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6/2/2000

CHANGE OF SCENE XVII

MMK - Museum fur Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt

With Change of Scene XVII a short era draws to a close for the MMK; On the one hand, this first 'Change of Scene' in the third millennium marks the end of an old exhibition rhythm. Yet, at the same time it heralds the beginning of a new one. Since the MMK first opened, our six-monthly exhibitions have always started either at the beginning of June or the end of January. As of Change of Scene XVIII, scheduled to open at the end of September 2000, we will be adapting the rhythm to the international norm. And as of 2001, our exhibitions will always start at the end of March/beginning of April or the end of September/beginning of October.

Change of Scene XVII will take the form of an open dialog and interaction, presenting some familiar and some new rooms, with works from our collection, a number of new acquisitions and some specially selected loans from private and public collections.

Change of scene XVII was first made possible by a generous donation received from Morgan Stanley Dean Witter. My sincere thanks go out to Dr. Lutz Raettig, who has constantly supported this project and has followed our work with great interest. We have him to thank for the fact that we are able to move forward into the third millennium with our usual verve.

In the MMK's central hall visitors will be greeted by large-format portraits, as has been the case in earlier exhibitions. Some years ago it was Thomas Ruff's large photos, later Alex
Katz's Smile paintings, and today we are presenting large-format color photos by Beat Streuli (born in 1957) which are part of our collection but which have not yet been shown.
These are photographs of young people from different nations who have come together here as if to take part in an international, multi-ethnic dialog.

These individuals, 'portrayed' in everyday settings, come from Sydney and
Seattle, two cities where people from different cultures have come together to
form a modern society. Beat Streuli's interest is always in gesture and
expression. With his zoom lens, he records physiognomy, stance, and body
language, allowing viewers a close-up of the way the modern urbanite feels.

In the large triangular hall on the ground floor we are presenting major items from our very extensive collection of works by Jochen Flinzer (born 1959) together with his latest work. The latter is the artist's largest work to date in terms of size, with an overall length of an impressive 24 meters. Its title is Der Teppich von Atlanta (The Atlanta Tapestry), a reference to the famous Bayeux tapestry. The work is in fact based on a video recording of TV coverage of the decathlon at the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996. As is so often the case with Jochen Flinzer's oeuvre, the work is a piece of embroidery. The embroidered texts on the front correspond to specific, pattern-like threading on the reverse. The highly emotional texts of these sports commentaries contrast starkly with the largely abstract lines on the reverse side.

We are presenting the works of Luc Tuymans and Cecilia Edefalk in a sequence of rooms. We possess a small yet outstanding group of works by Luc Tuymans (born 1958), whose major retrospectives in Maastricht and Wolfsburg recently drew to a close. By concentrating on a small number of
images, he creates spaces of simultaneous emptiness and concentration. The group of works in our collection, complemented by a loan, could be said to represent a condensed version of his presentation at documenta IX in 1992 in Kassel, where the pictures were on show in a similar constellation in the Aue Pavilion.
These are works which speak both of remembrance and of the loss of the image. Their central theme is the Holocaust.

Our recent acquisitions of the work of Cecilia Edefalk (born 1954) almost seem to counterpoint the above themes. Last year, this Swedish artist had her first major solo show at the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (including a large number of pictures on loan from our collection). Her latest group of works shows almost classic slapstick situations with Laurel and Hardy, comparable to film stills. The grisaille technique which predominates in this series of works, appears to be reminiscent of the early black-and-white talkies.

On the other hand, in her newest piece entitled Family, which also belongs to the same series, we can sense the great influence on Cecilia Edefalk of the Nordic school of painting in the tradition of such artists as Edvard Munch. This group of works is characterized by gentle humor and melancholy. Once again the central theme is the alter ego, the complementary powers of one and the same person. Laurel and Hardy, Don Quixote and Sancho Pansa can only exist one with the other. One central concern of Cecilia Edefalk is the diametrical poles of male/female, the moment of reflection of the person who is intrinsically unlike him or herself.

In the same sequence of rooms we are showing our new acquisitions by Berlin-based artist Katja Ullmann (born in 1967). Reduced to a minimum, her drawings require particular attention, for it is only upon closer inspection that their creative nuances emerge. Ullmann's drawings radiate an unusual intensity.
A tremor runs through them. They are force-fields, charged with intense emotion in concentrated form.

Last, but by no means least, we very much look forward to a room with a brand-new beach painting by Anton Henning (born in 1964), a new Albert Oehlen work, and the Five Graces Julian Schnabel painted in the summer of 1990 in Montauk on Long Island.

On the second exhibition level, alongside Oldenburg's Bedroom Ensemble we are for the first time putting a largish group of some more and some less recent pictures by Francesco Clemente (born 1952) on view. These pictures deal with the theme of 'image of man' - in a great number of ways. Various self-portraits dating from the 1980s and 1990s express the experiences Clemente
has made in life as well as his search for the roots of the human. The expressive gesture of his paintings symbolizes both individual and collective feelings, moods, memories and dreams Embedded in the cycles of nature, intimate worlds of the imagination, mystical fantasies, and traces of primitive man provide a sovereign response to the human nomad in Western civilization.

Marko Lehanka, come in, 1989 Many visitors to our museum will already be familiar with Marko
Lehanka (born in 1961) from his Cigarette Machine, which is located in the vestibule to the toilets. Last year, Lehanka won the Frankfurt Sparkasse's art prize. Two years ago a generous donation by the 'Frankfurter Verein für Künstlerhilfe, founded in 1981 by members of the Lions Clubs in the City of Frankfurt', enabled us to acquire an extensive group of works by Lehanka for our collection. The latest section of works fluctuates between 'fireplace romanticism' and 'the aesthetics of pyrography'. Alternating between subversion and naivete, Lehanka's cheerfulness reveals a fundamentally mistrustful attitude to so-called 'high art' which at times borders on the iconoclastic.

In the corridor which runs along James Turrell's room of light we are presenting a series of lino cuts by Albert Oehlen (born 1954). We gladly welcomed the series to our collection four years ago as the generous gift of Gerd Schmitz-Morkramer, at the time Chairman of the Association of Friends of the MMK. As was already to be seen in Oehlen's cycle of etchings, The Green Door, in these works, some of which are in large format, Albert Oehlen combines writing and images with a strongly demonstrative character. The texts, some of which are encoded in graphic form, play with the way posters appeal to us.

Extensive changes have also been made on the third exhibition level, where a number of artistic stances focusing on questions of painting and the image of man are to be found. For the first time in eight years, Reinhard Mucha's room installation Mutterseelenallein (All alone) has been taken down for a time.
Instead we are showing a group of 'gray pictures' by Gerhard Richter (born 1932) complemented by loans from the Städel Museum and from private collections. Here, we are consistently implementing a concept formulated for an earlier exhibition entitled 'Querpass II', which we jointly organized with the Städel in the Jahrhunderthalle gallery in Hoechst in March/April 1997. For the first time, important works from both Frankfurt museums will come together in one building, creating a temporary installation - setting an example for the future.

Gerhard Richter's pictures are flanked in the two adjoining rooms by groups of works that also address issues of painting and the image of man. Further loans have been added to the existing room containing works by Eric Fischl (born in 1948), and for the first time we are showing a group of early pictures by American artist Neil Jenney (born 1945) at the MMK.

The Jenney works date from the late 1960s and early 1970s and it is their decidedly painterly treatment of simple, everyday motifs which gives them such a strong impact: a man and a woman, children playing, a still life, people engaged in everyday activities, banal objects or even two Russian and American military aircraft in parallel flight. But superficial appearances can be deceptive! For, in the final analysis, Neil Jenney's viewpoint, which is nothing short of Manichean, is basically concerned with insurmountable differences. The title of the two military jets is Them and Us. His man and woman, who are facing away from each other, are called Husband and Wife. There is no country which incorporates such contrasts into its code of behavior as
greatly as the United States. At the time, his pictures were called 'bad paintings'. This statement urgently needs to be re-appraised.

In the room with On Kawara's date pictures, two squares of blue glass by Roni Horn (born in 1955) frame the center, which is the vital core of this room. In earlier exhibitions it was Barnett Newman's pillar Here III or Alberto Giacometti's figure L'homme qui marche which so clearly illustrated the significance of the center, whereas these two blocks of glass Untitled (Flannery), dating from 1997, form minimalist 'symbols' of spiritual and cosmic energy lent cosmic form, demonstrating to us the dualistic harmony of polar forces.

The long room next to Mario Merz's glass igloo, which is this time framed by Manfred Stumpf's uvre, is peopled by works by Bettina Rheims (born 1952). Famous women - singers or models - such as Madonna and Karen Mulder, but also anonymous 'beauties' pose their provocatively dressed, half-dressed or exposed bodies in hotel rooms. The cycle is entitled Chambre Close, and for the first time uniformly uses large-format photos. For an initial moment the voyeuristic gaze
presented here appears identical to that of a man. Yet on closer inspection, it becomes clear that this is a dialog between women. Women from different backgrounds - from a woman employed by a public electricity board to a black police inspector - pursue their own erotic fantasies in hotel rooms, watched by a female photographer who, as it turns out at the decisive moment, does not possess a male viewpoint.

But things are not so very clear. However directly these photos may be presented, they need to be studied with great attention. Bettina Rheims' intimate gaze meets that of Eric Fischl, whose group of works has not been moved, continuing to accompany Stephan Balkenhol's dancing couples.

And finally a piece of good news:On December 31, 1999 our new exhibition room in the 'Alte Hauptzollamt' (former main customs office) was opened with a presentation of a piece by Dan Flavin's (1933-1996), namely Two Primary Series and One Secondary, dating from 1968. We see this as the start of additional extramural exhibition activities. Although conversion work on the 'Alte Hauptzollamt' will take approximately three years, we would like to use the intervening period after the show of Dan Flavin's light installation to acquaint visitors with a series of young artists. As of the start of Change of Scene XVII, the opening times for the exhibition room in the 'Alte Hauptzollamt' will be the same as those for the main MMK building opposite.
Jean-Christophe Ammann

Museum für Moderne Kunst
Domstraße 10 60311 Frankfurt am Main Germany
Tel.: ++49-69-212-30447
Fax: ++49-69-212-37882

Opening hours: Tues-Sun 10 a.m.- 5 p.m., Wed 10 a.m.- 8 p.m., Mon closed

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