Eugen Blume

Gabriele Knapstein

Joachim Jäger

Hamburger Bahnhof (Berlin)

This is, quite possibly, one of the world's best designed art books. Featured within its pages are works from the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection--one of the world's most significant (and yes, controversial) collections of contemporary art. But this book doesn't merely present some 400 works by 40 artists, it also seeks, through its design, to provide an individual stage--or section--for each artist in order to highlight the artist's philosophy, or to play off of his or her signature works of art. For example, Raymond Pettibon's comic-like drawings unfold to a newspaper-sized spread, while Gordon Matta-Clark's opening page has a split in it that corresponds perfectly to the cut-out in the house of his now-iconic piece, Splitting. The photograph of the house is revealed in full when the page is turned. A list of each artist's works in the collection is provided at the start of their section, which is coded with a specific color for that artist, and often features changes in paper type that correspond to a specific body of work (Larry Clark's gritty black and white Tulsa images are printed on uncoated paper, while Rachel Khedoori's Pink Room color images are made even more vibrant by high-gloss paper.) With splendid color reproductions, color-coded pages, and luxurious gatefolds, this book is not just a book about art--it is art. Anyone who has a love of art, of design, or of books will treasure this volume, which also gives detailed specs on every piece of art, and a short bio on each artist. The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection reads as a book of 40 individual monographs . . . turning each page is a treat.

Friedrich Christian Flick Collection im Hamburger Bahnhof

Catherine Nichols

Matilda Felix

The Hamburger Bahnhof–Museum für Gegenwart– Berlin presents the first comprehensive exhibition in Germany devoted to the legendary Black Mountain College. Founded in 1933 in North Carolina, USA, Black Mountain rapidly rose to fame on account of its progressive teaching methods and the many prominent figures who taught and studied there. Its influence upon the development of the arts in the second half of the 20th century was enormous; the performatisation of the arts, in particular, that emerged as from the 1950s derived vital impetus from the experimental practice at Black Mountain. The founders wanted to establish a democratic, experiential, interdisciplinary educational facility in line with the forward-thinking pedagogical ideas of philosopher John Dewey. The exhibition traces the history of this university experiment in its main outlines. In the first few years of its existence, the college was strongly shaped by German and European émigrés – among them several former Bauhaus members such as Josef and Anni Albers, Alexander “Xanti" Schawinsky and Walter Gropius. After the Second World War, the creative impulses issued increasingly from young American artists and academics, who commuted between rural Black Mountain and the urban centres on the East and West Coast. Right up to its closure in 1957, the college remained imbued with the ideas of European modernism, the philosophy of American pragmatism and teaching methods that aimed to encourage personal initiative as well as the social competence of the individual.0Within an architectural environment designed by the architects' collective raumlabor_berlin, the exhibition at the Hamburger Bahnhof is showing works both by teachers at the college, such as Josef and Anni Albers, Richard Buckminster Fuller, John Cage, Shoji Hamada, Franz Kline, and Jack Tworkov, and by a number of Black Mountain students including Cy Twombly. 0Exhibition: Hamburger Bahnhof - Museum für Gegenwart, Berlin Germany (05.06-27.09.2015).

Gabriele Knapstein

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