print October 1984

“Zwischenbilanz”

The “cultural landslide” let loose by the unorthodox art of the “Jungen Wilden” (the “Young Wild Ones”) on accepted views of the avant-garde has aroused greater public interest in Germany than any previous art movement, even Pop. Reports in Stern magazine on the professional doings of these 30-year-olds, and appearances on popular TV shows, have contributed to the widespread interest. But a certain nervousness remains about these artists, which is of course in line with the intentions of many of them. “Zwischenbilanz: Neue deutsche Malerei” (Interim report: the new German painting), which the

print September 1984

On the Couch: The Vienna Secession

GUSTAV KLIMT’S ELEMENTAL BEETHOVENFRIES (Beethoven frieze, 1902), which formed a kind of prelude to “Le Arti a Vienna dalla Secessione alla Caduta dell’Impero Asburgico,” the most comprehensive exhibition of Viennese Secessionism and Expressionism to date, could certainly be seen as an interpretation in a cosmic context of the “Arte e Arti” topic of the 41st Biennale. This icon of the union of the sexes is also an image of complementarity echoing the sun and moon symbols that appeared as thematic logos throughout the Biennale literature, posters, and catalogue. Finally, however, the leitmotifs

print March 1984

Siegfried Anzinger

The love/hate relationship to one’s country and the specifically Viennese pleasure in the “beautiful death” and in the macabre, present in the work of such Austrian artists as Christian Ludwig Attersee, Günter Brus, Hermann Nitsch, and Arnulf Rainer, are barely a factor in that of Siegfried Anzinger. Even the psychologizing painting of Gustav Klimt, Oskar Kokoschka, Egon Schiele, or Arnold Schönberg leaves hardly any traces. Anzinger circles his own identity not so much in a return to the cultural source of his background as in a debate with a broad sweep of work, from Giotto up to and including

print February 1984

“aktuell ’83”

As her contribution to “aktuell ’83,” Christina Kubisch transformed the garden of the Lenbachhaus into a sound space, the sound varying in intensity as one followed 14 separate routes. Above one’s head a colorful tangle of cables hung between trees and fountains. As “neither/nor” as was the sound quality—not bad, not good—so, with some exceptions, was the exhibition as a whole, but nonetheless this was the most comprehensive show of contemporary art in Munich in 12 years. It was conceived by the city’s cultural-affairs department on the basis of cultural policy rather than artistic considerations:

print February 1984

Roni Horn

The very pure, quiet work of the 28-year-old Roni Horn was first shown in a one-person show three years ago at the Clocktower, New York, and at the Kunstraum München, which prepared this new three-part exhibition. In the earlier Munich show the compact “soft metal forms,” hammered together out of thin little scraps, were striking for certain qualities that continue to play a central role: though each piece stands exposed and alone in its space, these relatively small, round, longish or ovaloid bodies fill their space completely with their aura. This restrained but vital presence becomes even

Ingrid Rein