. Tayou’s work is extremely varied and consists of drawings, sculptures, installations, videos and performances. His work has been seen at Documenta X and a. o. the most recent Venice Biennial. “Rendez-vous” at Marta Herford is Tayou’s first major exhibition in Germany.

Catalogue

Pascale Marthine Tayou, Rendez-vous, 22 × 28 cm, 160 pages, soft cover, German/English/Flemish, co-production by SMAK and MARTa Herford, introduction by Jan Hoet and Peter Doroshenko, texts by Susan Snodgrass and Michael Kröger.
Price: 32,00 €

Exhibition supporter

This exhibition was made possible by the kind support of the Flemish Minister for Culture, Youth, Sport and Brussels Affairs.

Werke /Work

9 September – 9 October 2005

By staging an exhibition devoted to Maarten Van Severen, MARTa Herford is showcasing a designer of international renown. His fundamental designs have become an integral part of furniture’s development.

Alongside furniture and furnishings, the exhibition conceived by Ghent Museum of Decorative Arts and Design also presents insights into the objects’ complex genesis. Various sketches, plans, texts by Maarten Van Severen, articles about his design concept, a 20-minute film and a catalogue all enable visitors to comprehend the diverse aspects of his extensive works in detail.

Maarten Van Severen’s unmistakable trademark is a calm, elegant style of uncluttered functionality. Translating the approaches of minimal art to design, he also derived inspiration from analysing the works of Jean Prouvé, Le Corbusier, Charlotte Perriand, Mies van der Rohe, Marcel Breuer, Gerrit Rietveld and Willy Guhl. Yet far from being backward-looking, in his own work Van Severen used the latest high-tech materials. Like many other Flemish designers, Maarten van Severen never lost sight of functionality, which is why his designs are especially comfortable.

His designs have been produced by world-famous furniture manufacturers such as Vitra from Germany, Italian companies Kartell, Edra and Alessi, and Pastoe from the Netherlands. Maarten Van Severen is also known for his collaboration with eminent architect Rem Koolhaas on projects in France, Portugal and the USA.

Catalogue

The catalogue WORK was published to tie in with the exhibition at Ghent Museum of Decorative Arts and Design and is the first detailed monograph on Maarten Van Severen. Copiously illustrated, it contains drawings, plans, sketches, products, examples of interior design, and texts by various authors. Published by Stichting Kunstboek (www.stichtingkunstboek.com), it is available from the MARTa Herford ticket office, priced €30.