Enter into your own personal dialog with innovative art at the gallery lothringer dreizehn
Is it a sculpture—a piece of furniture—architecture? Is it a painting—interior decoration—an installation? These are the kinds of questions the organizers and curators working at Lothringerstrasse 13 hope to provoke. The address actually comprises three separate art institutions: lothringer dreizehn, the Laden gallery and the Spiegel multimedia center. And each one of them makes an invaluable contribution to Munich’s growing reputation as a center for contemporary art and culture. In 1980 lothringer dreizehn, the largest of the three institutions, was established as an artists’ workshop inside a former factory. Over the next 24 years the space gradually transformed itself from a studio complex for artists into an institution of contemporary art and important forum for artistic experimentation, exchange and discussion. Smaller and less institutionalized than a museum, yet more dynamic and postmodern-minded than traditional, privately owned galleries, lothringer dreizehn operates by means of public funding and private sponsors. The concept and organization of the institution was made more concrete in 1998, when the city government implemented a program of biannually rotating curators. Since July 2003 lothringer dreizehn has been under the direction of its third curator, the American Courtenay Smith. Smith has carved out a dynamic and influential niche for herself in the Munich cultural sphere since she moved here from Chicago five years ago. Next month MUNICH FOUND will take a closer look at Smith’s various curatorial projects and the impact she has had on the contemporary art world in Munich. As regards lothringer dreizehn, she underlines three guiding principles of her work: international exchange, interdisciplinary exchange and contemporary art in all its permutations. Dwelling within the walls of lothringer dreizehn now are the creations of four Munich-based artists, under the heading “Changing Rooms.” This exhibition shows the various ways in which Tom Früchtl, Martin Schmidt, Monika Kapfer and Aylin Langreuter have responded to the invitation to transform the rooms of lothringer dreizehn and various public realms both physically and conceptually. Designations such as “sculpture,” “painting” or “industrial design” are downplayed here for the sake of transcending artistic boundaries and exploring the relationship between art and the spaces it inhabits. lothringer dreizehn keeps its ideals of interaction and international exchange alive not only through its rotating exhibitions. Inside the front entrance visitors can bring themselves up to date on the latest international art-world happenings at the reading lounge, designed in June 2003 by Aylin Langreuter and Stefan Eberstadt. Anyone is welcome to leaf through art publications from around the world and peruse invitations to local exhibitions. Additionally, lothringer dreizehn is planning to begin a visiting artist program in August. Every few months a Munich artist will be paired up with an artist from another city to share a studio and engage in an intensive creative dialog that would otherwise have been geographically unfeasible. Applications are currently being accepted. The second area of the building at Lothringerstrasse 13 is the lothringer13/Laden. This 60-square-meter gallery is used as a space for interdisciplinary experiments in art and media. The Laden has been administrated since 2000 by a team of artists, theorists and new medial specialists—self-dubbed “program angels” for their efforts to support and promote up-and-coming young talent. The five current “angels” are artist/founder Angela Dorrer, net activist/artist Alexis Dworsky, art historian Diana Ebster, net activist/founder Patrick Gruban and artist Moni Tress. If you stop by the Laden before April 12 you’ll see how Swiss artist Heinrich Gartentor has transformed the glassed-in area into a golf course. But again, as when confronted with the exhibits inside lothringer dreizehn, the “Gartentor Golf” project poses countless and seemingly contradictory questions. Is it a putting green—a marketplace—a bar—a VIP lounge—a living and interactive work of art? Gartentor’s undertaking, which integrates sport, economy, politics, culture and art, is winding down this month, but you can still catch the Close Down Tournament on Sunday April 11, at 8 pm. In the east wing of the building on Lothringerstrasse are the offices of the lothringer13/Spiegel multimedia center. Opened in 1997, the Spiegel houses an archive of the recipients of city grants and stipends from the last decade. The center also boasts an extensive collection of artists’ videos from the past 45 years. Every now and then the Spiegel also hosts presentations of the video works of particular artists. So what is it exactly that lothringer dreizehn, the Laden and the Spiegel are forums of? Applied art criticism and theory? Aesthetic dialogues in plastic forms? Revolutionary experiments? And what about the things inside? Are they beautiful—disturbing—ambivalent? Are they works of art? These are questions you’ll have to answer for yourself.