15 December 2013 – 16 February 2014

Wozu Bilder?

Gebrauchsweisen der Fotografie

 

Opening: Sunday, 15 December 2013, 11 am

“What Use Are Pictures?” – especially in today's times, this is a downright radical and simultaneously impertinent question. The same-named exhibition takes as its theme the extremely varied utilizations of photography on the basis of some four hundred photographs from a renowned private collection in southern Germany which are outstanding, even bizarre, sometimes strange, but always astounding.

“Bringing the world home”; “Remembrance”; “Classification”; “Documentation”; “Arousal” – these are a few of the topoi which group examples of historical photography into contentually related picture-tableaus.

“What Use Are Pictures? Utilizations of Photography” at the Villa Merkel turns the customary perspective back onto the medium. The exhibited works have not been selected according to what may be seen upon them or what subjects they offer, but instead with a view to their forms of utilization and application, which are brought to light across a broad spectrum. There are such uses, for instance, as that with the help of photography, nature can be investigated or romanticized, people may be called to mind or traced by the police. Entertaining items may be found under the heading “Jokes.”

15 December 2013 – 16 February 2014

Stefan Panhans 

Schnee schnell Schnee Du bleiches Reh

 

Opening: Sunday, 15 December 2013, 11 am

In filmic works, photographs, and installations, Stefan Panhans (*1967) develops pictorial worlds oscillating between documentation and artificiality. Articles from the world of urban consumption such as brand-name gym shoes, fitness equipment, and granola mixtures serve as props in photographic still lifes or are parts of a meticulously prepared décor for film sets. Moving in these scenarios are mask-like, artificial figures that seem to have lost their way between lifestyle, self-optimization, and media hype.

The videos of Stefan Panhans are shot in a single take and do not adhere to a narrative logic. The concentration is upon a pictorial language and carefully staged monologues and dialogues. There is frequent use of sampling techniques which take up advertising slogans, slang expressions, or marketing language. In the video “ Sieben bis Zehn Millionen” (“Seven to Ten Million”), for example, a person describes at breakneck speed the complications which can arise when purchasing technical equipment. Only upon a second look does the face of the speaking man, wrapped in a fashionable hood with fur collar, reveal itself to be that of a woman. The viewer himself is manipulated in ambivalent images which conceal several layers behind their superficially shining advertising optics.

The video “Sorry” has almost no language at all. It takes place in the overcrowded pullman car of an intercity express train. People shove their way past each other and climb over heaps of gaudily colored luggage. An everyday image in a second-class carriage of the German Railway—if it were not the case that every person is wearing an exaggerated costume inspired by a role model from the world of art and media. Things which seem to have no affinity with each other are fitted together into an opulent image of our era.

The photographs as well are unexpected stagings of contemporary lifestyle and a persiflage on the mechanisms of advertising photography. For the exhibition at the Villa Merkel, a series of photographs have been newly produced and are being presented for the first time.

19 July to 6 October 2013

Crossing Media – A Stage for Art 

Opening: Thursday, 18 July 2013, 7 pm

Including works by Nevin Aladag (TR/DE), Julien Berthier (FR), Birgit Brenner (DE), Daniele Buetti (CH), Kurt Caviezel (CH), Beate Engl (DE), Rainer Ganahl (AT/US), Johan Grimonprez (BE), Paul Harrison/John Wood (GB), Christine Hill (US), Eva Kotatkova (CZ), Jung Lee (KR), Alexandra Leykauf (DE), Atelier van Lieshout (NL), Andres Lutz/Anders Guggisberg (CH), Philippe Ramette (FR), Banks Violette (US).

„Crossing Media – Der Kunst die Bühne“ [the stage given over to art] is an attractive festival of contemporary Art in Esslingen which has developed out of the International Foto Triennale. In 2013 the galleries of the city of Esslingen have focused increasingly on positions of the crossover, which, starting off from photographic approaches, provide a stage for performance and interactive tendencies on an equal footing. The art and media Triennale is building bridges between disciplines and genres, in which visual arts is related to theatre, music and language. Artistic positions of photography, video arts, installation down to performance that will be presented.

In the interplay of artistic approaches there lies the potential of testing unknown territory, of questioning social relations and further developing traditional genres. On the basis of photographs, Alexandra Leykauf

28 April - 30 June 2013

Manfred Kuttner

Werkschau

Opening: Sunday, 28 April, 11 a.m.

Manfred Kuttner (1937-2007) was one of the co-founders of Capitalist Realism. In 1963 he organised the legendary Demonstrative exhibition in the Kaiserstraße, Düsseldorf, together with his artist friends and colleagues Konrad Lueg, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. The exhibition can be seen as the nucleus of the so-called German Pop Art and of the worldwide success of Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and the later gallery owner, Konrad Fischer. In 1967 Manfred Kuttner moved into the field of advertising art, ending his artistic career almost before it had properly begun.

The abstract, geometrically structured pictures and neon-coloured objects of Manfred Kuttner from the early 60s range ambivalently between such different styles as Op art, Pop art, Zero art, Informel and Nouveau Réalism. His use of the then brand-new Plaka fluorescent paint created a shimmering surface, invalidating attempts at classification.  

28 April - 30 June 2013

Lena Münch

Splitter. Fotografie und Dinge

Debut exhibition at the Bahnwärterhaus

Opening: Sunday, 28th April 2013, 11am

„Lena Münch – Sliver. Photography and Things“ is the second debut exhibition this year in cooperation with the Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart.

In analogue photographs in black and white, Lena Münch combines and varies her impressions, experiences and perspectives on the world in diverse ways. The majority of the starting material for her artistic work includes found and ordinary things. These slivers of the world – mostly disconnected, partly antagonistic raw materials – are combined by Lena Münch into temporary and atmospheric realities.

The photographs present high precision as well as freedom in the intuitive use of the accidental. Using photographic techniques ranging from classical to experimental, Lena Münch playfully assembles exact compositions in which the objects and forms

17 February - 14 April 2013

Goldrausch

contemporary art made from, with or about gold

Opening: 17 February 2013 11 a.m.
Villa Merkel

Pawel Althamer, Joseph Beuys, Michał Budny, Anja Ciupka, Jürgen Drescher, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Filip Gilissen, Daniel Knorr, Alicja Kwade, Kris Martin, Jonathan Monk, Alexandra Müller, Roman Ondák, Martin Pfeifle, Claus Richter, Michael Sailstorfer, Johannes Vogl and Claudia Wieser

17. Februar – 14. April 2013

Julien Viala

The memory of space

Debütausstellung im Bahnwärterhaus

Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart

Die Ausstellung „Julien Viala. The memory of space“ markiert den Start einer neuen Projektreihe. Zukünftig werden jährlich jeweils 2 Debütausstellungen in Kooperation mit der Staatlichen Akademie der Bildenden Künste Stuttgart im Bahnwärterhaus präsentiert.

Die Ausstellung von Julien Viala (*1978 München) umfasst Objekte, Artefakte, Fotografien, Installationen und Projektionen. Genreübergreifend streifen die Arbeiten Bereiche wie Architektur, Design und Skulptur. Dabei verbinden sich die einzelnen Teile zu ortsspezifischen Arrangements. Diese werden durch Lichtprojektionen in eine künstliche Atmosphäre versetzt. Für den Betrachter entsteht der Eindruck, eine Bühne von hinten zu betreten.