Dietrich Orth, Anleitung zu beschwingtem, freudigen Gehen, 1987. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Rezipink Collection. Photo: Mareike Tocha.
Game of No Games – Symposium Saturday, 11.2.2023, 10am – 4 pm
with Lisa Arndt, Nikola Dietrich, Andreas Fischer, Amelie Gappa, Charlotte Laubard, Kito Nedo, Nadine Oberste-Hetbleck, Susanne Pfeffer, Falk Wolf and Susanne Zander.
More information coming soon!
Game of No Games
Instructions for Walking in High Spirits
13.11.2022 – 5.3.2023
William Scott in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike Tocha.
This exhibition presents historical and contemporary works by artists who have received little attention throughout art history. Their participation in society and the art world has been limited—as a result of conservatorships, disenfranchisement, or discrimination, to name a few. This is closely associated with the lack of stable institutional footholds or larger (art) networks and support systems. Conventional categorizations, such as Outsider Art or Art Brut, along with the concurrent emphasis on their alleged distinguishing characteristics—which have so far often been read as narratives on the spontaneous vs. planned, innate vs. learned, naïve vs. sophisticated, or even primitive vs. modern—are currently considered outdated and must be critically challenged. Accordingly, this exhibition intends to encourage a different understanding concerning established ways of thinking in the art world, as well as consolidate an approach to exhibiting and representing different artistic practices that is more readily assimilated.
Through their works, the artists on view at the Kölnischer Kunstverein immerse themselves in self-alienating role-playing games. They can thus take on different identities and undergo a kind of metamorphosis—to the point of becoming animals. “I’m a frigging hunter, but I know that it causes trouble… I have to mask it [what is troublesome] so that I can continue to exist in society at all,” the artist Rabe perplexum declared (in Experimente, Der unbekannte Künstler, 1987). In both her works and life, she adopted a raven persona.
Our aim is not to place the exhibited artists and their artistic practices in the margins of society, nor to portray them as artists that unveil repressed realities or develop suppressed longings behind their apparent detachment from the world. Rather, this exhibition explores how they deliberately work with their dependencies. Adelhyd van Bender, for instance, designed a large and complex body of work that breaks the world into mathematical formulas. Intertwining these with biographical details in associative chains, his practice builds a new order. As a model for his drawings, which were copied and revised several times, he often used letters addressed to him from official authorities, which testified to his constant struggle against the prolongation of his conservatorship.
These artists have often positioned themselves within society, precisely in the non-places of art and interstitial spaces where a larger public could be found, so as to relate to this community and criticize it with a matter-of-factness that is peculiar to each of them. By leaving behind social conventions, norms, and dominant traditions, as well as undermining social or gender performances, these artists have frequently been met with a lack of understanding. This was certainly the case for Helga Goetze, who broke away from a conventional way of life in the 1970s and later advocated free love, sex, and female pleasure almost daily in front of the Memorial Church in Berlin.
The radical potential of the works gathered here resides in the fact that they insist on unfulfilled socio-political promises and, as Dietrich Orth hints at in one of his works that gives the exhibition its title, provide instructions and suggestions for a better, fairer way of treating one another. They manifest a profound longing directed toward the future—something that can also be understood as a critique of the present.
This exhibition was curated by Nikola Dietrich and Susanne Zander.
With works by Adelhyd van Bender, Klaus Beyer, Lee Godie, Helga Sophia Goetze, Margarethe Held, Dietrich Orth, Albert Leo Peil, Rabe perplexum, William Scott, Wendy Vainity, and August Walla.
Image: William Scott, Untitled, 2013, Courtesy of The Museum of Everything
Rabe perplexum, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Photo: Mareike Tocha. August Walla, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Private Collection and Collection Karin and Gerhard Dammann. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Dietrich Orth, Schuldkomplexknoten, undatiert. Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy:
Private Collection, Cologne. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Dietrich Orth, Querschnitte von Schuhen zum sich Vorstellen beim Gehen, 1987. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Private Collection. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Klaus Beyer, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Frank Behnke-Archiv Klaus Beyer. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Klaus Beyer, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022.
Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Frank Behnke-Archiv Klaus Beyer.
Photo: Mareike Tocha.Dietrich Orth, Anleitung zu beschwingtem, freudigen Gehen, 1987. Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022.
Courtesy: Rezipink Collection. Photo: Mareike Tocha. Nicht Mann, nicht Frau, nur Rabe, 1984, 43 min, a Katja Raganelli and Konrad Wickler
Production. Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view
Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Photo: Mareike Tocha. William Scott, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike TochaWilliam Scott, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022.
Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike TochaMargerethe Held, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022.
Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Sammlung Zander. Photo: Mareike
Tocha.Lee Godie, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view
Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Lee Godie, untitled, undated. Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits,
2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything.
Photo: Mareike Tocha.Lee Godie, Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view
Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything and Kapra Fleming. Photo:
Mareike Tocha.Adelhyd van Bender, Aktenordner, mixed media on photocopy, ca 1999–2014. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Nicole Delmes, Susanne Zander, Photo: Mareike Tocha.Adelhyd van Bender, Aktenordner, mixed media on photocopy, ca 1999–2014. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Nicole Delmes, Susanne Zander, Photo: Mareike Tocha.Adelhyd van Bender, Aktenordner, mixed media on photocopy, ca 1999–2014. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Nicole Delmes, Susanne Zander, Photo: Mareike Tocha.Adelhyd van Bender, Aktenordner, mixed media on photocopy, ca 1999–2014. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Nicole Delmes, Susanne Zander, Photo: Mareike Tocha.August Walla, recto: Schrifttafel-Teufel / verso: Aqua Hister. NSDAP.! Kuppel, 1984. Game of No
Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein,
2022. Courtesy: Sammlung Karin and Gerhard Dammann, Switzerland. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Helga Sophia Goetze, Game of No Games. Instruction for Walking in High Spirits, 2022.
Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Sammlung Karin Pott and
Carmen and Daniel Klein. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Adelhyd van Bender in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Nicole Delmes, Susanne Zander. Photo: Mareike Tocha.August Walla, recto: Gott, Sabaoth, Zebaoth! / verso: Göttin Maria und Rosina Walla, 1985. Installation view Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Collection Karin and Gerhard Dammann. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Lee Godie in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Lee Godie in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Margarethe Held in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Collection Zander. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Wendy Vainity in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Wendy Vainity. Photo: Mareike Tocha.William Scott in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: The Museum of Everything. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Helga Sophia Goetze in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Carmen and Daniel Klein, Karin Pott and private collection. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Albert Leo Peil in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Jan Kaps, Cologne. Photo: Mareike Tocha.Albert Leo Peil in Game of No Games. Instructions for Walking in High Spirits, 2022. Installationview Kölnischer Kunstverein, 2022. Courtesy: Jan Kaps, Cologne. Photo: Mareike Tocha.
The exhibition is supported by:
Further support: Jan Fischer, Entrepreneur and supporter of the Kölnischer Kunstverein and the NRW Kunstvereins landscape
Book presentation and talk – Ewa Majewska: Coronafuga. Fragments of Online Dating Discourse from Pandemic Times, at the Ludwig Forum, Aachen
26.1.2023
Ewa Majewska Coronafuga. Fragments of online dating discourse from pandemic times Welcom by Eva Birkenstock and Nikola Dietrich Book presentation and reading with Ewa Majewska and the performance artist Wojciech Kosma at the Ludwig Forum, Aachen
The event will be held in English.
At the conclusion of reboot: responsiveness, a presentation and reading of the latest publication by Polish cultural theorist and activist Ewa Majewska will take place at the Ludwig Forum Aachen in the presence of the author and performance artist Wojciech Kosma.
Coronafuga. Fragments of online dating discourse from pandemic times is an auto-theoretical negotiation of online dating discourse during the Covid-19 pandemic. The book combines theory and digital dating conversations into a literary account of discourses of intimacy during pandemic times. Media and other tools like dating sites, conversations in, around, and about digital flirting, and immediate entertainment are key elements of this book.
Ewa Majewska (lives in Warsaw) is a feminist cultural theorist, activist, and author. She has taught at the University of the Arts in Berlin, the University of Warsaw, and Jagiellonian University in Kraków. She has also been a visiting scholar at the University of California, Berkeley, the ICI Berlin, and the IWM in Vienna. She currently works at the University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw. She has released six books, most recently Feminist Antifascism: Counterpublics of the Common (2021), and publishes in journals and platforms such as e-flux, Signs, Third Text, Journal of Utopian Studies, and Jacobin, among others. Her current research focuses on archival studies, dialectics of the weak, feminist critical theory, and antifascism.
The publication is part of reboot:—a collaborative, cyclical, anti-racist, and queer-feminist dialogue between performative and research-based practices, co-hosted by the Kölnischer Kunstverein and Ludwig Forum Aachen. The first cycle reboot: responsiveness provided infrastructures for provisional stagings, rehearsals, processual choreographies, and encounters around themes of presence, intimacy, care, and responsibility. Conceived by Eva Birkenstock, Nikola Dietrich, and Viktor Neumann.
Ewa MajewskaCoronafuga. Fragments of online dating discourse from pandemic timesEdited by Eva Birkenstock, Nikola Dietrich, Viktor Neumann English Cu-published by Ludwig Forum Aachen and Kölnischer Kunstverein with DISTANZ Verlag ISBN 97-3-95476-523-2