Archive Newsletter No. 9
November 2021

While selected material from the history of the Kunstverein is presented in the Archive Space, resonating with each new exhibition, the timeline on the website is also constantly growing. Unavoidable for an archive, there are gaps and incompletions, but also more and more texts, photos, press articles, letters, and other material resurfacing that stimulate a journey through (almost) 200 years. Conjectures and conclusions are inspired, and even the last approaches of linear historiography from the newsletters are confounded.
Since the turn of the millennium, once partly euphorically expected, the material that is digitally available has multiplied, the retrospective from then on more “complete” within the limits of presentability. Overall, however, the material is very disparate: sometimes there are only a few references to exhibition titles that arouse curiosity, while some quickly grasped events are almost over-documented down to the last screw bill.
A look into the stirring shallows of the past brings to light both the expected and the surprising: the Fussball exhibition about the FC Bayern Munich (1973), already known from photographs of the Women's Meeting; a kind of predecessor to Andrea Fraser's Society of Taste can be found in the 1972 members exhibition “This picture is important to me”. Further impressions are constantly being added, e.g. on the Kunstverein’s official contribution to the 1972 Olympics, but also the post-war period, which is only slowly coming into view; a photo exhibition in 1907; material from the 19th century, and much more …

In the midst of the more formalized business of the late eighties, the minimal club with its Naturidentische Stoffe (1989) suddenly emerged—a new genre of group exhibition, music theater, and a magazine—the A.N.Y.P. (Anti New York Plans). What seems to be the vanguard of the group-oriented early nineties was not an idea at the Kunstverein: Sabeth Buchmann, Elfe Brandenburger, Stephan Geene, and Manuela Wittmann simply continued to bug the artistic director at the time, Zdenek Felix, until they were allowed to do what they wanted.

After this year’s Summer School entitled The Stories We Tell Ourselves, it is also great fun to look at the material from Group Affinity (2011) or the Sommerakademie which was held in 1994 in parody of the event of the same name in Salzburg. At that time, the WWW was still in its very early stages. The program was conceived by Stephan Dillemuth and Helmut Draxler instead of a solo exhibition with the idea of avoiding „system-stabilizing effects for the academy.” [1] Impressions of people hanging out during discursive events or producing collectively have become a familiar sight within the artworld—the “Freie Akademie auf Zeit” was a contrast to both the representativeness of the 80s at the Kunstverein München and the impermeable master-class passivity of teaching at the academies (cf. Archive Newsletter 3.2). The Kunstverein at that time did not often vary the “succession of exhibition opening followed by a plodding along.” [2]

For four weeks, something different was going on in each of the spaces, “other people and influences,” [3] mostly in collaboration of guests and participants from different contexts, who again drew others in: the environment of the project space Friesenwall 120, where many of the Sommerakademie formats had been developed, and invitations coming from Helmut Draxler such as the magazine collective Die BEUTE, the artist Doug Ashford, or the philosopher Joseph Vogl.

Downstairs, it began with a bar which initially had been designed by Heimo Zobernig on the occasion of his solo exhibition. It was now adorned by explicitly upgraded hobby art and a three-arrow banner. The diverse weekly program was announced on a chalkboard. An installation by Cathy Skene and Christoph Schäfer followed on the mezzanine floor, while upstairs in the first space, the Treppensaal, visitors were greeted by a working terminal conceived by The Thing and “Die Galerie” (by students from the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich). An opening featuring previously unknown artists took place here every few days. [4]
Through a red curtain, one entered the stage-like main space (among others by Freie Klasse Berlin), which was inhabited by a huge virus sculpture made by students from the Orientierungsbereich (orientation class) of the Düsseldorf Art Academy. It was also inhabited by art, constantly changing and spreading into the other spaces or migrating back again. Previously, “a classified ad was placed in the Süddeutsche Zeitung (‘Who wants to exhibit in the Kunstverein’) and in this way the first-year students in art were also confronted with hobby artists who had read the announcement and finally wanted to exhibit in the Kunstverein.” [5]

Much like the exhibition, the current Archive Space could simply be rented according to an idea by Renée Green, as already mentioned in the previous newsletter. Her method, first developed at the Pat Hearn Gallery in New York, was to add something unpredictable “to the Sommerakademie network, which was, after all, composed of its own network and that of the Friesenwall 120. It was intended to counteract this ‘network’ idea.” [6]

In the only static room, the last space of the Kunstverein, “there was always something to do.” [7] The walkable magazine of the Group Dank was attached to the wall and floor, and could be received best via a swing. The building was filled with all kinds of artworks, e.g. a sculpture by Giacometti allegedly found during the 1985 reconstruction (namely in the opening above the main space). There were footprints on the walls, drunken inscriptions in the foyer, and a few wall drawings by Stephan Dillemuth. One was based on an old engraving of the Berlin Art Academy, depicting “the idea of a student facing lots of old farts in wigs (...): he is pushed into the circle of venerable illustrious scientists.” [8]

The scene was constantly changing and evading tedium: a workshop by Artfan (Ariane Müller, Linda Bilda, Martin Ebner, and C.G. Stumpf) examined the ultimately decisive structural differences of socialist and fascist songs and films in their conceptions of the New Human Being. Against the common argumentative parallelization, for example, the group found popular experiments with 12-tone technique in worker’s songs. These contrasted with the marching rhythms used in national socialist propaganda. The studied material came from the extensive inventory of the Friesenwall 120 archive. “And so that it wouldn't be too bland, there was singing in between” [9]: karaoke videos with now discredited workers songs were produced, and the whole thing was performed at lively parties downstairs by the bar.

The group Four Walls from Brooklyn (Mike Ballou, Claire Pentecost, and Adam Simon) reported on their Jobs show, in which the participants had to bring a piece of work from their job production for each of their artworks. For the program at the Kunstverein, an employee of the job center in Munich was invited. His remarks already foreshadowed the dismantling of the local welfare state, which was implemented a few years later, and the resulting shift to individual responsibility.

The "Transient Garden" by Anna Gudjonsdottir, Florian Hüttner, Till Krause and Martin Schüttpelz organized excursions starting from the Kunstverein (in star-shape leading to Neuperlach, Schleißheim, Nymphenburg, among others). Material was also brought back from these trips, which was reflected upon in changing installations in the spaces. Over the course of four weeks, more and more people became involved.

The content realignment and the extensive renouncement of didactic mediation of the most diverse approaches were conscious decisions. They were not intended to be waved through “shoulder tapping, winking and benevolent.” [10] The “merciless” [11] language spouted by key words such as “lifelong learning” or the now dogmatic “direct call to learn from each other”, in many cases resulting in the acquisition of “entrepreneurial competencies” [12] could hardly contrast more strongly with the non-representative approach of the Sommerakademie.

In order to have the website grow, we would gladly receive material such as photos, flyers, articles, or films on past exhibitions and events. Feel free to contact us at archiv@kunstverein-muenchen.de.

In order to have the website grow, we would gladly receive material such as photos, flyers, articles, or films on past exhibitions and events. Feel free to contact us at archiv@kunstverein-muenchen.de.
Text: Adrian Djukic
Translation and Editing: Annabelle Berghof and Gloria Hasnay