print November 1996

Cologne

FORGET THE FABLED RIVALRY with Düsseldorf that animated the thoughts of Kölners from the ’60s through the ’80s. The new Tom to Cologne’s Jerry is Berlin, but judging by the pervasive spirit of resignation, this particular game of cat-and-mouse is all but up. The topic of discussion, so it seems, throughout Cologne today is the city’s waning appeal as a center for contemporary art. A number of galleries, like Galerie Busche and Max Hetzler, have already left for the promise of Berlin, while others—among them, Schipper & Krome and Béla Jarzyk—have announced intentions to follow suit. Add to this

print November 1996

Walter Dahn

As a member of the artists’ collective Mülheimer Freiheit (Mülheim freedom) during the early ’80s, Walter Dahn was one of the leading figures among the so-called Neue Wilden, whose neo-Expressionist paintings, with their vivid coloration and primitivistic narratives, brought the movement such fame. In 1984, however, Dahn moved almost entirely away from painting with brushes and paint, choosing instead to follow in the tradition of his teacher Joseph Beuys by creating installations and performing at various sites.

For some time now, painting has again formed an integral part of Dahn’s project. At

print September 1996

New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Venice, Turin, Paris, Cologne, Berlin, Stockholm, Liverpool, London, Brisbane

MAKING MISCHIEF: DADA INVADES NEW YORK
This fall, Dada finally gets its due as a stateside movement. Curated by Dada scholar Francis M. Naumann with staffer Beth Venn, the WHITNEY’s show will include Duchamp’s Bride Stripped Bare. . . , as well as more than 200 objects by American and European artists associated with the movement on this side of the Atlantic. Along with the usual suspects—Francis Picabia, Man Ray, and, lately, Florine Stettheimer—you’ll also get to see works like Baroness Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven’s Portrait of Marcel Duchamp (feathers and a champagne glass) and a partial

print September 1996

Simone Westerwinter

The announcement for Simone Westerwinter’s recent show in Cologne—her first solo exhibition in this city—depicted a man who’s already shown keen interest in her work: Udo Kittelmann, director of Cologne’s Kunstverein. Kittelmann smiles affably into the camera as he sits in his office, holding a telephone receiver. The card doesn’t give the slightest clue as to his identity—only the initiated would have known who he was, though even they probably wouldn’t have immediately understood the connection to Westerwinter’s show. Only on viewing a piece entitled I love curators, 1995, which includes photos

print September 1996

Carsten Höller

The windowless room on the ground floor of the Hamburg Kunstverein is lit by few light sources, so when Carsten Höller put up a large round sign with the inscription “Glück” (Happiness) at the entrance to his recent installation, he created a very particular mood. Intriguing if fairly unobtrusive music filled the room: this was the sound track from Jean-Luc Godard’s Le Mépris (Contempt, 1963), which Willer used as the accompaniment to a video that depicted a small child and a man, boisterously romping. Spontaneous feelings of warmth for this child were prompted by what biologists call the “

print Summer 1996

Miriam Cahn

Miriam Cahn’s works on paper, in which she uses either charcoal or colored chalk, often seem to have been made in great haste. Her fleeting gestures suggest an effort to give form to thoughts and emotions in as direct a manner as possible, and the almost unbearable urgency of the images that appear point to a restless, doubt-ridden artistic practice.

The large works in charcoal generally involve Cahn’s whole body. Only by kneeling on the sheets of drawing paper can the entire surface be worked; as a result, she leave traces of her hands, arms, and legs. Cahn’s process has been compared to Pollock’s

print May 1996

Birgit Jung-Schmitt

In her recent show, which combined photography, video, and object art, Birgit Jung-Schmitt examined the themes of family, gender, and sexuality in works that centered on hair. The two-piece photographic work entitled Friseuse mit biographischem Angebot (Hairdresser with biographical proposal, 1994), for example, depicted the artist standing next to a table spread with hairdressing implements, as well as a board covered with photos documenting her hairstyles since her childhood. Jung-Schmitt filled in the hairstyles, wherever they appeared, with black retouching-fluid, rendering them at once

print March 1996

Andrea Rostásy

At first glance, the sculptures of Berlin artist Andrea Rostásy are mere simulations of ordinary objects. Some of these pieces, which have been created out of wood, pressboard, or synthetic materials such as imitation leather, may seem similar in spirit to the found and constructed artifacts of the Swiss artist duo Fischli and Weiss. Yet, despite the careful craftsmanship and realistic coloration which at first glance causes them to appear to be either readymade objects or canny re-creations, the motivation behind her sculptures is fundamentally different. By subtly altering the proportions of

print February 1996

Lukas Duwenhögger

A penchant for the old-fashioned and the decorative, combined with a certain mannered artificiality, are often considered hallmarks of camp. Lukas Duwenhögger’s oil paintings, which hark back to the painterly style of the 19th-century plein air painters, are made up of just such traits. In his work he fondly indulges relationships between light and shadow, and his colors glow like those of Gustave Caillebotte. Small details, such as the spread fingers of a man smoking as he crosses the street, or a hand languidly resting on a hip, evoke the mood of the 19th-century dandy as much as the self-conscious

print January 1996

Vadim Zakharov

For his recent show “Der Letzte Spaziergang Durch die Elysischen Felder” (The last walk through the elysian fields) 36-year-old Russian artist Vadim Zakharov transformed Cologne’s Kunstverein into an indoor park. Amid newly planted “meadows” of grass he laid down gravel paths and set out small trees to give the space an outdoor ambiance. Yet any assumption that this was meant as a serious simulation of nature, or even of a landscaped garden, was quickly dispelled by various surreal elements within the installation. A file folder with a jet of water spurting out of it, for example, might well

print November 1995

Jorge Pardo

Though the use of everyday objects has become something of a fetish in contemporary art, Jorge Pardo’s most recent installation goes beyond mere fashion. As early on as the stairway leading up to the gallery, the visitor was greeted by Pardo’s “benches,” stools upholstered in orange fabric—works somewhere between Minimalist sculpture and ’70s furniture. They draw their intermediary position from the fact that they can be used both as ordinary utilitarian objects-in fact, for the duration of this exhibition, the gallery’s regular chairs were replaced by Pardo’s stools—and as art objects. Their

print September 1995

Inez van Lamsweerde

After depicting naked, sexless women with sweaty hands and feet and three-year-old girls with men’s mouths, the Dutch artist Inez van Lamsweerde has turned to photographing men. At first glance, the large-format, sharp photographs of Rob, Marcel, Klaus, and Andy are less spectacular than the previous work. The men dressed in yellow polo shirts lie down in front of a neutral white background, as if they were gently falling to the ground. Their rapt expressions—eyes closed, mouths slightly open—make these men seem lascivious in a way that does not correspond to masculine role models. What is absent

Yilmaz Dziewior