February Art Guide - Munich

This month we have many interesting openings in Munich, here are my choices to share with you! To visit these exhibitions or learn more about the art scene in Munich take a tour with Sofia.

I.

Exhibition: Falling Light
Artist: Chen Wei
Venue: Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle
Dates: Until April 7th, 2018
Opening:  February 8th, 2018

To kick off the 50th anniversary of Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle the rising position of Chinese artist Chen Wei and Thomas Ruff will be presented. The works shown in Chen Wei’s new exhibition Falling Light unite the motifs and issues of his oeuvre of the past several years and develop them further: urban spaces devoid of people, stage-like settings with strong lighting effects, wet ground, sporadic individuals or just their hands in scenes of isolation, symbolically charged elements, like the sparkling coins. The unfinished crops up in the half-laid paving stones in Fresh Paint, while what has been and gone is expressed in Fragment through the tiled floor of a late-night bar, across which are strewn the shards of broken bottles, the remains of a party. Promise is the theme of Sharing Apartment, in which the open door and the warm light behind it evoke, in conjunction with the emptiness of the room in the foreground, an uncanny atmosphere.

II.

Exhibition: 
Artist: Thomas Ruff
Venue: Galerie Rüdiger Schöttle
Dates: Until April 7th, 2018
Opening: February 8th, 2018

Since 2014 Thomas Ruff has been working on his Negatives, a series in which he converts the typical sepia tones of early photography into cyan tones, thus not only harking back to the cyanotypes of yesteryear but also, and more importantly, transforming the positive back into its negative form, a process that raises the “means to the end”, namely the tonally reversed, negative image as the prerequisite for the ultimate photograph, to the status of an artwork in its own right. Within this series, Thomas Ruff has developed a new cycle of photographs titled neg◊lapresmidi which will be shown in the forthcoming exhibition in its entirety. In a sequence of 25 photographs, Thomas Ruff follows in the tracks of the dance legend Vaslav Nijinsky (1889-1950).

III.

Exhibition: 55 | Wohnzimmer - Gert Weber Meets Old Friends
Artist: Various Artists
Venue: Galerie Max Weber Six Friedrich
Dates: Until March 10th, 2018

Gert Weber meets old friends is the first exhibition on the occasion of the 55th anniversary of the gallery with furniture by Gert Weber and art works by Andreas Schulze, Peter Zimmermann, Georg Baselitz, Imi Knoebel, Siegfried Anzinger, Stephan Huber and others.

Take a private art tour in Munich to discover more!
 

Munich Art Guide - December

The exhibition Arbeiten Gehen, curated by the artist group Galerie BRD opened last Friday, December 1st in the Jahn und Jahn Gallery and can be experienced until January 2018.  

The exhibition reveals a place that entices visitors for coffee and relaxation. The viewer is confronted with four to five small round tables covered with a pink blanket. In the corner hangs a TV, next to it, one can see a table for self-service, in the background is place for children's toys. The atmosphere of the whole installation reminds one strongly of a “come-back of socialism”, which elements of are visible in the air. The artists of the exhibition have set themselves the goal of integrating art into everyday life and visualize it as a manifesto of modern slavery.

The curated exhibition of the Galerie BRD implements art very pragmatically and by that helps visualizing subordinate socio-political questions, such as: who determines how long and how much one has to work? Is our working system a kind of modern slavery? What happens if you do not work? 

The exhibition title Arbeiten Gehen, consisting of the two nouns work and walk, implies that not only we go to work, but also that our work goes … somewhere else: from shift work to part-time and finally offshore – in no time.

The artistic media have a special affinity to the real world out there, they are palpable, edible and real in every way. Texts are another supporting element of the exhibition, as even strong visual representation needs a linguistic level in order to be critically questioned or to be negotiable.

The artist group Galerie BRD has no fixed location, the exhibitions take place in different cities. The artists of the group live in cities like Leipzig, Hamburg or Berlin and pursue their own work in the first place. The gallery does not see itself as a collective, but as a loose association. Content-motivated it comes to the group exhibitions - just like now in Galerie Jahn and Jahn. 

Contributed by: 
Viktoria Binschtok, Christin Kaiser, Nina Power, Arne Schmitt, Moritz Sänger, Felix Thiele, Mierle Laderman, Ukeles, Jens Ullrich, Tilman Walther
Exhibition from December 2nd, 2017 till January, 13th, 2018
Galerie Jahn und Jahn
Baaderstraße 56 C
80469 München

Take a tour with Sofia in Munich to discover more!
 

Munich Art Guide - November

I.

Exhibition: Henning Von Gierke - Solo Show
Artist: Henning Von Gierke
Venue: Jörg Heitsch Galerie München
Dates: November 8th, 2017 until till January 6th, 2018

Henning von Gierke has inspired an international audience with his realistic painting style. In his works, he questions our existence in the context of nature, religion and philosophy. Not only as a painter, but also as a director and stage designer, Gierke is in demand all over the world. He was awarded the German film prize for his film work.

II.

Exhibition: Christian Boltanski
Artists: Christian Boltanski
Venue: Espace Louis Vuitton München
Dates: November 8th, 2017 until March 31st, 2018

With the understatement of minimalist art and powerful emotions of expressionism, Christian Boltanski's work is rooted in an existential and essential relationship with the world, with which almost everybody can identify.

III.

Exhibition: Every Day is Different
Artists: Judy Ledgerwood
Venue: Häusler Contemporary
Dates: November 9th, 2017 until January 12th, 2018

Like almost no other artistic position, American painter Judy Ledgerwood shows an affinity for shiny colors and ornaments. Her canvasses and wall paintings captivate viewers with their rhythmized aesthetics that are full of intentional breaks and contain reflections on femininity and multilayered art historical references.

Take a tour with Sofia in Munich to discover more!

Insider Tips for Collecting Contemporary Art

Our Munich guide, Sofia Sokolov, is giving us an insider look at her personal art collection. Offering a strong knowledge of the contemporary art scene Sofia Sokolov has an academic and professional background in the history of art. Continue reading to see her top four pieces in her collection and learn why she continues to be inspired by them every day.

Sofia Sokolov (center) during a tour in Munich

Guy Avital

The works of Israeli artist Guy Avital are geometric, aggressive, dynamic and can overwhelm the viewer by a socio-political fullness. Childlike motifs, collages, flying geometric forms, elements which often meet us in our everyday life build the component of Avital's works. His works are divided by three levels on perception: firstly, it is an aesthetic and harmonious form that brings the artist's work to perfection. The second level is the socio-political struggle with one's own environment. Kantian elements received a symbolic meaning when viewed in the context of conflict. And the third level of perception is purely subjective and refers to viewer's imagination. It is an infinity of details, which always makes the picture new and interesting. Forms that are always revealing a new composition from a different perspective, and dynamics that allow tension. This exact combination is what makes his work so charming and attractive to me.

Guy Avital

Benyamin Reich

I love my collection and the work by Benyamin Reich is a very proud part of it! This work fascinates me again and again; the simplicity of the romantic landscape, the path that disappears in the horizon and the representation of Jerusalem under the snow is fascinating and melancholic at the same time. Benyamin chose a square format with black shadows, which increases the sensitivity of the image. From my point of view, Benyamin Reich is one of the most important photographers of Jewish art, who redefined the boundaries of orthodoxy and dissolved the framework of tradition.

Benyamin Reich

Denise Winter

Denise Winter works with spatial reductions and alienation effects. Often a self-shot photographic original serves as a starting point for her constructivist exploration of architecture and landscape. With her pinhole camera shots, she manages to integrate the moment of the unpredictable into her artistic work and to use it in a productive way by creating new spatial situations. In her installation pieces, which depict a consistent further development of her photographs, she pursues the construction of new spaces. Shadow- and outlines, architectural corner situations are taken from their original context and transferred as autonomous forms – as cut out spaces – to aluminum and chipboards. During the next stage of her process, Denise Winter defamiliarizes the original form further; by rolling up the sheets or arranging them in layers she achieves a renewed transformation. Space is not the only element that finds a new counterpart in this way, her objects also address temporality when the layered or rolled material reveal the process of their formation.

Denise Winter

Mihogo Ogaki

Japanese artist Mihogo Ogaki is probably the most dreamy and aesthetic artist in my collection. Her works deal with existential topics such as birth and death, thereby discussing philosophical issues of human life. Starting from scientific and evolutionism theory-based knowledge, Ogaki raises metaphysical, ontological and cosmic questions. Regarding the genesis of human life from a biological point of view, the embryo emerges from cell fusion and becomes a viable human being through cell division. All genetic information is individually determined within the DNA whose molecular consistency can be decoded by science in detail. Nonetheless, science has its limits. Questions such as “where do we come from and where are we going?" cannot be responded to in scientific terms. In my eyes my work by Mihogo represents the infinity of human feelings and the ways in which we perceive the universe. Her work realized the possibilities of a subjective representation of her own cosmos.

Mihogo Ogaki

Read Part 1 of this series of interviews with our guides about their personal art collections.

Take a tour with Sofia in Munich to learn about the art she loves and more!