For the third edi­tion of the se­ries Schultze Pro­jects, Min­er­va Cue­vas (*1975 in Mex­i­co Ci­ty) will de­vel­op a new site-spe­cif­ic work for the main stair­case of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig. The name of the se­ries re­fers to Ber­nard Schultze and his wife Ur­su­la (Schultze-Bluhm), whose es­tate is ma­n­aged by the Mu­se­um Lud­wig, and in whose me­m­o­ry ev­ery two years since 2017 an artist has been in­vit­ed to cre­ate a large-scale work for the pro­mi­nent front wall of the stair­way to the per­ma­nent col­lec­tion.

Min­er­va Cue­vas is known for her re­search-based pro­jects, which she ex­hi­bits in the form of in­s­tal­la­tions, per­for­mance, video, and paint­ing. She is in­ter­est­ed in eco­nom­ic and en­vi­ron­men­tal is­sues and their so­cio-po­lit­i­cal in­ter­re­la­tions. Cue­vas of­ten re­fers to the spe­cif­ic con­text in which her work is cre­at­ed. For ex­am­ple, for the ex­hi­bi­tion mark­ing the for­ti­eth an­niv­er­sary of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig, she de­vel­oped a work that ref­er­enced the Peter and Irene Lud­wig Foun­da­tion, which was estab­lished in 1982 un­der the name Lud­wig Stif­tung für Kunst und In­ter­na­tio­nale Ver­stän­di­gung GmbH (Lud­wig Foun­da­tion for Art and In­ter­na­tio­n­al Un­der­s­tand­ing). She de­signed an in­s­tal­la­tion made of a black rec­tan­gu­lar woo­d­en frame with red, yel­low, and blue ac­cents, whose com­po­si­tion re­called Pi­et Mon­drian’s ab­s­tract paint­ing Tableau I. Its purchase was very con­tro­ver­sial at the time, and to­day it is one of the high­lights of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig’s col­lec­tion. In this in­s­tal­la­tion, sim­i­lar to some of her other works, the artist deals with the po­ten­tial and ef­fects of ar­tis­tic prac­tice for so­ci­e­ty. In this sense, Min­er­va Cue­vas sees art as an ac­tive con­tri­bu­tion to so­cial changes. She us­es paint­ing more as a means to an end rather than as an ex­am­i­na­tion of the me­di­um’s con­di­tions and rules. For her large-scale mu­rals she some­times us­es the lan­guage of ad­ver­tis­ing, in­clud­ing the lo­gos of spe­cif­ic brands, which she sub­s­tan­tial­ly al­ters. Fol­low­ing her crit­i­cal ap­proach, with her paint­ing Min­er­va Cue­vas il­lus­trates the neg­a­tive ef­fects of con­sump­tion and the eco­nom­ic ori­en­ta­tion of hu­man ac­tiv­i­ty on so­ci­e­ty and the en­vi­ron­ment.

Min­er­va Cue­vas’s so­lo ex­hi­bi­tions in­clude: Disi­den­cia, Mishkin Gallery, New York (2019); No Room to Play, daad­ga­lerie, Ber­lin (2019); Dis­sidên­cia, Galpão VB – As­so­ci­ação Cul­tu­r­al Video­brasil, São Pau­lo (2018); Fine Lands, Dal­las Mu­se­um of Art (2018); Min­er­va Cue­vas, Museo de la Ci­u­dad de Méx­i­co (2012); Land­in­gs, Corn­er­house, Manch­es­ter (2012); S·­COOP, Whitechapel Art Gallery, Lon­don (2010); Min­er­va Cue­vas, Van Abbe­mu­se­um, Eind­hoven (2008); Pheno­m­e­na, Kun­sthalle Basel (2007); Das Ex­per­i­ment 6: MVC Biotech­no­lo­gies – Für ein natür­lich­es In­ter­face, Se­ces­sion, Vien­na (2001); On So­ci­e­ty, MC Kunst, Los An­ge­les (2007); Egal­ité, Le Grand Café – Cen­tre d’art con­tem­po­rain, Saint Nazaire (2007); Sch­warz­fahr­er Are My Heroes, daad­ga­lerie, Ber­lin (2004); Me­jor Vi­da Corp, Ta­mayo Mu­se­um, Mex­i­co Ci­ty (2000).

Cu­ra­tor: Yil­maz Dziewior

#M­Lx­Cue­vas #schultze­pro­jects

With the ex­hi­bi­tion to­gether for and against it, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig is fo­cus­ing on po­si­tions of con­tem­po­rary art in Ja­pan and their his­tor­i­cal pre­de­ces­sors. A start­ing point is the con­sid­er­a­tion of the Ja­pa­nese avant-garde in the 1960s from to­day’s per­spec­tives. What de­vel­op­ments in the post-war pe­ri­od did artists re­act to at the time? What mo­ti­vat­ed their sen­sa­tio­n­al public per­for­mances? What moves the artist col­lec­tive Chim↑Pom and the artist Ko­ki Ta­na­ka to­day, and how do they re­late to this his­tor­i­cal move­ment?

A loan of his­tor­i­cal pho­to­graphs by Mi­noru Hi­ra­ta is the point of de­par­ture for the sev­enth ex­hi­bi­tion in the pro­ject se­ries HERE AND NOW at Mu­se­um Lud­wig. Th­ese come from the col­lec­tion of M+ in Hong Kong, which has been a part­n­er mu­se­um of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig since 2018. Yil­maz Dziewior: “The loan from M+ in Hong Kong makes clear that un­til now East Asian per­spec­tives have hard­ly been rep­re­sent­ed in the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig.”

The Ja­pa­nese avant-garde of the post-war pe­ri­od emerged af­ter the oc­cu­pa­tion by the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary (1945 to 1952) and is close­ly linked to the eco­nom­ic and so­cial re­ori­en­ta­tion of Ja­pan dur­ing this pe­ri­od. The de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion of the coun­try un­der the fi­nan­cial and po­lit­i­cal in­flu­ence of the Unit­ed States brought with it great eco­nom­ic growth, so­cial changes, and cul­tu­r­al shifts. The close ties be­tween Ja­pan and the Unit­ed States are evi­dent in the two se­cu­ri­ty treaties signed in 1960 and 1970. Among other things, they in­clud­ed the sta­tion­ing of the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary in Ja­pan, which was met with ma­jor protests es­pe­cial­ly by stu­dents and unions. The po­lice re­spond­ed with bru­tal vi­o­lence. In the same de­cade, Ja­pan pre­pared for the 1964 Olympics in Tokyo and Ex­po ’70 in Os­a­ka in or­der to pre­sent the coun­try in an in­no­va­tive and at­trac­tive light.

Young artists, in­clud­ing mem­bers of the Neo Da­da, Hi Red Cen­ter, and Ze­ro Di­men­sion col­lec­tives, re­act­ed to the so­cial changes of the 1960s with high-pro­file per­for­mances in ma­jor ci­ties such as Tokyo, Na­goya, and Ky­o­to. Their provo­ca­tive per­for­mances man­i­fest­ed protests against his­tor­i­cal­ly grow­ing problems, since the conse­quences of the war were far-reach­ing: the sta­tion­ing of the Unit­ed States mil­i­tary in Ja­pan, dis­crim­i­na­tion against mi­grants, and the in­jus­tices of a class-based so­ci­e­ty. The artists brought th­ese in­jus­tices to light and ad­vo­cat­ed for de­moc­ra­ti­za­tion. The his­tor­i­cal pho­to­graphs from M+ doc­u­ment the per­for­mances of vari­ous artist col­lec­tives in the 1960s.

Th­ese are jux­ta­posed with two con­tem­po­rary po­si­tions. The six-mem­ber artist col­lec­tive Chim↑Pom, found­ed in Tokyo in 2005, will of­fer a hu­mor­ous in­ter­ven­tion. Their per­for­mances of­ten take place out­side of in­sti­tu­tio­n­al sett­in­gs. In their iron­ic and rad­i­cal ac­tiv­i­ties, the six artists take a stand on cur­rent so­cial and po­lit­i­cal is­sues and cri­ti­cize the ta­boo on the dan­gers of nu­clear pow­er, pover­ty, and other so­cial im­bal­ances in Ja­pan. Un­der the ti­tle Dou­ble Sto­ries of Mu­se­um Lud­wig, the col­lec­tive is de­vel­op­ing a mul­ti-part work in Cologne which en­ables vari­ous pro­cess­es of exchange be­tween in­te­ri­or and ex­te­ri­or spaces. Street mu­si­cians who were spon­ta­neous­ly ap­proached will give a con­cert at the Mu­se­um Lud­wig. Mo­tifs from Hans Haacke’s The Cho­co­late Mas­ter (1981) from the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig can be found on the pack­ag­ing of Turk­ish sweets in the pas­try shop Hasan Öz­dağ on Ke­up­s­trasse in Mül­heim. Five play­ers from FC Köln (wo­m­en's soc­cer team) will al­so leave im­pres­sions of soc­cer balls in the ex­hi­bi­tion space.

In con­trast to the in­ter­ac­tive pro­jects de­vel­oped on site by Chim↑Pom, the artist Ko­ki Ta­na­ka (*1975 in Tochi­gi) has been plan­n­ing his works for a long time. He de­lib­er­ate­ly brings peo­ple of dif­fer­ent gen­er­a­tions and back­grounds to­gether. Ta­na­ka of­ten doc­u­ments and pro­cess­es th­ese col­lab­o­ra­tive in­ter­ac­tions in the form of pho­to and video in­s­tal­la­tions. Since even be­fore the Fukushi­ma nu­clear dis­as­ter, his work has re­volved around the be­havior of com­mu­ni­ties in ex­cep­tio­n­al si­t­u­a­tions. How do peo­ple de­vel­op po­ten­tials of re­sis­tance by aban­don­ing their usu­al routines? The video in­s­tal­la­tion Ab­s­tract­ed/Fam­i­ly (2019/2020) deals with the his­to­ry of Ja­pa­nese mi­gra­tion and ev­ery­day ra­cism in Ja­pan. Four pro­ta­g­on­ists from Ja­pan whose fam­i­lies come from Bangladesh, Brazil, Bo­livia, and the Ko­re­an penin­su­la pro­cess their trau­mat­ic ex­pe­ri­ences to­gether.

Cu­ra­tor: Na­na Tazuke

#HEREAND­NOW #fo­ran­da­gainst

Mar­cel Oden­bach is the re­cipi­ent of the twen­ty-sev­enth Wolf­gang Hahn Prize from the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig. On be­half of the ju­ry con­sist­ing of Su­sanne Pf­ef­fer, di­rec­tor of the Mu­se­um für Mod­erne Kunst in Frank­furt am Main; Yil­maz Dziewior, di­rec­tor of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig; and the board mem­bers of the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst, guest ju­ror Su­sanne Pf­ef­fer ex­plains the com­mit­tee’s de­ci­sion:

“For de­cades, Mar­cel Oden­bach has re­s­o­lute­ly ex­amined con­struc­tions of cul­tu­r­al iden­ti­ty and gen­der in his draw­in­gs, col­lages, videos, and in­s­tal­la­tions. His start­ing point is not on­ly the Self, but the Other. Oden­bach cre­ates works that—­ex­per­i­men­tal in form and the­o­ret­i­cal­ly found­ed in con­ten­t—­ex­pose his­tor­i­cal con­nec­tions be­tween co­lo­nial­ism and glob­al­iza­tion and make the vi­o­lence of the nor­ma­tive and rep­re­sen­ta­tion tan­gi­ble.” The tech­nique of col­lag­ing is evi­dent in Oden­bach’s Sch­nittvor­la­gen, which will be ac­quired for the mu­se­um’s col­lec­tion. Th­ese are both an im­age archive and at the same time the cen­tral ba­sis for the artist’s work, and will be ex­hi­b­it­ed to the public for the first time. Th­ese works, which be­gan in 1990, con­sist of over 100 sheets of pa­per, most­ly in A3 for­mat. The pho­to col­lages are es­sen­tial to Oden­bach’s con­cep­tu­al ap­proach and of­fer mu­se­um vis­i­tors new in­sights in­to the work­ing meth­ods of this year’s re­cipi­ent of the Wolf­gang Hahn Prize.

Mar­cel Oden­bach (b. 1953 in Cologne) lives and works in Cologne, Ber­lin, and Cape Coast, Gha­na.&nb­sp;The artist had his first so­lo ex­hi­bi­tion while a stu­dent, in 1978 at de Ap­pel in Am­s­ter­dam. This was fol­lowed by nu­mer­ous so­lo shows at, in­ter alia, the Kun­st­mu­se­um Bonn (2013), the Tel Aviv Mu­se­um of Art (2016), and the Kun­sthalle Wien (2017). Oden­bach par­ti­ci­pat­ed in doc­u­men­ta 8 in 1988, the Shar­jah Bi­en­nial 7 in 2005, the Kochi-Muziris Bi­en­nale in 2012, and the Bu­san Bi­en­nale in 2018. He has taught film and video at the Kun­s­takademie Düs­sel­dorf since 2010. From Oc­to­ber 9, 2021 un­til Jan­uary 9, 2022, Kun­st­samm­lung Nor­drhein-West­falen shows the com­pre­hen­sive ex­hi­bi­tion “Mar­cel Oden­bach. So oder so” at K21.&nb­sp;

#wolf­gang­hah­n­prize #M­Lx­O­den­bach