Appreciating the wacky world of contemporary art
Munich boasts many fine museums, but, strangely enough, none devoted to contemporary art. This is indeed a shameful deficit for a city that claims to be a cultural stronghold. Luckily enough, the internationally renowned collection of modern and contemporary art assembled by Anette and Udo Brandhorst is to find a home in the new Pinakothek der Moderne (scheduled to open in 2001). The wing that will house the collection will be constructed specifically for this purpose, and will be inaugurated in 2006, five years after the opening of the main structure. In the meantime, you can whet your appetite at a current exhibition at the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, which is showing a major part of the collection.You might not appreciate nor understand contemporary art. But can you really ignore it? It certainly excites the media — the discussions about the German art shown in the new Reichstag in Berlin are just one example. It’s a million-dollar business: contemporary art is the second highest selling area of art on the market today, following closely behind the Impressionists. “Food for the Mind” is your chance to become acquainted with the large and diffuse area that is contemporary art, for this exhibition is an excellent introduction.
The collection includes the work of numerous precursors of contemporary art. Pablo Picasso is represented with a nearly complete collection of his book illustrations. Works by Kasimir Malevich, a major forerunner of abstract art, and Joan Miró are also on display. An unusual collage by the latter artist, dating from 1929, was the first work the Brandhorst couple purchased together. It dates from a brief period in which Miró contemplated abandoning painting altogether.
Andy Warhol’s endless reproduction of the head of Christ, taken from Leonardo’s Last Supper, will be familiar to those who regularly frequent the Staatsgalerie. His Oxidation Painting from a series executed in 1978 might be more surprising. This huge work has a copper alloy surface in a rich reddish color. Dynamic lines of black drops cover the entire surface, forming undefined figures recalling the ink shapes of psychology tests. You might find the work loses some of its charm when you learn that these drops were created by the artist and his assistants collecting their urine and dripping it over the surface with the help of a watering can. As so often, Warhol has taken the work of a fellow artist, here Jackson Pollock’s drip paintings, as a point of departure and reinvented the theme in his own manner.
The work of Germany’s three living megastars Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter and Georg Baselitz is also on view. In Polke’s large work Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité, the artist uses prints from the French Revolution to illustrate his awareness of art history. The surface of the painting has been treated with liquid polyester to render it transparent. Thus the stretcher shimmers through the canvas, adding a third dimension to the painting.
The publicity material for the exhibition bears an illustration of a work by American artist Bruce Nauman entitled Two Heads on Base. This consists of a red and a green wax copy of the head of Nauman’s assistant Andrew. The green head seems to be swallowing its own cut-off tongue, recalling some primitive war ritual. The heads, set close together and removed from their bodies, evoke some evil horror fantasy. Put together with the title of the exhibition, “Food for the Mind,” they challenge the viewer to think about what they see, and what food is meant.
The exhibition also includes the work of such controversial artists as Damien Hirst. The British enfant terrible shocked the art world when he won the British Turner Prize in 1995 with an installation including a cow and calf, bisected longitudinally and preserved in a glass tank of formaldehyde. Here, two of his “pharmaceutical sculptures,” a series he completed in 1994, are on show. In them, he explores our split relationship with modern medicine, our blind confidence in its success and our panic when it fails. “I can’t understand why some people believe completely in medicine and not in art, without questioning either,” says the artist. Perhaps this is what the exhibition is about — questioning art, questioning society and discovering new means of looking at both.
The taped guided tour is unfortunately available only in German. The text is excellent and includes some comments by Udo Brandhorst himself. However, it, like the rest of the exhibition, takes itself perhaps a little too seriously. Or do you not have to smile when hearing Jeff Koons discussingporcelain and his desire “to show the sexuality of the material?” This exhibition surely offers a serious overview of contemporary art, but, if you keep an open mind, it can also be tremendous fun.
“Food for the Mind: The Collection of Udo and Anette Brandhorst” until October 8, 2000, at the Staatsgalerie moderner Kunst, Prinzregentenstr. 1,Tel. (089) 21 12 71 37. Tues.-Sun. 10-22.
