Presstext_Pawel Althamer_EN_09.04

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KUNSTHALLE
FRIDERICIANUM
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4 April till 21 June 2009
FRÜHLING
Fabian Lora Aaron, Mona Abdul-Redha, Benjamin Agel, Florian Alban Reka, Salem
Al Daas, Pawel Althamer, Kajana Ananthanathan, Thomas Apitius, Maximilian
Arend, Canan Aslaner, Sükran Ay, Jesemin Ay, Umut Ayas, Serkan Aytemür, Arianna
Baart, Chayenne Bahramy, Jule Marie Balz, Melisa Bastimur, Okan Bastimur, Jo
Utwere Beetz, Edgar Besel, Kemal Besun, Simon-Tassilo Birk, Mariel Blieffert,
Stanislav Blievernitz, Patricia Bock, Vincent Bornmann, Michelle Borzuchowski,
Patrick Brauer, Sam Braun, Klara-Maria Bremer, Anton Brinner, Finn Brinner, Luca
Brinner, Charlotte Bruch, Nina Buchenau, Patrick Büsch, Tolunay Cakar, Lolly
Ceesay, Samuel Cerluk, Feyza-Nur Cevik, Danielle Cezanne, Sunisa Chimmalee,
Tapio Clemet, Bruno Conti, Andree Curdt, Jaqueline Czadek, Lea Czarnach, Ömer
Dagdevir, Jenny Dann, Sophia Danz, Serhat Dayangac, Dean Dehnhardt, Hendrik
Dockhorn, Sarah-Rebecca Drewes, Nico Dülfer, Charlotte Eberhard, Paulina Eisenberg, Yasmin El Hamadaoui, Clara Elea Engelhardt, Cihan Ercan, Sükrü Eynur,
Paula Fahrmeier, Henrik Fey, Fabian Finger, Felix Fink, Moritz Fischbach, Christina
Fischer, Eduard Fischer, Onur Fison, Maximilian Frisch, Isabel Fritz, Helena Fuhrhans, Jana Gais, Giuseppe Ganci, Julia Gebhardt, Sarah Gerhold, Felix Gehrmann,
Sofia Gerliz, Robert Gertenbach, Julian Gerwatowski-Schaubhut, Yara Gillich,
Pegah Givehchian, Andrea Göbel, Luana Göbel, Emil Gößling, Edwin Grefenstein,
Tibor Grote, Hamide Güven, Jule Marie Haas, Edom Hagos, Ayub Hamad, Marten
Hampe, Anne-Sophie Hartmann, Tom Hartwigk, Laura Heere, Kelechi Heil, Ogechika Heil, Fynn Heinemann, Anne-Maryl Hendricks, Josy Heppe, Nina Hermann,
Samuel Hesse, Julius Heuckeroth, Marlon Heyner, Maurice Himmelmann, Obed
Hinneh, Selmir Hirkic, Luise Hoffmann, Tom Hoffmann, Elea Juliana Hollatz, Fabio
Holzhauer, Jan Höster, Sainab Houceine, Chihui Hu, Till Huck, Charlotte Hüfken,
Jakob Hüfken, Claire Inderfurth, Sebastian Jäger, Marvin Jakob, Adrian-David
Jakubowski, Angela Jalili, Kardelen Jesilördek, Til Jordan, Torben Jordan, Leonhard
Jungermann, Dogan Jusofovski, Ozan Kaban, Sirin Karaboya, Ahmet Keles, Nadia
Khazrane, Julian Kiefer, Sabina Kiflezghi, Johanna Kipp, Nele Kirchner, Julia Klee,
Sarah Kleiner, Timo Kluge, Ida Ebba Klüver, Simon Knost, Kristian Konculic, Christian Konieckiewicz, Joris König, Jos Kosseg, Milana Kowalewa, Calvin Kranz, Celine
Kranz, Vivianne Kranz, Abrnor Krasinigi, Ahmet Kültür, Leonie Lambrecht, Jana
Latzberg, Thorn Lauk, Louis Lengemann, Jonas Lieber, Gian Lieberum, Andreas
Linker, Imnana Löntz, Vanessa Löwer, Carolina Lubner, Jonas Lührs, Atréju Lutz,
Sophia Lux, David Marschall, Leonie Johanna Marschang, Leonie-Sophie Mayer,
Fritz Mersch, Samie Mohamad, Michelle Montoleone, Moritz Mosaner, Lea Moser,
Jannis Motzka, Zainab Muala, Albion Mustafaj, Emelie Nafarieh, Lina Najjar, Annika
Niemann, Natalie Nowak, Frida Odendahl, Yara Odenwälder, Alessia Orto, Lukas
Osuji, Jerome Panzer, Roman Pavolov, Daniela Pavolov, Nuria Perez-Rivas, Maila
Peuschel, Patrick Pfaff, Melissa Pferner, Anna Pflug, Lukas Pohl, Merle Reichardt,
Nico Reintanz, Luis Richter, Ronja Ripp, Maximilian Rosengarten, Giuseppe Rotolo,
Jennifer Rühl, Shaumia Santhirapose, Helin Sarikaya, Lara Sarikaya, Anton Schmidt,
Benjamin Schmidt, Paula Schmidt, Fabia Schneider, Anna Leena Scholz, Nicklas
Schönewolf, Tim Schubotz, Monika Schulz, Michelle Schuster, Anton Seyberth,
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KUNSTHALLE FRIDERICIANUM
Christian Sibert, Paul Siedschlag, Amira Somai, Sonja Steinberger, Rahel-Luzie
Stöver, Leonie Johanna Strum, David Stucka, Sabina Stürmer, Constantin Suhr,
Cristhian Tabares, Marie Zoe Tappenbeck, Lennart Ternes, Jule Thaetner, Nikos
Thiele, Lara Tiggemann, Ava Torfi Bostani, Florian Triebswetter, Damla Tunauoglu,
Silas Ulshöfer, Arne Vereijken, Emanuel Vereijken, Leonie von Kraus, Fabian Wagner, Ansgar Waldeck, Jan Walper, Elena Wanisch, Alexander Weisbrich, Celine
Welsch, Louisa Wiegand, Wilhelm Welterlich, Sophia Wendel, Ole Bruno Weyhe,
Laura Wiesner, Sergej Willer, Lara Celin Wilmes, Melwin Wittmoser, Mohamed
Yuusuf, Anna Giulia Zeller, Liva Zieba, Elias Ziegenbein, Angelina Zimkeit . . .
Spring is the time of year when nature and life are refuelled with
energy. Sun, fresh green and blossoming flowers point to a lively
new beginning. The Polish artist Pawel Althamer (born in Warsaw in
1967) conveys this feeling with his exhibition project Frühling
(Spring) at the Kunsthalle Fridericianum. For the project, he invited several hundred children from Kassel to occupy over 1,000
square metres of this historically charged, world-famous exhibition
site, which had been a library and a parliament building in the
past. His main aim was to enliven and transform the museum with the
help of the children’s youthful, bold, and above all still “free”
creativity. The children are the main actors, while Althamer plays
the role of their guest and assistant.
For Pawel Althamer, multiple authorship through the delegation of
authorship to other participants, often to the underprivileged, such
as the inhabitants of the outskirts, the homeless, prison inmates,
illegal workers, street musicians and, repeatedly, teenagers and
children, is an important artistic point of departure. With his
action Bródno 2000, for example, he convinced 200 families in a prefab apartment block in Warsaw’s outlying district of the same name
to turn on or off their flat lights, as needed, so that the year
2000 could be seen brightly illuminated on the facade. The feeling
of togetherness and being part of a group played a key role. In 2001
he explicitly sought out Polish homeless in Frankfurt to dress them
in typical art-scene “vernissage outfits” and had them mingle unrecognised among the opening crowd at the exhibition Neue Welt. For his
exhibition Prisoners (2002), Pawel Althamer worked together with the
inmates of the local gaol in Münster. In joint workshops they produced objects and drawings that, together with simple found objects
from the prison, were quite conventionally presented at the
Kunstverein Münster.
Ideas and signs of change and expansion, as well as the dissolution
of predetermined, rigid structures, play an important part in Pawel
Althamer’s artwork. With his performances, which are very conceptually oriented and thrive on process-related aspects, the artist
subverts systems of rules and triggers new patterns of action. His
withdrawal as an artist from the realisation of his performative
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projects promotes a complete blending of art and life and at the
same time draws attention to people who in other places are socially
ostracised, and what is more, stimulates public awareness of their
plight.
Since the latter part of March, when both spring and the setup of
the exhibition began, the children have been free to implement their
ideas in all of the rooms in the first floor of the Fridericianum. A
camp with a giant tent in the middle, sofas, tables, chairs, rugs,
and mattress castles are conducive to conversations, among other
things. Drawings made by the children referring to their projects
are already hanging on the walls. A giant Trojan Horse awaits its
residents as do several caves and a two-storey flat with hanging
furniture. Models made by the children based on great ideas are
distributed all over the room. Among them are a knight’s castle with
a labyrinth, a cabinet of horrors, a disco, wings for flying, Egyptian furniture, boats, and submarines.
The children are teeming with expectation, energy and excitement,
and so is the Fridericianum.
Frühling at the Fridericianum will continue to develop as a processual artwork until it closes with the official end of spring on 21
June.
Frühling will be documented by the authors and recorded in a publication.
PAWEL ALTHAMER
Pawel Althamer, born 1967 in Warsaw, studied from 1988 until 1993
with Grzegorz Kowalski at the University for Contemporary Art in
Warsaw. In 2004 the Bonnefantenmuseum in Maastricht honoured the
artist with the „Vincent van Gogh Bi-annual Award for Contemporary
Art in Europe”. Besides his public projects Brodno (2000) in Warsaw,
Weronika (2001) in Amden and Unsichtbar (2002) in Berlin, the artist
is represented since 1993 in several solo exhibitions, e.g. Studies
from Nature (1993) in the a.r.t. Galerie in Plock and presentations
in the Kunsthalle Basel (1997) and in the Museum of Contemporary Art
in Chicago (2001). To his latest solo shows belong Au Centre Pompidou im Centre Pompidou in Paris (2006) as well as Black Market at
Neugerriemenschneider (2007) in Berlin. Pawel Althamer took part in
a number of internationally acknowledged group exhibitions like
documenta X (1997) in Kassel, Manifesta 3 (2000) in Ljubljana, the
50th Venice Biennale (2003), the 4th Berlin Biennale entitled Of Mice
and Men (2006) as well as Skulptur Projekte Münster in 2007.
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Copyright
Please use following copyright details for the downloaded photo
material.
Pawel Althamer, Frühling, 2009
Courtesy: Kunsthalle Fridericianum & the artist
Foto: Nils Klinger Pawel Althamer.
For further information or questions please do not hesitate to
contact us.
Christine Messerschmidt
T +49 561 707 27 86
[email protected]
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