Anna Oppermann Revisions of Ensemble Art May 17, 2007

Parallel to Documenta 12, the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart is presenting the world wide first comprehensive solo exhibition of the German artist Anna Oppermann after her untimely death in 1993. With a total of seven “ensembles”, the exhibition sets out to spotlight the international significance of the artist, who combined process, concept and pictorial art in a unique manner: both in terms of the art of the 1970s and with regard to current artistic practices.

Oppermann expert Ute Vorkoeper has agreed to curate the exhibition. The works she has selected demonstrate both the artistic development and the links within Oppermann’s “ensemble art”.

In the course of the 1970s, Anna Oppermann gained international fame – among other things by featuring at documenta 6 and documenta 8 – with works that she called “ensembles”. Each ensemble frequently developed over a period of several years begins with a small still life consisting of a found object that the artist treated as an allegory of a certain question. She reflected further on the topic under scrutiny in drawings, photographs, pictures, found objects and texts, that she successively added to the original still life. At various stages, the artist recorded this process also on large photo-canvasses which, in turn, became an integral part of the constantly growing ensemble.

With this presentation of seven large ensembles, that the artist varied again and again during her lifetime, each consisting of thousands of individual components, the Kunstverein takes up the challenge of “re-performing” art works that are intimately based on a particular space, process and context.

An extensive catalogue will be published on the exhibition, that will be accompanied by a symposium.

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