Diplomatic World_69

THE MKM MUSEUM
KÜPPERSMÜHLE
FULL HOUSE
From July 15, 2022, the MKM’s motto will be: collection
“FULL HOUSE”. For in its summer exhibition, the Museum
Küppersmühle is presenting further artists from the Ströher
Collection in addition to the permanent collection presentation,
thus drawing on a diverse spectrum of artistic productions from
the 1960s to the present day. On view are photographs by
Thomas Florschuetz, Candida Höfer, and Katharina Sieverding,
knitting and hearth pictures by Rosemarie Trockel, paintings by
Rolf-Gunter Dienst, Jörg Immendorff, and Rissa, and an installation
by sculptor Stephan Balkenhol.
Dienst’s painting is quietly intellectual, Rissa’s is powerful and
geometric, Immendorff’s is energetic and full of reminiscences
of art history. Civilization, architecture, and nature are themes of
the photographic works by Höfer, Florschuetz, and Sieverding,
while Balkenhol’s figures and Trockel’s wall works approach man
and his social environment in different ways. The path through
the rooms opens up surprising perspectives, angles and lines of
sight between the works, allowing visitors to experience art in a
new way.
artist and by a sculptor. Two painters are already unfortunately
no longer with us. In any case, we who are still alive are glad that
visitors here want to look at our works!
Surprisingly for me, I have been asked by Walter Smerling to
give a speech on this artist/artist exhibition Full House. I was
surprised by this choice, because I am not a speaker. I live very
secluded to paint, read, think and sometimes write. Rather, I am
a storyteller who is very happy to answer questions when they
are asked to me by some friends or other people. Here I will
probably not be asked any questions by the honored attendants
for the time being, therefore I have to ask them myself, otherwise
my thinking and speaking will get going too slowly.
Complementing the collection’s permanent exhibition focusing
on informal and abstract postwar artists, the FULL HOUSE
exhibition takes a look at the generation that followed. All of the
artists presented have in common that they have maintained and
further developed their significance for art history to this day:
“From today’s perspective, the diversity of the art scene, especially
from the 1970s to the 1990s, would be inconceivable
without the distinctive signature of the artists exhibited here.
With FULL HOUSE, we provide insight into the Ströher
Collection – throughout the MKM – and thus also into the
iconography of German art after 1945 with an unalterable
status,” says MKM Director Walter Smerling.
OPENING SPEECH BY RISSA
Dearly beloved, or should I say: Dear Sir or Madam and all
others for whom this classic form of address does not meet
their specific needs? Here in this beautiful building four male and
four female artists exhibit: Works by two painters and a painter,
by two photographers and a photographer, by a multimedia
210 211