Archive / 2011

The Flick Collection’s exhibition, ‘Architektonika,’ focuses on the symbiotic relationship between contemporary art and architectural practice. Featuring an array of sculptures, photographs, film works and paintings, the art exhibited in the Rieckhallen, although primarily sourced from the Collection’s archives, is strengthened with works from the National Gallery as well as a few select loans.

Taking the 1960s as its conceptual starting point, ‘Architektonika’ presents a myriad of different spatial forms betoken of this interdisciplinary cross-roads. The installations, pictorial spaces and sculptural works on display borrow from architectural motifs; reflecting and providing commentary upon the common practices in the design of buildings and urban spaces. They primarily focus on the plastic and sculptural qualities of architectural structures, without losing sight of the socio-economic implications inherent within our constructed world. ‘Architektonika’ seeks to unlock the door on imaginary spaces, stir memories of well-known buildings and revive fantastic visions of previously- imagined futures.

In conjunction with these artworks, the exhibition also features the work of leading architects once active in Germany. Situated between Halls 2 and 3, these include Bruno Taut and Wenzel Hablik, with their designs for crystal and domed buildings dating from the early modernist period, as well as Frei Otto and Ludwig Leo who, in their own way, combined functionalism with a pictorial quality. This parallel display seeks to illustrate the importance of visionary architecture on the dialogue between art and architecture over the course of the twentieth century.

Works from the Flick Collection include pieces by Absalon, Jürgen Albrecht, Carl Andre, Sophie Calle, Nina Fischer & Maroan el Sani, Peter Fischli / David Weiss, Thomas Florschuetz, Isa Genzken, Dan Graham, Mika Taanila, Rachel Khedoori, Sol LeWitt, Gordon Matta-Clark, Bruce Nauman, Manfred Pernice, Andrea Pichl, Ascan Pinckernelle, Hermann Pitz, Dieter Roth & Björn Roth, Jason Rhoades, Anri Sala, Thomas Schütte, Thomas Struth, James Turrell and Jeff Wall.
 

Hermann Parzinger stated: „The cooperation with  Friedrich Christian Flick proved itself as highly productive in the last seven years . The Hamburger Bahnhof distinguished  itself furthermore as a highly accepted international address for contemporary art . I´m very pleased that we can continue the cooperation in this form.“

As already in the last seven years the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection will be shown in the Rieckhallen im Hamburger Bahnhof, in different monographic and thematic exhibitions.
„With the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection the Hamburger Bahnhof became one of the world´s biggest museum of contemporary art with an exhibition space of almost 13.000 square meter. Already the Rieckhallen comprise around 6.000 square meter. Numerous exhibitions have been created from the collection in the last years, among other the highly received and discussed first presentation of the collection in in 2004, the intricate exhibition “Beyond Cinema” in 2006 and as well the monographic presentations dedicated to Urs Fischer in 2005, Wolfgang Tillmans in 2008 and Bruce Nauman in 2010” (excerpt from the press release of the Stiftung Preussischer Kulturbesitz from May 16, 2011)

‘Dream Passage,’ a collaboration between the Hamburger Bahnhof and the Friedrich Christian Flick Collection, presents the first major retrospective of the internationally acclaimed artist, Bruce Nauman. With unprecedented detail and academic rigour, the works on display from the Collection’s archive, including examples of Nauman’s ‘experiential architecture,’ are central in defining the prominent position of this psychologically challenging, evocative artist.
Extraordinarily prolific, Nauman has worked with a diverse range of media. His extensive oeuvre includes sculptures, films and videos, photographs, neon works, prints, installations and vocal works. At the end of the 1960s, Nauman began constructing corridors and rooms which, entered upon by visitors, powerfully evoke the experiences of entrapment and abandonment. His relentless questioning of the human soul, and the implicit role his audience must therefore play, is powerfully demonstrated with the complex work, ‘Corridor Installation’ (Nick Wilder Installation) from 1970, where visitors, recorded by a video camera , are forced to confront their own image. ‘Corridor with Mirror and White Lights’ (1971), on the other hand, cannot be entered, yet despite this, Nauman’s use of mirrored surfaces leaves his viewers with no choice but to succumb to his wishes for self-reflection.
Often explicitly political, Nauman’s engagements with sculpture became vessels for critique in the beginning of the 1980s.  Powerful in its formal simplicity, ‘Musical Chair,’ (1983) juxtaposes the suspended form of a chair with metal wires, illustrating the artist's disdain for the torture and violence implicit in the totalitarian regimes of the period. Other examples are complex neon works such as ‘American Violence,’ which plays with the iconography of the swastika, (1981-82), and ‘Sex and Death / Double 69,’ (1985), which examines the connections between sex, violence and death. Somewhat brutally rendered in neon, Nauman’s light works betray the twisted underside of advertising in American billboard culture. Nauman’s iconic installation, ‘Clown Torture,’ (1987) also deals with the themes of torture and psychological violence. In this multi-channel video work, the play of the clowns is transformed - from the expectation of an entertaining game into an unending act of direct, sinister aggression. The cruelty which often remains undetected in Vaudeville and circus acts is thus transformed into a disturbing medley of human surveillance, manipulation and trauma.
As well as presenting a significant body of works by Nauman for ‘Dream Passage’ from the Collection, Friedrich Christian Flick has donated one of the artist’s most iconic sculptural installations, ‘Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care,’ to the Hamburger Bahnhof for permanent display. Located in Hall 5 of the Rieckhallen, this architectural sculpture, made from three interlinked corridors, is exhibited for the first time since its conception in 1984, and was installed in close co-operation with the artist. Reconciling itself with the brutal, barren architecture of the Rieckhallen, Nauman deliberately tries to cultivate an all-pervading sense of extreme, existential desolation and thus forces us to question our position in space and time. Another Nauman work donated by Friedrich Christian Flick, ‘Double Cage Piece,’ (1974) has been exhibited outside Hamburger Bahnhof since 2005.
On the occasion of the exhibition ‘Dream Passage,’ the Flick Collection presents further work by Bruce Nauman in the Rieckhallen space, where a dialogue between the artists and his contemporaries, such as Robert Morris, Richard Serra and Eva Hesse, is duly negotiated. The work of younger artists, such as Richard Jackson, Dieter Roth, Manfred Pernice, Nikolaus Lang and Paul McCarthy is also exhibited in order to convey the historical gravitas associated with Nauman’s collective works on display.
In conjunction with this, a comprehensive reader is published to accompany the exhibition, where concepts central to Nauman’s oeuvre are elucidated and theoretically framed. The publication contains a collection of philosophical, literary and scholarly texts that facilitate further analyses of the artist and his contemporaries.
 

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The Friedrich Christian Flick Collection currently presents important works from its archives in a series of rotating exhibitions, which occupy the 10,000 square metres of space at its disposal in the Hamburger Bahnhof. The Rieckhallen, opened in 2004, contains part of the Flick Collection currently displayed. A further 2000 prize works of contemporary European and North American art are constantly being reinterpreted in a series of thoughtful and thematically-driven exhibitions.

In conjuction with this, Minimalist and Post-Minimalist artworks are on display in Rooms 1 and 2. These including leading examples by Donald Judd, Dan Flavin and John McCracken, as well as by Robert Morris, Bruce Nauman and Richard Serra. These works form a dialogue with those by more contemporary figures such as Heimo Zobernig, Manfred Pernice or Rachel Khedoori.

In contrast to Minimalism’s smoothness and clarity of form, the sprawling structure of Dieter Roth's 'Garden Sculpture' (1968) is now displayed alongside the fragile carcasses of both Bruce Nauman and Nikolaus Lang in Halls 3 and 4 of the Reickhallen. These lead the viewer towards Nauman’s extraordinarily evocative sculpture in Hall 5, titled 'Room with My Soul Left Out, Room That Does Not Care.' (1984) Visitors are encouraged to edge their way through the work, and recognize Nauman’s extreme evocation of existentialist abandonment.

Also displayed are important examples of Nauman's video work, which examines core questions on the perception and placement of self in relation to others, as well as the issues surrounding the performative display of the artist’s body.