MÜNSTER.- The history of the
Skulptur Projekte is closely linked to the idea of creating a public not only with but also for art. The exhibition thus differs from many projects in the public space since the late 1990s where the focus has been on issues of social and economic urban development. The Skulptur Projekte were initiated in 1977 by Klaus Bußmann, at the time the custodian and later the director of the Westfälisches Landesmuseum, and Kasper König, who since that time has held the position of chief curator for every edition of the exhibition in teams of changing constellations. A public controversy over George Rickey’s kinetic sculpture Drei rotierende Quadrate / Three Squares Gyratory, erected in Münster in 1975, preceded the first Skulptur Projekte. In deliberate contrast to the voices in town that had loudly demonized Rickey’s aesthetic postulation, the Skulptur Projekte offered a kind of do-it-yourself programme enabling a broad public to experience and acquaint itself with modern sculpture on an everyday basis. Even if the circumstances are meanwhile fundamentally different and – since 1997 at the latest – the city of Münster has discovered the exhibition for itself as a “unique selling point”, the Skulptur Projekte still clearly bear the stamp of their controversial origins.
In fact, the realization of the exhibition itself conveys a political message: with the aid of public funds, the Skulptur Projekte define the public space as a heterogeneous sphere that is indispensable for sociocultural co-existence and must not be subordinated to economic interests. The support the exhibition receives from the city of Münster, the Landschaftverband Westfalen-Lippe, the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, the German Federal Cultural Foundation, the Sparkassen- Finanzgruppe and numerous other partners is given with full respect for this fundamental autonomy.
MÜNSTER AS A DRILLING PLATFORM
The generous rhythm of the show’s realization – at ten-year intervals – distinguishes the Skulptur Projekte clearly from other major international exhibitions. From the curatorial point of view, the renown of this decennial, which has grown continually over the decades, goes hand in hand with great responsibility, but also with great freedom. The exhibition’s broad impact and the unchanging spatial context – the city of Münster as the venue but also as an experienced cooperation partner – permit uncompromised drilling into the depths.
Since 1977, the Skulptur Projekte have sent out invitations of an initially non-committal nature to a number of artists, whose continual visits for several days at a time form the point of departure for the exhibition’s development. Their project proposals are discussed, and the profile of the respective edition of the Skulptur Projekte only crystallizes as the works come to realization – with contours that often prove to be far more distinct in retrospect than they look during the development process. As a kind of long-term study, each edition mirrors a multifaceted process of negotiation with the city of Münster as well as with important artistic and societal issues of its time. Regardless of the fact that many of the works remain in the city, the exhibitions themselves are always temporary in nature. In the exhibition title, both the word Skulptur and the word Projekte have thus retained their legitimacy to this day.
FORM-FINDING AS A PROCESS
This openness to process is also strongly reflected in the exhibition’s visual communication concept by Urs Lehni and Lex Trüb. That concept calls for the combination of motifs drawn from the exhibition context with elements from drawings by the Swedish artist Samuel Nyholm (Sany). The graphics and typeface defy the conventions of a strict corporate identity: rather than launching a brand claim, the design clearly assumes a role as an accomplice and valuable counterpart for the overall exhibition development. In keeping with the basic democratic principle of the Skulptur Projekte, the jointly developed publication concept defines the catalogue as a wieldy book of magazine-like character and affordable for all.
REAR WINDOW
In any good detective story, there is always another agenda besides the brilliantly staged plot – for example Hitchcock’s Rear Window of 1954, which is devoted to the subject of voyeurism. In similar manner, the issue of the mechanisms, manifestations and impacts of digitalization and globalization gives the fifth edition of the Skulptur Projekte its cohesiveness on a second, underlying level. And it is this issue that serves as an imaginary guideline for all curatorial decisions.
The publication series entitled Out of … published in the months leading up to the exhibition represents one platform for these deliberations. Each of the three issues takes as its point of departure a concept fundamentally linked with the experience of sculpture and projects in the public space: body, time and place. Through the virtualization and rapid acceleration of communication and trade routes, these concepts are becoming ever less distinct – to the point of possible dissolution: Out of Body, Out of Time, Out of Place.
EMBODIMENT AND DISAPPEARANCE
The 2017 exhibition differs from previous editions of the Skulptur Projekte in that it is giving more scope to performative approaches. This interest arises on the one hand from the current practices of many artists, on the other from cultural-theoretical deliberations: the disappearance of the body in the digital sphere makes it something deserving of special attention. A performative situation defines the body as the simultaneous subject and object of perception and creates a relationship between it, as “material”, and the built environment. The retention of the live arts beyond the exhibition’s duration of seventeen weeks while at the same time avoiding a festival-like character poses a challenge we are meeting with a wide spectrum of different formats. Artists such as Alexandra Pirici, Xavier le Roy in collaboration with Scarlett Yu, or the Gintersdorfer/Klaßen group each go their own route: one is involving numerous inhabitants of Münster, another is giving instructions for action to selected dancers, the third subscribes to ongoing collaboration with a large network of distinctive performance stars.
STORING TIME, FALLING OUT OF TIME
The relationship between sculpture and time forms a further conceptual thread of the exhibition. Over the years since 1977, thirty-five sculptures have remained in Münster following the respective edition of the Skulptur Projekte. Under the heading Public Collection, all of the important data on these sculptures have a place in our communication. Fragile installations such as Dan Graham’s pavilion Oktogon für Münster / Octagon for Münster (1997) and Rebecca Horn’s installation Das gegenläufige Konzert / Concert in Reverse (1987/1997), have been re-erected or made more easily accessible for the 2017 programme. Yet the discourse on longevity is also mirrored in a number of current works: Lara Favaretto continues Momentary Monuments (ongoing since 2009) in Münster, a series involving the presentation of a monolithic stone sculpture and its subsequent destruction; Justin Matherly takes a sculptural approach to the critical penetration of Nietzsche’s aphorism of the eternal return of the ever-same. A symposium entitled Nothing Permanent: Sculptures and Cities (WT), to be presented in cooperation with the Henry Moore Institute from 13 to 15 September 2017, will address – among other things – the question as to whether sculptures and monuments lose their validity in the public space, and if so under what conditions.
ENGAGED LEG, FREE LEG
The 2017 Skulptur Projekte uses a wide radius. A number of the project sites have been located four to five kilometres from the city centre, allowing visitors to experience Münster outside its touristic picture-book core. Structurally speaking, the Theater im Pumpenhaus and the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur hold central positions within the exhibition topography distributed generously around the town.
In the Theater im Pumpenhaus organizers have deliberately chosen an institution from the area of the performing arts to cooperate with, but one that is being used by the Skulptur Projekte in a way entirely different from usual. Rather than hosting a series of guest performers, the stage is at the exclusive disposal of the Gintersdorfer/Klaßen group for the entire duration of the exhibition. The group will use it to present regular performances, but also to develop a new piece entitled Kabuki Noir Münster. The courtyard of the theatre – which under the direction of Ludger Schnieder has already carved out a firm place for itself in Münster’s culture scene – will moreover provide the setting for a large fire by the artist Aram Bartholl at which, with the aid of the “campfire-bread method”, visitors can charge their cell phones. There is a restaurant area, and pupils from Aernout Mik’s class at the Münster art academy will moreover offer an absurd-style performative art mediation programme. Furnished with these “services”, the Pumpenhaus will function as an alternative vis-à-vis to the museum.
THE PERFORATED MUSEUM
The Westfälisches Landesmuseum, meanwhile known as the LWL-Museum für Kunst und Kultur, organizes the Skulptur Projekte and has traditionally been closely linked to the exhibition. In every edition since 1977, the relationship between the institution and the urban outdoor space has been weighted differently. For this show, the new museum building opened at the end of 2014 poses an additional challenge for the Skulptur Projekte. The design by Staab Architekten of Berlin emphasizes the institution’s public character by way of a foyer on the ground level. This hall was designed not only to serve as an entrance to the collection, but also to connect the cathedral forecourt and the city centre. At the same time, the high, light-flooded space and the visitor routing on the upper floors emphasize the building’s prestige functions. This situation raises questions about how the museum conceives of itself: Is it really a public place? What kind of publicness does it create? What status is assigned to the traditional museum tasks of collection and research, and what role does art play as an expression of a certain lifestyle?
Three spatial situations in the museum have been selected as project sites: the atrium in the old building, the foyer of the new building, and a section of the exhibition space on the upper level. The artists working in the museum have ‘inscribed’ themselves in these sites with their works, thus reflecting on the respective structural circumstances: Gregor Schneider transforms the temporary exhibition area into a private flat accessible only by way of an emergency exit; Nora Schultz dims the light in the foyer and, with the aid of clumsy drone images, perforates the perception perspectives offered by the architecture.
THE SAME EVERYWHERE, BUT DIFFERENT
Site specificity has always played a key role in the Skulptur Projekte. Particularly in the first two exhibitions of 1977 and 1987, the artists engaged in a specific form or content-oriented aesthetic relationship to the sites they had chosen in the city of Münster. Many of these sculptures and projects could not have been realized in any other framework without major compromises in terms of the artists’ intent. The demise of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s and the accompanying renegotiation of the balance of global power triggered a broadening of horizons that since 1997 has been reflected in the Münster exhibition in new issues and aesthetic approaches. Globally operating corporations and shrinking distances today provide better reasons than ever for rethinking the idea of the “genius loci”. At the same time, the curatorial concept of the Skulptur Projekte has always been diametrically opposed to the interchangeability of works and themes of the kind frequently encountered at international biennials.
