Archive Newsletter No. 2
Juli 2018
Today we would like to call your attention to an exhibition by Adrian Piper at Kunstverein München, and the archival work we have recently completed. For the first
time, we are able to publish digitized exhibition views from the early 1990s, made by photographer Wilfried Petzi. In contrast to the first-hand experience gained in the exhibition space, our archival work relies upon secondary materials – photographs, catalogues, documents, printed matter – to reflect upon and mediate our past exhibitions. So we are pleased to present you with this material.
Helmut Draxler, the then director of the Kunstverein München, realized a retrospective of the artist Adrian Piper in collaboration with Hedwig Saxenhuber from 07 October to 22 November 1992. The exhibition was created in collaboration with Cornerhouse, Manchester, and Ikon Gallery, Birmingham. In addition, on 06 November 1992, Piper's lecture entitled Xenophobia and the Indexical Present [1] took place at Kunstverein München.
Adrian Piper's work remained almost unknown to a wider audience until serious changes in the American art scene took place in the late 1980s, around the crash of the art market and the renewed reception of conceptual approaches. It was then that the work of Piper increasingly became the focus of public attention. [2] Her retrospective at Kunstverein München can be regarded as one of her first comprehensive exhibitions in Europe.
Piper's work is often based on her personal experiences. She addresses topics such as gender and xenophobia as well as moral philosophical issues. Piper tries to create a situation in which the observers can react immediately, which she refers to as 'Indexical Presence' [3], as she explained in her lecture on the occasion of the exhibition.
The retrospective at Kunstverein München included Adrian Piper's early works from 1967 to 1970, which testify to the influence of artists such as Sol LeWitt, Hans Haacke and Vito Acconci, and mostly represent complex investigations of space and time. One of these works is the series Hypothesis Situation (1969), shown in the Treppensaal of the 1. OG exhibition rooms. Here, conceptual explorations are combined with observations of one's own body in everyday situations. This is also the source of Piper's performances in the 1970s, with which she intervened in everyday situations and sharpened the question of one's own identity. The Kunstverein München presented photographs and collages documenting these performances. [4]
At the core of the exhibition at Kunstverein München were photo-text collages, drawings and video installations by Piper from the 1980s and early 1990s, which dealt with racism, xenophobia and the nature of the self.
Two of the central works on display were Cornered (1989) and Vote/Emote (1990), which revealed and questioned stereotypes about gender and race. Visitors were directly confronted with their own behaviors and asked to write down their personal feelings in well-designed books.
In an artist statement in German by Adrian Piper for the exhibition, which is located in our archive, she writes: 'I am a foreign invader, the invisible spy in perfect disguise, slipping over the barricades in an unguarded moment. The reality I speak is a successful infiltration, ridiculing the ideal of assimilation.'[5]
Adrian Piper presented the series Vanilla Nightmares (1986–1992) in the exhibition room that is now the Kino. Piper applied chalk to the pages of New York Times newspapers, to imagine the fears and fantasies of the viewer.
Although these focal points of interest seem to dominate the exhibition at a first glance, the complex and multi-layered works of this retrospective show that Piper's work is fundamentally conceptual. Overall, Piper managed to communicate social and political issues without evoking the usual defensive reactions and focusing on the artwork instead of the individual.
In the context of the racist violence of Hoyerswerda [6] and Rostock-Lichtenhagen [7], as well as in the context of a reunified Europe, characterized by debates over national identities and a restrictive integration policy, Piper’s timely retrospective was extremely relevant. Even today, the issues Piper dealt with in the exhibition and the everyday racism she addressed are once again of alarming urgency. [8]
In addition to receiving the Käthe Kollwitz Prize in 2018, the Museum of Modern Art in New York recently presented Adrian Piper’s work in one of the largest retrospectives MoMA has organized to date (Adrian Piper: A Synthesis of Intuitions, 1965-2016, 31 March to 22 July, 2018).
Processing the extent materials related to the retrospective of Adrian Piper is an important step in the archival work of Kunstverein München, and is an example of how the exhibition history will begin to unfold incrementally, as we trace our history back to 1823.
Text: Theresa Bauernfeind
Research: Theresa Bauernfeind, Christina Maria Ruederer
Translation ans Editing: Theresa Bauernfeind, Post Brothers and Christina Maria Ruederer
If you have any questions or suggestions please contact us via archiv@kunstverein-muenchen.de.
[1] cf. Poster of the exhibition Adrian Piper, Kunstverein München e.V., Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V., 1992.
[2] cf.: Press release of the exhibition Adrian Piper, Kunstverein München e.V., Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V., 1992.
[3] cf.: Poster and press release of the exhibition Adrian Piper, Kunstverein München e.V., Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V., 1992.
[4] cf.: Press release of the exhibition Adrian Piper, Kunstverein München e.V., Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V., 1992.
[5] cf.: Artist statement by Adrian Piper in German, 1992, Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V.,1992.
[6] Racially motivated attacks on migrants and asylum seekers in the small Saxon town of Hoyerswerda took place between 17 and 23 September 1991. This first postwar progrom marked the beginning of a series of xenophobic attacks in Germany at the beginning of the 1990s.
[7] Between 22 and 26 August 1992, there were massive xenophobic attacks on a home for asylum seekers and Vietnamese contract workers in the district of Rostock-Lichtenhagen, which limited the right to asylum, among other things.
[8] cf. also: Letter by Hedwig Saxenhuber, 09 July 1992, Martina Fuchs Archive of Kunstverein München e.V., 1992.
Fig.:
1. Exhibition Poster: Adrian Piper, Retrospective, 1992. Courtesy Kunstverein München e.V.
2. Installation View: Adrian Piper, Vote/Emote, 1990 in: Retrospective, 1992, Kunstverein München. Courtesy Kunstverein München e.V., Photo: Wilfried Petzi.
3. Adrian Piper, Artist Statement, 1992. Courtesy Kunstverein München e.V.