Exhibition
Fluxus and Beyond:
Ursula Burghardt, Benjamin Patterson
October 12, 2024 – February 9, 2025
The art of the Fluxus movement caught on in the 1960s through Happenings, concerts, performances, and spontaneous actions, greatly influencing subsequent artists. While the Museum Ludwig collection contains pieces by Nam June Paik, Daniel Spoerri, and Mary Bauermeister that are now considered true classics, the works of sculptor Ursula Burghardt and composer Benjamin Patterson, who were both part of the Fluxus circle, are less known. This major exhibition at the Museum Ludwig takes a meeting between Burghardt and Patterson in Cologne in 1960 as a starting point to further examine their work and the complex artistic networks and collaborations in which both participated. The breaks in their careers, which came about due to artistic and social reasons, are particularly striking. The experience of exclusion that both experienced due to their biographies—Burghardt, who was Jewish, left Germany to escape the Nazis and returned after the war, while Patterson was an African American musician and artist in the United States—is inscribed in their works without becoming the overriding subject.
Curator: Barbara Engelbach