Situation.Landscape

From July 2013, Situation Kunst (für Max Imdahl) is presenting selected works by internationally known artists like Roy Lichtenstein, Pierre Bonnard, Gustave Courbet, Lovis Corinth, Kurt Schwitters and Aert van der Neer, as part of a new event series. The concerned material from four centuries belong to the collection of the popular „Weltsichten“ exhibition and will exclusively be displayed for a further examination based on a thematically chosen subject.

In 2010, the year of the European Capital of Culture, the popular „Weltsichten. Landschaft in der Kunst seit dem 17. Jahrhundert“ exhibition had celebrated the opening of the Kubus building as new area of Situation Kunst. After a nationwide display in several places such as Kunsthalle zu Kiel, Museum Wiesbaden and Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz, the exhibits will travel abroad to be shown to an international audience the following year, starting with the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht.

The event series offers an exclusive chance to meet highly anticipated artworks on an unexpected level and is an unique museal opportunity in the Ruhr area. Outside regular opening hours, the interested public and friends of the museum are invited to join an unforced atmosphere combined with a snack menu of pretzels and wine and share their different perspectives on the subject “landscape“. Motivated discussions are welcome.

To every event there will also be a special guest invited sharing expertise and significant specific background information which can lead to new ways of the examination. In the event of the launch on July 4 Peter Waldeis, the former Chief Conservator of the Städel Museum in Frankfurt, will share his specific perspective and experience on art as a conservator. The first subject of the series will be the investigation on his personal conservation of the painting „Flusslandschaft im Mondlicht“ by Aert van der Neer (1603/1604–1677). Waldeis will trace the single steps of the conservation of this highly acknowledged Dutch painting to the audience.

The paintings “Paysage du Doubs” (Landscape near Doubs) (1866) by Gustave Courbet and “Le Remorqueur” (Tugboat) (1912) by Pierre Bonnard, exclusively presented on Thursday, August 8th, are artworks of two artists whose interest centre the sensation of the moment and a subjectivity of perception. The traditional landscape painting dissolves and becomes a new role on the playing field of modern appreciation of art. With this background information in mind, Richard Hoppe-Sailer professor at the Institute of Art History at the Ruhr Universität Bochum, will follow the question on how the subject “landscape” can join non-concreteness and hinted abstraction. Courbet and Bonnard visualize natural phenomena using highlights of picturesque-only methods such as colouring and brush texture.

On Thursday, September 12 at 6 pm the event series will emphasize the painting „Bringing in the fishing at dusk“(1652) by Jan van Goyen and the photograph „Ploughed field, Neuss-Kappellen“(2001) of the Becher student Simone Nieweg.
Dr. Alexander Linke
, lecturer at the Institute of Art History at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the Master student Janne Lenhart discuss the issues of image theory that emerge from the comparison of a traditional Dutch landscape painting and a modern photograph: Starting from the compositional similarities of both works, being displayed exclusively for this event, another feature will be the specifics of reality and time relating to two diverging image media.

The painting of Chinese artist Qiu Shihua (*1940) faces the viewer with a challenge, since it moves at the edge of the visible. The almost un-objective image of Qiu Shihua shows a dim landscape notion ranging between visible and invisible features. Nothing can be located firmly. On Thursday, October 10, Silke von Berswordt-Wallrabe, chairwoman of Foundation Situation Kunst and co-organizer of the exhibition series „Weltsichten“, interrogates the experiences this specific painting creates. On one hand with reference to the traditional Chinese painting as well as on the other with similar experiences with works of modern (western) art.

The complete selection of “Weltsichten” and the presentation of the third exhibition location - following Bochum and Kiel - at the Museum Wiesbaden (August 22 – October 3, 2011) will be the main interest on Thursday, November 14 at 6pm.
Dr. Peter Forster,
curator of the Wiesbaden 14th to 19th century collections, who had realised the exhibition, will explain the curatorial methods and questions involved. What are the processes of an exhibition that consist of more than 250 works combining landscape art of the 17th century until the present? How can it be organised, planned and put into effect?  Which decisions had been made with regard to practical and content issues such as selection, hanging, lighting and interior arrangements or even to the accompanying publication of 2010?  These and further more aspects and backgrounds of museum work will be discussed on this occasion.  

The main focus at our “Situation.Landschaft” (Situation.Landscape) event on Thursday, December 12 at 6pm, will be the aspect „The human being in landscape“, where artworks of three different epochs will be examined. In conversation with the audience, the Master students and employees of Situation Kunst, Patricia Hartmann und Glenda Mense, will call the “Berglandschaft mit Reisenden” (Mountain Landscape With Travellers) (1620s) by Joos de Momper the Younger, the winter scence “Stadtbild Winter” (Cityscape Winter) by Oskar Keen (1888) and the photograph “Huband Bridge” (1966) by Evelyn Hofer into question. How is the view of a landscape pictures influenced when human beings are involved? How does the meaning of the picture change when human beings appear individually or in groups? Does the human being have a specific symbolism? Therefore, the examples should display how the viewing direction is led by compositional means.

For now the last event of the series will be on Thursday, January 9, 2014 at 6 pm and focus on the oeuvre of the Oberhausen born photographer Rudolf Holtappel. The subject of his photographs since the 1950s is the industrialized Ruhr area and its citizens. Holtappels motives, the omnipresent blast furnaces and the headgears of the coal mines, by now mostly abandoned, still remain in the collective memory of the region. With humour and a distinctive skill to capture the key moment, Holtappel has created an exciting documentation on the late Ruhr area. Rudolf Holtappel, who agreed to attend a Situation.Landscape event a long time ago, has passed away in November 2013 at the age of 90. His longtime comapnion and wife Herta Holtappel will take part in a conversation with the art historicans and instigators of the event series, Anna Storm and Ronja Friedrichs, and review the life and work of the photographer.

Please feel free to join the discussion about landscapes in art. A snack menu of wine and baked goods will be provided.To register for the event please contact the museum by phone or send a written request.The fee is 5 Euro (with registration 3 Euro).