Description

Must contemporary landscapes still encompass the ­romantic ideal of a natural, agricultural area? The landscapes being made today are often "non-places," bearing traces of economic interventions, changing demarcations, and evidence displacement, war, urban sprawl, and mining. Quite often, only a kind of residual nature remains, where a few ruins tell of historical events. Barren landscapes that speak of past violence are degraded to (illustrative) ­material. At the same time, memories are ­visibly embodied in architectural monuments from the twentieth century. In this exhibition and in numerous contributions to the extensive book, twenty-four artists and artist groups bring the theme of landscape to life. Landscapes between fiction, symbolism, and documentation are presented, appealing to our ability to decipher these images and calling upon our imagination and empathy.

Artists: 
Anca Benera und Arnold Estefán, Nico Bleutge, Bogdan Bordeianu, Lucian Bran, Helwig Brunner, Marianna Christofides, Luc Delahaye, Chloe Dewe Mathews, Lukas Einsele, Daniel Falb, Cyprien Gaillard, Dani Gherca, Anne Heinlein und Göran Gnaudschun, Nico Ilfoveanu, Markus Karstieß, Thomas Kellner, Jan Kempenaers, Anselm Kiefer, Aglaia Konrad, Susanne Kriemann, Armin Linke in collaboration with Aristide Antonas and Estelle Blaschke, Richard Mosse, Andreas Mühe, multiplicity, Cyprian Muresan, Paul Nash, Alexandra Navratil, Cristian Rusu, Larisa Sitar, Milica Tomic & Sans Souci Collective, Unknown Fields, Danny Veys, Paul Virilio, Kristof Vrancken

About the Author

Eva Schmidt is an art historian and a curator. Since 2004 she has served as the Director of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen. She has curated numerous monographic exhibitions of Lucian Freud, Sigmar Polke, Bridget Riley, Antoni Tapies, Niele Toroni, and others. Kai Vöckler is professor at HfG in Offenbach for Creativity and Urban Context and was a founding member of Archis Interventions. He worked on the exhibition of Prishtina Dynamic City in 2016 at the Venice Architectural Biennale, where he was adviser for the exhibitions Making Heimat and Arrival Country Germany and responsible for the section about Offenbach. Since 2018 he has been a speaker of the LOEWE research project Infrastructure – Design – Society.