KölnShow2

KölnShow2

Cologne, Germany Thursday, April 19, 2007–Saturday, May 26, 2007

From April 19th until May 26th 2007 the exhibition was 'einmal über heute gesagt werden wird': KölnShow2 (what will be told of today tomorrow: KölnShow2) will take place in 18 contemporary art galleries in Cologne. The constitutional concept of the exhibition, curated by Nicolaus Schafhausen and Florian Waldvogel, ties up to 'The Köln Show' in 1990, a so far unique joint venture of nine Cologne based galleries. They organized an exhibition with at that point unknown artist, many of them having their names in the art world today.

In the 1980s and early-90s, the city of Cologne was one of the most important centers for contemporary art in Europe. With its many galleries, artist run-spaces, and artist bars, the city assumed a kind of mythological dimension, a place where artists came to show, sell, socialize, and distinguish themselves and their work on levels symbolic and real, depending on the conditions of the urban surrounding. 'The Köln Show' examined, consciously without institutional help, the specific relationship between art production, art scene and art market in Cologne in 1990.
Aiming at a future-orientated new foundation of a Kunsthalle in Cologne, the European Kunsthalle takes this now almost historical venture up. As one of the last projects of the European Kunsthalle during its two-year founding and research process, the exhibition 'KölnShow2' approaches directly the cultural activities of the city of Cologne. The exhibition presents a selection of the young international art scene in the spaces of the participating galleries, parallel to their own program. Using the temporal distance from the year 2007 to 'The Köln Show' in 1990, the exhibition reflects on contemporary general frameworks of cultural prosperity and artistic production in Cologne.

Rounding up the two-year founding phase the European Kunsthalle focuses on its actual position and departing point in Cologne. Departing from the analysis of the cultural infrastructure of urban communities, it is considered essential for the research to examine the network of galleries and art mediators as an important factor of a cultural habitat and their current potential. Utilising the spaces and possibilities of the galleries, the exhibition project asks which significance is taken up by them within artistic discourse. Which structural changes occurred and may be read from the resultant development from 1990 until today?

Pere Llobera
The paintings of the Spanish artist Pere Llobera (1970, Barcelona) are a multi-layered mixture of private worlds and seemingly humble, ordinary moments. His thematic and stylistic plurality avoids obvious classification. Llobera's timeless panoramas frequently contain historic citations, which he employs in a system of universal relationships. What is past carries already the future in itself. This kind of hermeneutics makes it difficult to clearly define Llobera's works. They are marked by calculation, precision, and great seriousness. Through this they convey a sense of the melancholy of failure, a feeling of incompleteness, and the crisis of the ego in us all. In the Galerie Spruth Magers Llobera shows a series of works derived from archaic and classic motifs. His panoramas refer to historical and current meanings whose dichotomous content is intimated by the narrative structure of the paintings.

Simon Denny
The works by New Zealand artist Simon Denny (1982, Auckland) have an inner tension that results from the simultaneity of motion and standstill. For one, his sculptures require walls in order to maintain their stability, and at the same time, resist their limitations. Insecure and avoiding direct touch, they stand in the space as individual objects on narrow strips or thin boards of wood, thus arising doubts as to their stability. Woolen blankets and raw, industrially produced wooden boards enter into fragile relationships with plastic bags, pieces of clothing, balloons, and (news) papers. The seemingly just crumpled up and abandoned pieces of fabric tell of their function, their ephemeral existence as useful objects, and of the artist's work. In the Galerie Spruth Magers the viewer awaits a melancholy setting for ambivalence, exemplarily expressed in a static wall piece that is invisibly stilled by electricity.

João Onofre
In the Galerie Spruth Magers the KölnShow2 presents the 2002 video work, Untitled (Vulture in the Studio), by Portuguese artist João Onofre (1976. Lisbon). The video shows a vulture flying back and forth in the artist's narrow studio. With every beat of its wings, at every start and landing, the bird sweeps various utensils from tables and shelves. In Untitled (Vulture in the Studio) Onofre deconstructs the question of nature vs. nature that marks civilization's self-image. All of the artist's works employ characteristics of 1960s video art and are dominated by a performative process. Onofre creates series of experiments and directions for performative action for his protagonists, while the process is recorded by the camera, thus determining the length and range of the works.