Regarding Terror: The RAF-Exhibition

 

 

30 January – 16 May 05

 

 

Opening: 29.1.2005, 17 - 21 h

Franz Ackermann, Dennis Adams , Bettina Allamoda, Eleanor Antin, Thomas Bayrle, Sue de Beer, Ulrich Bernhardt, Joseph Beuys, Dara Birnbaum, Klaus vom Bruch, Erin Cosgrove , Lutz Dammbeck, Christoph Draeger, Felix Droese, Heinz Emigholz, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Friedl, Johan Grimonprez, Rudolf Herz, Jörg Immendorff, Johannes Kahrs, Scott King, Scott King/Matt Worley, Martin Kippenberger, Rainer Kirberg, Astrid Klein, Andree Korpys/Markus Löffler, Bruce LaBruce, Claude Lévêque, Theo Ligthart, Jonathan Meese, Michaela Meise, Michaela Melián, Klaus Mettig, Olaf Metzel, Rob Moonen/Olaf Arndt, Hans Niehus, Marcel Odenbach, Sigmar Polke, Yvonne Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Sieverding, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Klaus Staeck, Stih & Schnock, Frank Thiel, Wolf Vostell, Peter Weibel, Willem (Bernhard Holtrop), Johannes Wohnseifer

Two years ago, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin began preparing an exhibition whose aim is to research and, for the first time, to present together the media echo of the Red Army Faction and artistic positions directly or indirectly addressing the history of the RAF. More than 100 works by more than 50 international artists from three generations will be exhibited.
In two ways, the curatorial principle of the exhibition takes account of the perception of the RAF formed in and through the media. On the one hand, by citing and displaying examples of this media presence in the form of 29 dates tied to the history of the RAF's terrorism in the 1970s. Here one can see what one could see at that time and what, in this "being seen", decisively molded the "imagining of terror and the imagining of the RAF" in West German society. Magazine title pages and selected articles from the print media Bild Zeitung, Spiegel, Stern, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as well as excerpts from television coverage by the broadcasters ARD, ZDF, and Aktueller Kamera document the period.

On the other hand and at the same time, it is made clear to the viewer that the artistic grappling with this perception of a reality created by the media is multi-dimensionally differentiated and makes it more directly and differently experiencable. This is especially visible in a work like Gerhard Richter's "Atlas". Plates 470-479, which deal with the theme of the RAF, are not "preparatory works" for the famous serial October 18, 1977, but an autonomous work revealing the tension between media reality and artistic perception, in both the objective and the subjective sense. The exhibition will thus show that it is precisely artistic works that, through their whole relationship to history and the present, make decisive contributions to illuminating from various perspectives the abstract reality-sign RAF, as Klaus Theweleit has termed it.

The aim of the exhibition is to reveal these public spheres as diversely as possible by exhibiting what was and, through the selection of sources and artistic works, to document the possibilities of perception that are structured by the media.

Exhibition curated by Klaus Biesenbach, Ellen Blumenstein, Felix Ensslin

Publications:

Two publications are available:

Regarding Terror: The RAF-Exhibition Volume 1
Black and White, German, 712 pages

Regarding Terror: The RAF-Exhibition Volume 2
Color, German, 280 pages
Editor: Klaus Biesenbach

Steidl Verlag
Price of both publications:
45 Euro KW / 65 Euro booktrade
ISBN 3-86521-102-X

Next site of the Exhibition:

24.6 - 28.8.2005

Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria

Thanks to the artists who contributed to the auction to support the exhibition project: Marina Abramovic, Doug Aitken, Francis Alÿs, Monica Bonvicini, Dinos and Jake Chapman, Thomas Demand, Andreas Gursky, Carsten Höller, Paul Pfeiffer, Ugo Rondinone, Lawrence Weiner and Jane and Louise Wilson as well as the patron of the auction, former German Interior Minister Gerhart Baum. Mondriaan Foundation - Netherlands Culture Fund of the Dutch Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Education, Culture and Science, Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung, e-flux

Events:

7.3.2005, 21h
Seminar: Johannes Stüttgen – Joseph Beuys: Kunst = Kapital

17.3.2005, 21h
Lesung: Erin Cosgrove

22.3.2005, 21h
Performance/Lesung: Sue de Beer & Alissa Bennett

29.3.2005, 21 h
Seminar: Theo Ligthart - Waldgang/Spaziergang

4.4.2005, 21 h
Seminar: Bruce LaBruce

12.4.2005, 21 h
Bettina Allamoda & Guests: Christian, Hanns Martin und Ich

19.4.2005, 18 h
Asche und Diamant (Polen 1958, R: Andrzej Wajda), 95 min.
Baader (D 2001, R Christopher Roth), 109 min.

27.4.2005, 18 h
Stammheim (D 1985, R Reinhard Hauff), 107 min.
Die dritte Generation (D 1979, Rainer Werner Fassbinder), 110 min.

3.5.2005, 18 h
Operation Thunderbolt (IL 1977, R Menahem Golan), 124 min.
dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y (B/F 1997, R Johan Grimonprez), 68 min.

11.5.2005, 18 h
Schleyer. Eine deutsche Geschichte (D 2002, R Lutz Hachmeister), 90 min.
One Day in September (USA 2000, R: Kevin Macdonald), 95 min.

17.5.2005, 18 h
Die innere Sicherheit (D 2000, R Christian Petzold), 115 min.