Director Max Hollein provides an overview of the upcoming exhibition year at the Schirn. The extensive program ranges from the early 20th century to the present, and from painting, film, and the installation to art in the Internet.
The first thing the Schirn will do this exhibition year is go out onto the street. Street Art has meanwhile been curatorially received multiple times (most recently by our large-scale Brazilian graffiti project in Frankfurt in 2013). However, the Affichstes are the real pioneers of Street Art. In our exhibition Poetry of the Metropolis we are presenting the phenomenal works of this artist's group from the 1950s and 1960s. This presentation--organized in collaboration with the Museum Tinguely in Basel--and the catalogue surely represent a landmark and fundamental reappraisal of this art movement, which continues to be largely underestimated in terms of its significance, radicalness, and influence.
Equally as underestimated, indeed even deliberately negated by many, is the influence of the so-called barefoot prophets of the 19th century on the development of modern and contemporary art--and on one or the other of its important protagonists. We are now throwing light on this in the exhibition Artists and Prophets - A Secret History of Modern Art 1872-1972. More than two years of research have been invested in this spectacular exhibition project, which is teeming with self-proclaimed saviors, subversive missionaries, and weird "kohlrabi apostles." The Schirn is presenting striking works, sensational performances, and bizarre theories by these artists-naturists as well as unexpected connections to Egon Schiele, František Kupka, Joseph Beuys, or Friedensreich Hundertwasser. If there is an exhibition that can come up with fascinating discoveries and a variety of new insights, then it is this one.
The Schirn's Rotunda is a popular place, not only because it is an impressive gateway for our visitors and an attractive setting for taking photographs of couples just joined in marriage in the Römer, but also due to the complex artistic installations presented there. All the more so as one of Frankfurt's largest building sites--the reconstruction of the historic downtown area--is causing quite a commotion in close proximity to the Schirn. In March, Alicja Kwade is presenting a work that deals with the theme of space and time, and we may have to dig up our knowledge about the theory of relativity, the space-time continuum, and many other references.
Doug Aitken's films, sound works, and objects are spectacular, impressive, multisensory, and awesome in terms of their pull, their aesthetics, and their rhythm--indeed, they are often overwhelming. Aitken has already availed himself of any number of different venues--the National Mall in Washington, D.C., or the entire façade of the Museum of Modern Art in New York; he organized a traveling art festival in a train from New York to San Francisco, and had an art ship navigate the Bosporus between Asia and Europe. This summer, he is bringing into play the entire exhibition space of the Schirn--and beyond, for his works and his working method are boundless.
For celebrated artists, new creative phases are an important development, but also always pose a risk. Daniel Richter, one of the most influential artists of his generation and a celebrated artist in every respect, has deliberately subjected himself to these transformations several times, and has developed a highly independent, striking pictorial language both in his abstract as well as in his subsequent figural works. With his virtuosity and the accompanying, well-deserved recognition, when Richter turns to a new form it also always means working against routine. We are all the more delighted to be able to present these recently produced, highly impressive works--but enough said--that have never before been shown in public.
Long before there were large galleries such as Gagosian, Zwirner, or Hauser & Wirth, which today operate as "brands," there was already "Der Sturm" (The Storm). Originally founded in 1910 as a magazine for the promotion of Expressionism, its editor, Herwarth Walden, also established a Storm gallery, a Storm academy, Storm soirées, and a Storm stage, and the artists he represented were closely linked to the Storm. Walden also championed female artists of the period: Storm Women is a spectacular exhibition that assembles the gallery's program and thus also the female artists of Expressionism, Futurism, Constructivism, and New Objectivity. It includes numerous famous names as well as many new discoveries. An exhibition with more than 300 works that deals with modernism's female artists, great art, but also with the struggle for recognition and the difficulties women encountered in asserting themselves.
Heather Phillipson, currently one of the most interesting and most promising artists on the international art scene and who travels back and forth between genres as a distinguished writer and multimedia artist, will also present a poetic, immersive installation in the Schirn's Rotunda.
In addition, with new works specifically developed for the Schirn by Britta Thie as well as Constant Dullaart we will essentially extend the museum into digital space. And those who not only want to become acquainted with the artists of today and tomorrow in digital space on schirn.de should definitely drop by our Double Feature series, where for the past two years we have been presenting new works by international film and video artists, including a personal film favorite, every last Wednesday of the month, and followed by discussions with the artists.