Schuebbe Inc.

GERMAN POP
Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

6 Nov, 2014 - 8 Feb, 2015

with Lothar Fischer, Heimrad Prem, Helmut Sturm, H.P. Zimmer

and Hermann Albert, HP Alvermann, Ludi Armbruster, Bettina von Arnim, Thomas Bayrle, Werner Berges, KP Brehmer, Peter Brüning, Gernot Bubenik, Christa Dichgans, Winfred Gaul, Reinhold Heller, K. H. Hödicke, Herbert Kaufmann, Konrad Klapheck, Florian Köhler, Ferdinand Kriwet, Manfred Kuttner, Michael Langer, Uwe Lausen, Konrad Lueg, Heino Naujoks, Wolfgang Oppermann, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Helmut Rieger, Peter Roehr, Klaus Staeck, Wolf Vostell, Lambert Maria Wintersberger.

"In Great Britain and the United States, the 1960s brought forth a cultural movement that would have an impact worldwide. Its universal claim to popularity is already evident in its name – the movement ostensibly fit for the masses was called “Pop Art.” Artists such as Christa Dichgans, Sigmar Polke, Manfred Kuttner, Konrad Klapheck, and Peter Roehr developed a specifically West German version of Pop Art that went beyond mere “coca-colonization.” They examined the banalities of everyday life in Germany, ironizing its narrow-minded tastes and typically German “gemütlichkeit.” As a kind of archeological investigation of the 1960s and early 1970s, the exhibition at the SCHIRN will take a closer look at the artistic activities that constituted “German Pop.” Broadening the focus to encompass far more than just the chief protagonists, it will surprise the visitors with many a new (re-)discovery. The Pop principle will here be revisited with an eye to the new realistic art production situated in a realm between entertainment and mass culture, and light will be shed on West German Pop as an expression of dissociation from a no-longer-unencumbered middle-class aesthetic."

Curated by Martina Weinhart (Schirn)

www.schirn.de