Jahresgaben 2024
28.11.–15.12.2024

Opening event: Wednesday, November 27, 6–8 pm in the Studio (2nd floor) of the Kölnischer Kunstverein

With works by Sophie Gogl, Matthias Groebel, Chris Korda, David Ostrowski, Claus Richter, Nora Schattauer, Frances Scholz, Andrea Stappert, Rosemarie Trockel, Joseph Zehrer and Boris Becker and Axel Hütte from Edition Ex Libris / Salon Verlag & Edition

For the 2024 Jahresgaben, orders can be made in writing from November 27 until December 15 2024. Should there be more orders than copies available, the decision will be made by lot. The lottery will be held on December 16, 2024. After the draw of the buyer(s), all interested parties will be informed in writing via email of the result of the lottery. All remaining Jahresgaben are still for sale after the lottery and can be purchased at any time.

The Jahresgaben and editions are an exclusive offer for members of the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Other interested parties are entitled to purchase by joining the Kölnischer Kunstverein in the current calendar year.

Please note our ordering procedures and the general terms & conditions.

Photo: Copyright Axel Hütte und VG Bildkunst, Bonn

Udo is Love
Time Is Sin – A Journey into the Extraordinary Life of Udo Kier

27.9.–18.12.24

Opening: Thursday, 26.9., from 6 pm

Udo Kier was born in Cologne’s district of Lindenthal on 14 October 1944. That evening, the nurse placed all the children in the maternity ward on a table, ready to be washed. Udo’s mother asked if she could hold her son in her arms a little while longer. When the bomb struck, she was able to cover him with one hand and hold back the collapsing wall with the other. None of the other newborns survived; only the two of them were dug out of the rubble of the delivery room alive. During operation Hurricane, more bombs were dropped on the Rheinland in the space of twenty-four hours than on any other day of the Second World War.

Udo grew up in the city’s district of Mülheim. In the morning, he would fold away his wall bed and walk to school over rubble. The evening meal alternated between lentil and potato soup. On Sundays, they had a piece of meat with a green salad and pudding. After dinner he would be given fifty pfennigs and go to the cinema. His favourite film was Suddenly, Last Summer with Elizabeth Taylor. To please his mother, he began an apprenticeship at a tool wholesaler in the nearby district of Kalk. By his early twenties he’d become a qualified salesman, and travelled to London in order to learn English. He was hoping to become something like the foreign business representative for the German pharmaceutical company Bayer. He’d earned the money for the journey by working on the production line at Ford. London offered opportunities that Cologne never could. Several unknown men invited him for a glass of champagne in a nightclub. They introduced themselves as Visconti, Nureyev and Berger. Kier knew from shaving in the mirror every morning that he looked incredible. In London he discovered his good fortune of being in the right place at the right time. The singer and producer Michael Sarne gave him the part of the gigolo in Road to San Tropez (1966). Beneath the camera’s gaze, the man with the green eyes was reborn, and no one would forget them.

Read more

Curated by Hans-Christian Dany and Valérie Knoll

With contributions by:

Robert van Ackeren, Gábor Altorjay, Kévin Blinderman / Pierre-Alexandre Mateos / Charles Teyssou, Tabea Blumenschein, Walter Bockmayer, Gábor Bódy, Marc Brandenburg, Klaus vom Bruch, Michael Buthe, Madonna Ciccone, Tom Dokoupil, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Annette Frick, Monika Funke-Stern, Greg Gorman, Gusztáv Hámos, Astrid Heibach, Birgit Hein, Wilhelm Hein, Jürgen Heiter, David Hogan, Daniel Josefsohn, Peter Kern, Udo Kier, Erwin Kneihsl, Hideo Kojima, Eckhard Kuchenbecker, Robert Longo, Guy Maddin, Charles Matton, Steven Meisel, Klaus Mettig, Elfi Mikesch, Paul Morrissey, Otto Muehl, Helmut Newton, Eva Maria Ocherbauer, Marcel Odenbach, Albert Oehlen, Kurt Raab, Ulrike Rosenbach, Ferdi Roth, Thomas Ruff, Eddy Saller, Christoph Schlingensief, Martin Schoeller, Ernst Schmidt Jr., Werner Schroeter, Elfie Semotan, Heji Shin, Katharina Sieverding, Jan Soldat, Andrea Stappert, Todd Stephens, Wolfgang Tillmans, Monika Treut, Rosemarie Trockel, Lars von Trier, Gus Van Sant, Timo Vuorensola, Andy Warhol, Craig Zahler, Joseph Zehrer, Britta Zöllner a.o.

The exhibition is accompanied by a comprehensive program of films shown in collaboration with Film Festival Cologne:
Tuesday, 1.10.2024, 7 pm: Schamlos, 1968, 78 min, KKV
Tuesday, 8.10.2024, 7 pm: Flesh for Frankenstein, 1973, 95 min, KKV
Tuesday, 15.10.2024, 7 pm: Blood for Dracula, 1974, 106 min, KKV
Tuesday, 22.10.2024, 7 pm: Swan Song, 2021, 105 min, Filmpalast
Friday, 25.10.2024, 8 pm: Belcanto oder Darf eine Nutte schluchzen?, 1977, 94 min, FHK
Tuesday, 29.10.2024, 7 pm: 100 Jahre Adolf Hitler. Die letzte Stunde im Führerbunker, 1979, 48 min, KKV
Friday, 1.11.2024, 8 pm: Die dritte Generation, 1979, 105 min, FHK
Tuesday, 12.11.2024, 7 pm: Insel der blutigen Plantage, 1983, 88 min, KKV
Friday, 15.11.2024, 9 pm: Pankow 95, 1983, FHK
Saturday, 16.11.2024, 5 pm: Verführung. Die grausame Frau, 1985, 84 min, FHK
Tuesday, 19.11.2024, 7 pm: Am nächsten Morgen kehrte der Minister nicht an seinen Arbeitsplatz zurück, 1985/1986, 70 min, KKV
Sunday, 24.11.2024, 12 pm: Narziss und Psyche, 1980, 208 min, KKV
Tuesday, 26.11.2024, 7 pm: Egomania, 1986, 83 min, KKV
Saturday, 30.11.2024, 9:30 pm: Europa, 1991, 112 min, FHK
Sunday, 1.12.2024, 8 pm: My Own Private Idaho, 1992, 104 min, FHK
Tuesday, 3.12.2024, 7 pm: Johnny Mnemonic, 1995, 92 min, KKV
Cancelled: Due to delays in production, the film screening of Bad Painter cannot take place on Sunday, 8 December.
Tuesday, 10.12.2024, 7 pm: Barb Wire, 1996, 98 min, KKV
Friday, 13.12.2024, 9:30 pm: Iron Sky, 2012, 92 min, FHK
Saturday 14.12.2024, 5 pm: Goldflocken, 1976, 163 min, FHK
Tuesday, 17.12.2024, 7 pm: Brawl in Cell Block 99, 2017, 132 min, KKV

Venues
KKV – cinema of the Kölnischer Kunstverein (ground floor), Hahnenstraße 6, 50667 Cologne
Filmpalast – Filmpalast Köln, Hohenzollernring 22, 50672 Cologne
FHK – Filmhaus Köln, Maybachstraße 111, 50670 Cologne

The exhibition is supported by:

Photo: Andrea Stappert, Udo Kier, Palm Springs 2013

CHRIS KORDA
Artist’s Con(tra)ception
25.5.–14.7.2024

Opening: Friday, 24.5., 6–9 pm, Speech at 7 pm

Holy Moly! Chris Korda is in the house. Outrageously, insufferably, unbelievably good. Back in 1992 she was haunted by a recurring dream in which an alien intelligence, known as “the Being”, claimed to speak for humanity from another dimension. It warned that our planet’s ecological system was on the verge of collapse. When Korda awoke from the dream, she found herself speaking the words “Save the Planet – Kill Yourself”.

Korda’s mission is based on the conviction that human beings are egocentric and destructive, and must be contained within their limits. With the exhortation, “Thank you for not breeding”, she appeals to our good will. I’m not going to pass on my DNA, I’m getting out of the gene pool. I’ve had it with anthropocentric hubris. Anyone who freely decides to end their life should be allowed to do so, for in so doing they are making a significant contribution. The option of having an abortion is a blessing. Sex is wonderful, as long as it never serves reproduction. Those who insist on eating meat should confine themselves to consuming their own species – killing other living beings is out of the question. The basic tenets of the Church of Euthanasia, which Reverend Korda founded in Boston with Pastor Kim in 1992, are enough to make many people’s hair stand on end. Even the name of the movement can make you wince. Its calls for the extermination of the human species are intemperate, strident and partly contradictory.

While there can be no glossing over the meaning of the church’s name, it is worth bearing in mind that the CoE is based on an anti-authoritarian ethos of non-violence.

Korda founded the CoE because a church is an institution better suited to reforming ethical norms than a political party. Several of its tactics are related to those of the Situationists and the Dadaists: Korda’s actions also aim at intervening in public situations, while her strategies are constantly changing in unexpected ways: she speaks in tongues that both are implacable and admit of contradictions. At the same time, her acts of provocation always remain playful.

By the early 1990s, Korda had already recognised that humanity’s destruction of the environment was irreversible. The issues she was raising then were well ahead of their time: they included calls to live a vegan lifestyle, to curb the limits of economic growth and to proclaim the diversity of all species.

However, Korda is not only a minister of a church. She is many things, foremost among them a musician. In the field of Techno, hers is considered one of the most idiosyncratic and uncompromising positions. She first achieved recognition in Europe in the late 1990s, when DJ Hell from Munich released her work on his label International Gigolo Records.

Read more.

Now available here:
Official Church of Euthanasia T-Shirt
ADAGIO FOR COLOR FIELDS Chris Korda, Publication by Goswell Road, Paris

The exhibition is supported by:

Amanda van Hesteren
If All This Was Fiction: Films 2016–2023

Film program in the cinema of the Kölnischer Kunstverein, curated by Nicholas Tammens

Opening: Friday, 12.4., 6 pm
6:30 pm Screening of films
7:30 pm Talk between Amanda van Hesteren and Nicholas Tammens
8:30 pm Repeated screening of films

Amanda van Hesteren – If All This Was Fiction: Films 2016–2023 at the Kölnischer Kunstverein is the first public presentation of films by Dutch film-maker Amanda van Hesteren (b. 1991, Amsterdam) in Germany. The program shows the development of van Hesteren’s methodology as a filmmaker over the past eight years through four film portraits focused on lovers, family, and friends.

Amanda van Hesteren began to make films at the age of 23, when she took a camera with her on holiday. “I took my camera because I wanted to find stories,” she says. “I knew that I would be able to go onto the street and find them”. In the eight years since, van Hesteren’s camera has come to substitute multiple perspectives: her own gaze, that of her subjects, and the gaze of a stand-in and outside witness.

Read more.

The film program is supported by:

Opening: Friday, 2. February, 6 pm

Marie Angeletti, Monika Baer, BLESS, Vittorio Brodmann, Jakob Buchner, Milena Büsch, Merlin Carpenter, Matthias Groebel, Fischli Weiss, Hansi Fuchs, Sophie Gogl, Hamishi Farah, Jacqueline Humphries, Dozie Kanu, Nora Kapfer, Morag Keil, Emil Michael Klein, Maggie Lee, Lorenza Longhi, Alan Michael, Kaspar Müller, Vera Palme, Gunter Reski, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Dennis Scholl, Nolan Simon, Dominik Sittig, Lucie Stahl, Megan Francis Sullivan, Alfred d’Ursel, Amelie von Wulffen, Jie Xu, Barbara Zenner, Damon Zucconi

Faced with this rectangular void, anything could happen. The horizon of possibilities seems open. At any moment, an idea could flicker into my consciousness, and I’d be able to get it all on the canvas. Still better, perhaps, the brush could just start moving and the painting, sleepwalker-like, paint itself without me. The void gleams auspiciously; but never for long. Whatever image I may have had in my mind’s eye, it is wrecked by the first brushstroke. Its utter fatuousness is exposed. And every additional brushstroke just makes it worse. If one seems weak, the next, which was supposed to strengthen it, has come straight out of the repertoire of cheap effects. This merry-go-round of recycled gimmicks revolves with a deadening regularity. What’s left for you to do when the dice were all cast in the last century? Hum and ha, paint small paintings, paint huge paintings, dive into abstraction and the morass of ambition, revive formalism, figuration, raise tornados of pigment, embrace minimalism, flirt with technology. Subjects and points of reference change, but their form stays stuck to the ground, as if it were covered with some repulsive, viscous liquid. Trembling, the emoji in oil tries to pull itself out of the morass, drawing long strands behind itself like chewing gum. Brushstrokes as identity crises, with filaments trailing from their lips like burst bubbles of gum.

Read more

Curated by Valérie Knoll.

The exhibition is generously supported by:

Image: Paul Coker Jr.

Marie Angeletti, Monika Baer, BLESS, Vittorio Brodmann, Jakob Buchner, Milena Büsch, Merlin Carpenter, Matthias Groebel, Fischli Weiss, Hansi Fuchs, Sophie Gogl, Hamishi Farah, Jacqueline Humphries, Dozie Kanu, Nora Kapfer, Morag Keil, Emil Michael Klein, Maggie Lee, Lorenza Longhi, Alan Michael, Kaspar Müller, Vera Palme, Gunter Reski, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Dennis Scholl, Nolan Simon, Lucie Stahl, Megan Francis Sullivan, Alfred d’Ursel, Amelie von Wulffen, Jie Xu, Barbara Zenner, Damon Zucconi

Artificial intelligence is making great strides, generative systems are reaching new heights of image and text production. But what does it mean for painting if it can be produced by computing robots?

In the past, technological advances often marked the beginning of long periods in which art shed its skin in revolutionary transformation. Before these advances, human beings could still flatter themselves that the privilege of creating things was theirs alone. After them, when they suddenly found themselves overtaken by technology, they had to confront their own limitations. Impressionism emerged form art’s dialogue with the new invention of photography, while a great deal of postmodern painting was inspired by the experience of computers. Right now we stand at the dawn of another period of this kind, in which human-made art must struggle against its own reflection in technology. What are these machines capable of, and what are the limits of their capabilities? By posing the question of how they differ from machines, and by finding their own niche, human beings can engage with technology to achieve a better understanding of themselves.

Read more

Curated by Valérie Knoll

The exhibition in genereously supported by:

Photo: Mareike Tocha

Opening: Friday, December 1, 6 pm

Marie Angeletti, BLESS, Milena Büsch, Peter Fischli, Sylvie Fleury, Ryan Gander, Lorenza Longhi, Kaspar Müller, Vera Palme, Gunter Reski, Franz Erhard Walther, Nicole Wermers, Amelie von Wulffen, Barbara Zenner

For the 2023 Jahresgaben, orders can be made in writing from December 1, 2023 until December 17, 2023 inclusive. Should there be more orders than copies available, the decision will be made by lot. The lottery will be held on December 18, 2023. After the draw of the buyer(s), all interested parties will be informed in writing via email of the result of the lottery. All remaining Jahresgaben are still for sale after the lottery and can be purchased at any time.

The Jahresgaben and editions are an exclusive offer exclusively for members of the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Other interested parties are entitled to purchase by joining the Kölnischer Kunstverein in the current calendar year.

Please note our ordering procedures and the general terms & conditions.

Photo: Lorenza Longhi

With Marie Angeletti, Monika Baer, BLESS, Vittorio Brodmann, Jakob Buchner, Milena Büsch, Merlin Carpenter, Hamishi Farah, Fischli Weiss, Hansi Fuchs, Sophie Gogl, Matthias Groebel, Jacqueline Humphries, Dozie Kanu, Nora Kapfer, Morag Keil, Emil Michael Klein, Maggie Lee, Lorenza Longhi, Alan Michael, Kaspar Müller, Vera Palme, Gunter Reski, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Dennis Scholl, Nolan Simon, Lucie Stahl, Megan Francis Sullivan, Alfred d’Ursel, Amelie von Wulffen, Jie Xu, Barbara Zenner, Damon Zucconi

Where I come from, “hoi” is what people say when they greet each other in the street. I’ve come to Cologne because I love painting, and can think of no better place to engage seriously with this medium. That’s why I’m welcoming my first exhibition here with an overview of the current state of one of visual art’s oldest genres. Painting is especially exciting right now, and this has nothing to do with my own passion for it; it is rather that a lot of people are painting again and that art’s questions are again up for negotation. This doesn’t mean that it’s going to be easy for painting to find its way forward. Its own history casts a long shadow over its current flowering like an implacable judgement. However, its difficulties lie not so much behind as ahead of it. Since painting develops slowly, it needs to be able to imagine an enduring future, one where it can eventually hope to arrive by creeping along at its own modest pace.

Right now, it is not just that the future is clouded over – it has become hard to imagine at all. Are people painting in the hope that the future, currently hidden behind a fog of dystopias and disaster scenarios, will eventually reappear? To keep on painting while everything familiar seems to be crumbling around you could be seen as an expression of the “principle of hope,” a way of resisting a world that has embraced darkness through the determination to see a light at the end of the tunnel. In this case, painting would be a way of going against the grain, of rising above social conventions with a wan smile.

Read more

Curated by Valérie Knoll

The exhibition is generously supported by:

Image: Basel Tourismus/Peter Ziegler

For her first institutional show in Germany, ram spin cram, Marie Angeletti (*1984) is presenting newly commissioned works across the entire building of the Kölnischer Kunstverein.

Decisively articulated, each element — sculpture, photography, and video — receives equal attention. ram spin cram does not begin in the main gallery nor ends in the last room upstairs, it is all there at once. Each room can be read as a series of actions accumulated over time. The main gallery shows work made within the last two months. In the cinema, in the upstairs and basement gallery spaces, Angeletti has rearranged works from an unspecified period of time.

Thanks to Nikola, Stefan, Line, Gianna, Henrik, Gérard, Anne, Anna, Olga, John, Michele, Dora, Matt, Tonio, Jakob, Lucas, Richard, Annie, Daniel, Jordan, Seb, Medhi, Toni, Pippa, Tim, Marco, Varun, Sol.

Thanks Istal, Marseille, to have financed the production of the metal beams, and Quadrissimo, Marseille, for the prints on silver and Daniela Taschen for having hosted me in Cologne.

Marie Angeletti (*1984 in Marseille, lives in New York) has exhibited at museums such as the Centre d’edition contemporain in Geneva; Künstlerhaus Bremen; Musée de la ville de Paris; Le Consortium, Dijon; Kunsthaus Glarus; Kunsthalle Zürich; Treize, Paris; Castillo/Corrales, Paris; and in galleries including the Galerie Lars Friedrich, Berlin; Edouard Montassut, Paris; Reena Spaulings Fine Art, New York; Greene Naftali, New York.

Curated by Nikola Dietrich

ram spin cram Text

The exhibition is supported by:

with Rosa Aiello, Genoveva Filipovic, Calla Henkel and Max Pitegoff, Manfred Holtfrerich, Erika Landström, Luzie Meyer, José Montealegre, Dala Nasser, Daniela Ortiz, Thomas Ruff, John Russell, Jasmin Werner

Opening of the exhibition: Saturday, 12.11.2022, 7 pm

Orders for the Jahresgaben 2022 can be submitted in writing from November 12 up to and including December 04, 2022. If more orders are received than there are copies available, the decision will be made by drawing lots. The draw will take place on December 05, 2022. After the draw, all interested parties will be notified of the result by e-mail. All remaining Jahresgaben will remain for sale after the draw and can be purchased at any time.

The Jahresgaben and editions are an exclusive offer exclusively for members of the Kölnischer Kunstverein. Other interested parties are entitled to purchase by joining the Kölnischer Kunstverein in the current calendar year.

Please note our ordering procedures and the general terms & conditions.

The exhibition is supported by: