The collabrative efforts of thirty artists and three museums present different variations of Munich as Dream City.
Is there such a thing as a dream city? For the past two years, in a collaborative project, the Museum Villa Stuck, the Kunstverein München, the Kunstraum München and the Siemens Cultural Programs have been providing a response to this question. In a somewhat facetious use of the slogan the tourist office used for marketing Munich as a travel destination, Traumstadt München (dream city Munich), these art and cultural institutions worked to bring art to Munich that often accentuates the ills of society in order to raise consciousness. The result is Dream City, an exhibition featuring thirty artists of international reputation working in various media. What unites these artists is their social or political engagement and their artistic expression thereof. The various exhibitions and installations have been dispersed throughout the city. Residents encounter these art works in public places – sometimes quite unexpectedly. In what the artist Gülsün Karamustafa calls “Sign Art,” the Turkish-born artist explores Munich’s evolution over the past four decades. Karamustafa came to Munich in the sixties as a teenager. Upon her return to Munich three decades later, she found the city much changed, particularly with regard to the integration of Turkish residents. “My signs are like sentences” she says, “which tell of a changed Munich.” These visual sentences, resembling road signs bearing photos, combine Turkish and Bavarian cultural icons. They speak about what these cultures share in common – the importance of protecting children, a fascination with royalty and an affection for Munich. The works can be found on Beethoven Platz, in front of the Kunstverein München and at the Friedensengel. The pictures prompt the viewer to reflect on the contrast between Munich’s commercialized image and its reality. Tim Rollins, founder of K.O.S. (Kids of Survival) is well-known in America for his work with inner-city children. For Dream City Rollins created an installation which drew from the work he’d produced together with children of the middle school at Implerstrasse 35. Excerpts from Martin Luther King Jr.’s speech, “I See the Promised Land” were painted over with multi-colored triangles by Munich children and Rollins arranged these pages along a wall in the Kunstverein. King’s dream city vision was clear – one without racial prejudices. The work forces the viewer to examine it closely in order to distinguish the authentic words of the beloved man, much in the same way that King would have wanted us all to take a closer look at our own racial prejudices. Gustav Metzger’s installation in front of the Haus der Kunst is meant to send a powerful message, though it proves far too subtle. The black asphalt which runs along a stretch of the museum’s long walkway could easily be mistaken for some unfinished construction work. The asphalt is revealed to be a part of an art installation only when one discovers a small exhibit label which reads “Travertin/Judenpech” (“Jewish pitch,” or dark luck), located next to the museum entrance. Meant to represent a shadow of evil and the tainted image created by Hitler’s association with the founding of the museum as the Haus des Deutschen Kunstes (Hall of German Art), it falls short of its intended effect. However, in the Kunstverein München, Metzger has contributed another installation to Dream City which is far more moving. A blown-up photograph of Polish Jews cleaning the streets of Munich covers a considerable part of the floor in one room. It is difficult to escape this image of poverty and degradation. Perhaps if this had been displayed in the Haus der Kunst as well it would have lent greater significance to the ineffectual exterior installation. Artist Pia Lanzinger hosts an unusual city tour entitled Die Stadt und ihr Geschlecht – Eine Führung durch München (The City and Her Gender – A Tour through Munich). A bus transports participants to different points around the city. Each location highlights how women in modern German society are still treated as second-class citizens – from unequal working conditions and pay to the isolation of stay-at-home moms. Inside the bus, the windows are papered with pages from the Abendzeitung’s section “Schöne Münchnerin” – a page devoted to the “lucky winner” of a huge personal ad for one single Munich gal looking for a mate. The covered windows allow no escape from the focus of the tour as video and audio loops accompany the bus on its conscience-raising journey. While this is an effective method of keeping passengers involved with the topic, some participants leave the tour prematurely, complaining of a claustrophobic reaction. Though Lanzinger has several good points, the tour seems overstated. She does make a good case for the need to change the German attitude toward women. Women of different cultural backgrounds are sure to be affected by the tour in different ways. The Museum Villa Stuck features, among other artists, an installation by Felix Gonzalez Torres. The work “Untitled - Go-Go Dancing Platform” first appeared in May of 1991 at the Andrea Rosen Gallery in New York City as part of a show entitled Every Week There is Something Different. In the Villa Stuck a powder blue platform stands empty most of the time except when a male go-go dancer arrives sporadically according to his own desire to perform. No music is audible to the viewer as he dances to the sounds of a Walkman. The obvious question is Why? In New York, photographs of the carved inscriptions from the Teddy Roosevelt monument outside of New York’s Museum of Natural History were included with the gallery installation of the platform. The inscriptions describe Roosevelt’s various roles as a public statesman, including “Soldier,” “Humanitarian” and “Explorer.” The platform, the male dancer and these photographs asked the viewer to consider the dancer’s identity and his role in society, especially in terms of these stock types. But in the Villa Stuck, this backdrop is lacking, leaving viewers to contemplate the empty platform with a look of confusion, and ultimately exiting the site, sulking in disappointment. It only seems natural to desire a better world, a more idyllic dwelling place. Whereas some of the works in Dream City challenge our perceptions and definitions of a “dream city,” others fall short in that they only emphasize the already obvious social and political flaws of society, let alone a city as rich and secure as Munich. The best works engage the viewer in a dialogue – one that either validates or calls into question personal “dream cities.” Dream city runs through June 20. Exhibits can be seen at the Haus der Kunst, Prinzregentenstr. 1; the Museum Villa Stuck, Prinzregentenstr. 60; the Kunstverein München, Galeriestr. 4; and the Kunstraum München, Goethestr. 34. Color catalogue available.