Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

Andreas Schalhorn

Kassandra Nakas

Ulrich Pfarr

As its point of departure Funny Cuts takes Pop Art's revolutionary referencing of comics and concludes with the most current trends in contemporary art. Here we see the diverse ways in which this art is in dialogue with the commercial and trivial picture worlds of comics and cartoons. In the 1960s Pop artists like Andy Warhol and Roy Lichtenstein broke new ground in their provocative confrontation with high and low art when they used motifs and references from popular comics. In the 1970s, American comics dealt with taboo subjects like sexuality and violence: for the first time, the subversive potential and the psychological content of comic worlds were used creatively in fine art. Within the context of the punk movement, Raymond Pettibon and Mike Kelley were inspired by comics, making wall-length drawings that used the narrative element of comics on the border between visual art and literature. And internationally today, artists still question political and social realities and their own identity through the mythological potential of comics and animations. Presented here are numerous images that visually demonstrate the various ways in which comics have become a form of high art.

Cartoons and Comics in Contemporary Art ; [exhibition at Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, 4th December 2004-17th April 2005]

Funny Cuts

Staatsgalerie (Stuttgart)

Karin Sander

Gudrun Inboden

Kathrin Elvers-Švamberk

Testing and stretching the definition of conceptual art to its very limits, Karin Sander's site-specific installations blend into their respective contexts so completely that they often lurk on the border of perceptibility. Since 1985, Sander has been minimally intervening into the architecture of the museum and gallery setting, inserting wall pieces and fabric spaces, floor works, viewing boxes, and peepholes that challenge the viewer's role and explore the intersection between art and the public realm. One well-remembered intervention, installed in 1994 at the Museum of Modern Art, New York, found strategically placed circles of Astroturf in the lobby and sculpture garden, and painting-sized squares of wall throughout the building polished to a high-gloss.

Karin Sander [published on the Occasion of the Exhibition Held at the Staatsgalerie, Stuttgart, 27 April - 28 July 2002].

Ina Conzen

Oskar Schlemmer (1888–1943) was one of the most versatile all-rounders of the last century and as unusual as a painter as he was as a sculptor, draughtsman, graphic artist, stage designer, wall designer, creator of epochal dance projects and author. His vision was the “new” man living in functional architecture, thinking clearly and acting clearly in the modern age which would never again sink into the chaos of war. The catalogue includes the seven original costumes of the Triadisches Ballett (Triadic Ballet) together with rare documents of the time. The connection between the all-encompassing attempts at reform of the Bauhaus are discussed as well as Schlemmer's vain attempts to reconcile his “unpolitical” art with the Nazi dictatorship's ideas of state-controlled art. The focus will be directed towards Schlemmer's lofty ethical demands, which always regarded man, typified as a “Kunstfigur” (artistic figure) as the “measure of all things”.

Visions of a New World

Oskar Schlemmer

Max Ernst

Tate Gallery

Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen (Germany)

Karin von Maur

Exhibition Max Ernst, a Retrospective

Max Ernst (1891-1976) is one of the few incontrovertibly great artists of the twentieth century. This book provides a unique opportunity of assessing Max Ernst's achievement. The extensive plate section includes works in all medias and genres -- painting, sculpture, works on paper, book illustration -- and from all periods of the artist's career. In his introductory essay, Werner Spies reviews the artist's oeuvre, pointing to certain basic attitudes and procedures that informed all his work. Essays by other well-known scholars discuss the symbolism of his Surrealist imagery, the influence of Romanticism and of the North American Indians on his work, and his ties with England. Max Ernst's own 'Biographical Note', lavishly illustrated with documentary photographs and further examples of his work, and interspersed with other writings by the artist, provide profound and fascinating insights into his life and art. "Max Ernst: A Retrospective" is an indispensable volume on the life and art of one of the few truly international artists of the twentieth century. -- From publisher's description.

A Retrospective

Joseph Kosuth

Texte und Dokumentation der Investigationen über Kunst seit 1965 in Auswahl : [Ausstellung] Staatsgalerie Stuttgart 26.9.-8.11.1981, Kunsthalle Bielefeld 7.3.-18.4.1982

Bedeutung von Bedeutung

This fascinating and beautifully illustrated book on the work of Francis Bacon, one of the 20th century's greatest painters, takes an in-depth look at his trademark motif of figures imprisoned within ghostly frames. Arguably one of the most influential and original painters of the 20th century, Francis Bacon painted haunting portraits that employed themes of crucifixion, torment, and isolation. Incorporating the insights of The Logic of Sensation, French philosopher Gilles Deleuze's seminal criticism of Bacon's work, this volume highlights Bacon's approach to space as one of the defining forces of his work. By organizing the spatial and dramatic structure of his compositions with barely visible cubic or elliptical cages, his figures become trapped in a kind of invisible room. This sense of confinement creates a direct, unsettling impression on the viewer, and further emphasizes the painter's dark vision. This book features stunning reproductions of 40 large-scale paintings, including Study for a Portrait (1952), Chimpanzee (1955), Three Studies of the Male Back (1970), and Sand Dune (1983) as well as a selection of rarely exhibited works on paper. This book also contains a series of essays that explore the range of variation in Bacon's use of isolating constructions over a period of nearly 50 years, as well as the nature of his painting technique and compositions.

Staatsgalerie Stuttgart

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