© 2013 ch-arts
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Cindy Sherman
Untitled # 96, 1981
Farbfotografie / Color Photography
61 x 122 cm
Courtesy Olbricht Collection
© Cindy Sherman
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The selection of works from altogether thirteen recipients of the ring (Becher, Beuys, Boltanski, Gertsch, Holzer, Kentridge, Longo, Merz, Paik, Serra, Sherman, Sieverding and Twombly) is concentrated on two main topics. The main focus is, on the one hand, the various facets of the political and societal formulating of questions, on the other, myth and nature. The artists approach to these topics displays a broad spectrum of techniques and media ranging from drawing to painting, photography and film to objects.
The Kaiserring, awarded annually by the city of Goslar (D), is one of the most renowned art prizes in the world. It is awarded to artists who have given considerable impulse to contemporary art. In Goslar, a historic emperor’s city, this important art prize honors exceptional artists such as Joseph Beuys, Richard Serra, Cy Twombly, Mario Merz and Katharina Sieverding who are represented in the exhibition with works characteristic of them. On the occasion of the 75th birthday of Franz Gertsch, award winner in 1997, and for the 30th anniversary of the prize, the museum franz gertsch is compiling an exhibition of works by the illustrious "Ring bearers", among them the American artist Robert Longo who will be awarded the Kaiserring on October 8 for his 366-piece "Magellan Cycle".
The selection of works from altogether thirteen recipients of the ring is concentrated on two main topics. The main focus is, on the one hand, the various facets of the political and societal formulating of questions, on the other, myth and nature. The artists’ approach to these topics displays a broad spectrum of techniques and media ranging from drawing to painting, photography and film to objects and space-filling installations.
In Bernd and Hilla Becher’s photograph series of industrial structures the theme is social memory. In a different way the major installation “Suisses morts” by Christian Boltanski comprising 400 photographs also deals with this subject. Katharina Sieverding’s monumental “Stauffenberg-Block” refers us to the symbolic figure of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler and discusses social responsibility and morals as does Jenny Holzer with her aphorisms on LED panels and other surfaces. Robert Longo and William Kentridge, whose animated film “Tide Table” (2004) is also being shown, express social criticism in their drawings.
Cindy Sherman’s “Centerfolds”, coloured photographs referring to the centrefolds of erotic magazines, play with the attitudes of expectation and role clichés in our media society.
Nature, in the taut atmosphere between myth and technology, is the other main topic of the exhibition. The spectrum ranges from living fish, cavorting in the television aquarium of the video pioneer Nam June Paik, through a crocodile with Fibonacci neon numbers by Mario Merz, to the “Capri-Batterie” by Joseph Beuys. Cy Twombly’s treatment of nature is on a poetic-mythological level.
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