2023 Pro­gram

This is our 2023 ex­hi­bi­tion pro­gram.

Ex­hi­bi­tion

Fü­sun Onur: Ret­ro­spec­tive

Septem­ber 16, 2023 – Jan­uary 28, 2024

Fü­sun Onur (b. 1937 in Is­tan­bul) is one of the most im­por­tant artists in Turkey. She has cre­at­ed an im­pres­sive and varied body of work that de­fies cat­e­go­riza­tion. Ear­ly on in her ca­reer, she at­tract­ed at­ten­tion with her pre­cise ex­plo­ra­tions of sur­face and space and their mas­ter­ful con­ver­sion in­to sculp­tures. How­ev­er, this for­mal ap­proach was on­ly one of many. Since the ear­ly 1970s, she has com­bined them with ev­ery­day ob­jects and sen­su­al ma­te­rials in large in­s­tal­la­tions: frag­ile ob­jects and spaces made of panes of glass, pie­ces of wood, cloth­ing, wool threads, chairs, box­es, and balls. There is al­so a nar­ra­tive im­pulse that cont­in­ues to lend her work a po­et­ic depth to this day. The top­i­cal rel­e­vance of Onur’s work lies in the di­verse meth­ods with which she pur­sues her ar­tis­tic ques­tions and ar­rives at ev­er-new so­lu­tions.

The ex­hi­bi­tion is pro­duced in co­op­er­a­tion with the Is­tan­bul art in­sti­tu­tion Arter.

Cu­ra­tor: Bar­bara En­gel­bach (Mu­se­um Lud­wig), Co-Cu­ra­tor: Emre Baykal (Arter)

Walde Huth: Ma­te­rial and Fashion

Septem­ber 23, 2023 – Jan­uary 28, 2024
Pre­sen­ta­tion in the Pho­tog­ra­phy Room

In 2020 the Mu­se­um Lud­wig was able to ac­quire over 250 works by the pho­to­g­ra­pher Walde Huth (1923–2011). She came to fame with her fashion pho­to­graphs of 1950s haute cou­ture in Paris and Flo­rence. Her port­fo­lio al­so in­clud­ed ad­ver­tis­ing pho­to­graphs for man­u­fac­tur­ers of vel­vet, stock­in­gs, and fur­ni­ture. In the be­gin­n­ing of her ca­reer she rare­ly used col­or pho­tog­ra­phy, even though she had be­come fa­miliar with its tech­ni­cal pos­si­bil­i­ties ear­ly on from her work in the de­vel­op­ment de­part­ment for col­or pho­tog­ra­phy at Ag­fa in Wolfen from 1943 to 1945. But when she did use it, she tru­ly cele­brat­ed col­or. Those who were able to vis­it the strong-willed Cologne na­tive to­ward the end of her life of­ten told of the chaot­ic state of her apart­ment. Her pic­tures were al­so part of the chaos. In an in­ter­view Walde Huth once said: “I just tend to love im­pro­vised and not so per­fect or ster­ile things. I don’t like pol­ished gal­leries, where the pho­to­graphs are hung like that. A pic­ture can’t be ef­fec­tive that way.” This pre­sen­ta­tion aims to of­fer a sen­si­tive in­tro­duc­tion to Walde Huth based on th­ese new­ly ac­quired works.

Cu­ra­tor: Miri­am Szwast

 

 

On the Val­ue of Time: New Pre­sen­ta­tion of the Col­lec­tion of Con­tem­po­rary Art

Au­gust 10, 2023 – Au­gust 31, 2025
Col­lec­­tion Pre­sen­­ta­­tion

Ev­ery two years the Mu­se­um Lud­wig shows works of con­tem­po­rary art in a new pre­sen­ta­tion. In this it­er­a­tion, the in­s­tal­la­tions Moun­tains of En­coun­ter, 2008, by Haegue Yang (b. 1971 in Seoul, South Ko­rea) and The Doc­u­men­tary: Geo­cen­tric Punc­ture, 2014, by Guan Xiao (b. 1983 in Chongqing, Chi­na) fo­cus on dif­fer­ent con­cepts of time.

Cu­ra­tor:Bar­bara En­gel­bach

Pi­cas­so Suite 156

Oc­to­ber 28, 2023 – Fe­bruary 4, 2024
Col­lec­tion Pre­sen­ta­tion

In Jan­uary 1973, ten weeks be­fore Pab­lo Pi­cas­so’s death, Louise Leiris showed a se­ries of prints that would be his fi­nal le­ga­cy in her Paris gallery: 155 etch­in­gs cre­at­ed be­tween 1968 and 1972. Af­ter the print of three proof sheets a small­er plate (No. 7) was lost, and there­fore was nev­er part oft he pub­lished edi­tion by the gallery. Since this pre­miere, th­ese last prints by the artist have been rare­ly pre­sent­ed. Suite 156, now re­gard­ed as a char­ac­teris­tic ex­am­ple of Pi­cas­so’s late graph­ic work, is part of the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig.

April 8, 2023, marks the fifti­eth an­niv­er­sary of Pi­cas­so’s death. Un­der the ti­tle The Pi­cas­so Cele­bra­tion, 1973–2023, around for­ty ex­hi­bi­tions in Eu­rope and the Unit­ed States are tak­ing the an­niv­er­sary as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring his work clos­er to to­day’s au­di­ences. The Mu­se­um Lud­wig is sup­port­ing this monu­men­tal pro­ject both as a len­der and with its own pre­sen­ta­tion: in 2023, fif­ty years af­ter its com­ple­tion, Suite 156 will be shown to a new gen­er­a­tion that is con­front­ed with sim­i­lar ques­tions re­gard­ing the per­cep­tion of the body in so­ci­e­ty. In keep­ing with the Pi­cas­so Cele­bra­tion, Suite 156 will be placed in a broad­er cul­tu­r­al his­tor­i­cal con­text and sup­ple­ment­ed with con­tem­po­rary his­tor­i­cal doc­u­ments.

Cu­ra­tor: Eboa Iton­do

1000 . . . Miles to the Edge: Kasper König Do­na­tion

Novem­ber 11, 2023 – Fe­bruary 11, 2024
New in the Col­lec­tion

As an ex­hi­bi­tion or­ganiz­er, co­foun­der of Skulp­tur Pro­jekte Mün­ster, cu­ra­tor of the ma­jor ex­hi­bi­tions West­kunst and von hi­er aus as well as Man­i­fes­ta in St. Peters­burg, Kasper König played an in­com­para­ble role in shap­ing art dis­course over the past five de­cades. He was di­rec­tor of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig for twelve years (2000–12). In his view, a mu­se­um is a public place: “It be­longs to ev­ery­one and no one.”König is now do­nat­ing a se­lec­tion of works from his pri­vate col­lec­tion to the Mu­se­um Lud­wig, which will be pre­sent­ed in one room within the mu­se­um’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion. Al­though he nev­er saw him­self as a tra­di­tio­n­al col­lec­tor, over the de­cades, spon­ta­neous purchas­es, sou­venirs, and gifts have grown in­to a very per­so­n­al col­lec­tion.

Cu­ra­tor: Stephan Died­erich

2023 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize: Fran­cis Alÿs

Award cer­e­mony and pre­sen­ta­tion: Novem­ber 17, 6:00 p.m.

Fran­cis Alÿs re­ceives the 2023 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize from the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig. The Mex­i­co Ci­ty–based artist (b. 1959 in An­tw­erp) studied ar­chi­tec­ture and ur­ban plan­n­ing and be­gan work­ing for lo­cal NGOs there in 1986, be­fore start­ing his ar­tis­tic ca­reer in 1990. His di­verse work in­cludes paint­ing, draw­ing, in­s­tal­la­tions, video, pho­tog­ra­phy, and per­for­mances, and has been shown in nu­mer­ous ex­hi­bi­tions around the world, in­clud­ing the Bel­gian Pav­ilion at the fif­ty-ninth Venice Bi­en­nale (2022) and DOC­U­MEN­TA (13) in Kas­sel/Kab­ul (2013).

Fran­cis Alÿs’s unique ar­tis­tic po­si­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in the way he ob­serves our so­ci­e­ty. Us­ing the sim­plest of ar­tis­tic ges­tures, he la­con­i­cal­ly re­lates com­plex so­cial re­al­i­ties, mak­ing con­tra­dic­tions of po­lit­i­cal and cul­tu­r­al regimes tan­gi­ble as well as those of his own aes­thet­ic pro­duc­tions. His in­ter­ven­tions in re­al si­t­u­a­tions, in which he fre­quent­ly ap­pears as an ac­tor, subt­ly re­fer to is­sues such as mi­gra­tion, de­mar­ca­tions, and the conse­quences of glob­al­iza­tion. The fact that his works of­ten take the form of en­act­ments of the ab­sur­di­ty of ev­ery­day life makes their re­cep­tion an en­ter­tain­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al de­light.

Cu­ra­tor: Yil­maz Dziewior