Kunsthaus Göttingen

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Kunsthaus Göttingen is an exhibition space for works on paper, photography and new media. Its focus is on contemporary art with an international emphasis. The project received 4.5 million euro funding from the federal program National Projects of Urban Development.

General[edit]

The realization of the Kunsthaus project was initiated by the publisher Gerhard Steidl ^[1], who lives next door, and was realized with significant political support from Göttingen's mayors Wolfgang Meyer and Rolf-Georg Köhler as well as Göttingen's member of the Bundestag Thomas Oppermann († 2020)^[2][3].

The exhibition building, which emerged from a 2016 architectural competition, celebrated its topping-out ceremony at the end of September 2019,^[1][4] was completed in December 2020, and handed over to Kunsthaus Göttingen gGmbH in March 2021 by the city of Göttingen as the building owner. The originally estimated total cost of the new building project was 5,874,000 euros, and at 4.5 million euros, more than three-quarters of it was financed by federal funds from the "National Projects of Urban Development" funding program;^[5][6] Duderstadt entrepreneur and CEO of Ottobock Hans Georg Näder donated 1 million euros.^[7] In the end, the total cost was put at "6.5 to 7 million euros" by Göttingen's mayor.^[8] The Kunsthaus Göttingen gGmbH operates the house.

The artist Sebastian Stumpf accompanied the construction phase of the Kunsthaus, resulting in a book publication as well as a video work that can be seen in the Kunsthaus foyer.^[9][10] On June 4, 2021, the Kunsthaus opened with the solo exhibition of the artist Roni Horn entitled "Roni Horn. You are the weather."^[11][12]

The entrance fee is sponsored by the company Sartorius AG in the first years.

Management[edit]

The start-up phase of the Kunsthaus was accompanied by Alfons von Uslar, who served as honorary founding managing director from 2020 to June 2022,^[13] and by Ute Eskildsen (retired curator of the Folkwang Museum Essen) - she advised on the building planning and worked out the first two exhibitions in the Kunsthaus as curator.

Currently (as of February 2023), Dr. Dorle Meyer leads the Kunsthaus's operations as managing director; curator Lotte Dinse has been responsible for content since 2023.^[14] Guest curators so far have been Ute Eskildsen, Joshua Chuang, and Warren Siebrits.

In the early years, as honorary director, Gerhard Steidl supported the house with curatorial commitment. He runs the Steidl Verlag publishing house near the Kunsthaus Göttingen. Since 1969 he has printed posters and multiples by artists such as Joseph Beuys, Klaus Staeck etc., and publishes selected art and photography volumes, literature and political non-fiction. In addition to making books, Gerhard Steidl conceives and curates exhibitions worldwide.^[15]

In July 2022, Dr. Dorle Meyer took over as managing director; since 2020, she had accompanied the completion and commissioning of the building. In addition to research and teaching on classical modern and contemporary art, the art historian with a doctorate in art history worked for many years in the museum sector and accompanied the development of new exhibition and museum projects. After working in Kassel, Berlin, and most recently as a project manager and curator at the Deutsches Museum during the development of the Future-Museum in Nuremberg, she has been involved in the development of new exhibition and museum projects.

Architecture & Inner Courtyard[edit]

After several years of preparations, the city of Göttingen, as the building owner, launched an architectural competition at the end of 2015, chaired by Jórunn Ragnarsdóttir, in which 15 tectural firms participated, including two from abroad. The winners of the 1. Prize, the architects of the office Atelier30 from Kassel withdrew "because they saw important ideas of their design in danger",^[16] so that with the execution planning 2016 the winner of the 2nd prize, the office Atelier ST^[17] from Leipzig, were assigned.^[18] The jury had already praised the Atelier ST design as a "very interesting solution, which impresses both atmospherically and functionally. A warehouse building with a specific character and on the other hand an unexciting urban building block on Düstere Straße." In 2017, Berlin landscape architect Stefan Bernard won the competition for the design of the inner courtyard.^[19][20]

House[edit]

The completed, externally three-story Kunsthaus is based on the typology of historic Göttingen half-timbered houses in its closed construction, the building cubature, the gable roof as a roof form, and the floors that project twice toward the top. However, the monolithic-looking, largely windowless and dark gray facades of the massive reinforced concrete building, which tower far above the historic neighboring buildings, contrast with this in terms of design. The linear structure of the horizontal modeling plaster is intended to be reminiscent of "stacked papers".

With a basement and extended roof, the interior offers a total of 878 square meters of usable space on 265 square meters of building area, including 534 square meters of exhibition space in four large 3.20-meter-high, column-free rooms for one-room exhibitions without subdivisions. The column-free solid structure was intended to allow a high degree of flexibility for arranging various exhibition concepts.

On the first floor, the foyer of the Kunsthaus is entered via an entrance gate, which on the opposite side provides a view of the inner courtyard. The exhibition rooms each feature a narrow floor-to-ceiling window that can be covered, if necessary, to protect light-sensitive works on paper and allow for video installations and projections. The top floor contains a workshop room for mediation work and a 100-square-meter "forum" for events, whose east-facing, large roof terrace offers a view of the downtown roofscape.

Courtyard[edit]

The courtyard, which was redesigned by the Berlin landscape architect Stefan Bernard after a limited architectural competition (2017) and measures around 1,300 square meters,^[21][22] can be entered both through the Kunsthaus and from the nearby Nikolaikirchhof. It consists simply designed of an open space surrounded by greenery with a children's playground (sandbox) and seating.

On the south side of the inner courtyard lies as a pavilion the "House of Words", which opened shortly after the Kunsthaus in the summer of 2021. Inside is the installation "Poet Singing (The Flowering Sheets)" by the U.S. artist Jim Dine - a donation to the city of Göttingen by the artist.^[23][24] The "House of Words" can only be visited by appointment as part of "special guided tours" of the Kunsthaus. The "House of Words" is open to the public.

Exhibitions[edit]

The exhibition focus of the Kunsthaus is on current positions of international contemporary art. In the curatorial program, there is close cooperation with the artists, both for exhibitions and new productions. Three major exhibitions are presented each year as solo or group shows. The opening was celebrated with a major solo exhibition by New York artist Roni Horn[34].

As a partner project of documenta fifteen, the Kunsthaus opened a group exhibition entitled "printing futures"^[25] from June 18 to September 25, 2022, which presented internationally known artists, such as Dayanita Singh, Theseus Chan and Shahidul Alam, as well as young female artists, such as Sibel Horada, Alper Aydin, Sofia Karim and Maya Mercer. Furthermore, Christoph Heubner was represented with the room "Institute to Remember" and also the theatre-director Albert Ostermaier - with a program in the Literaturhaus Göttingen.[36] Göttingen's mayor Petra Broistedt evaluated the cooperation with documenta 2022 as a milestone for Göttingen as a cultural location.[37] The exhibition also focused on the creation of books. Thus there were book projects with artists of the exhibition with the Steidl publishing house,^[26] this in connection with the lumbung press.

For each exhibition there is a varied accompanying program, especially for children and young people. In addition to guided tours, workshops with a creative action component and school class formats are in the foreground.

Between the large exhibitions, smaller "inbetween" presentations offer space for condensed themes and positions as well as scope for experimental formats. A presentation of 50 illustrations by Bernd Pfarr preceded the Model Animal exhibition,[40] and a presentation of photographs by Ruth Harriet Louise followed the Model Animal exhibition. Even before the opening of the Roni Horn exhibition, a presentation of mostly printed sheets of a photobook project by Gilles Peress on the Northern Ireland conflict took place as a first test run from December 2020 to May 2021. The artist Sebastian Stumpf has created a video projection exploring the establishment of Kunsthaus Göttingen, which is presented permanently.

List of Exhibitions[edit]

• Gilles Peress: Vom Buch an die Wand - What ever you say, say

nothing, (in between), 15. Dezember 2020 – 15. Mai 2021^[27][28]

• Roni Horn: You are the Weather - Buch - Zeichnungen -

Fotografie (Einzelausstellung), 4. Juni – 8. August 2021^[29][30]

• Bernd Pfarr: Sondermann, Illustrationen, (in between), 14. August – 12. September 2021^[31]

• Modell Tier. Wolf Erlbruch, Roni Horn, Sanna Kannisto, Jo Longhurst, Olivier Richon, Michal Rovner, Thomas Struth, Tomasz Gudzowaty, (Gruppenausstellung), 24. September 2021 – 2. Januar 2022^[32]

• Ruth Harriet Louise: Hollywoods erste Fotografin, aus der Sammlung von Daniel Kothenschulte,[47] (in between), 7. Januar – 6. Februar 2022^[33] (in between), 7. Januar – 6. Februar 2022^[34][35]

• Aus Südafrika. Santu Mofokeng, William Kentridge, Banele Khoza (Gruppenausstellung), 19. Februar – 1. Mai 2022^[36]

• Printing Futures. Dayanita Singh, Shahidul Alam, Sofia Karim, Theseus Chan, Alper Aydin, Sibel Horada, Necmi Sönmez, Christoph Heubner, Maya Mercer und Albert Ostermaier (documenta-Partnerprojekt), 18. Juni – 25. September 2022^[37]

• The Walls. Anna–Maria Bogner, Daniela Friebel, Frank Neubauer (Gruppenausstellung), 14. Oktober 2022 – 8. Januar 2023^[38]

• Timm Rautert: Otl Aicher - Rotis. 14. Oktober 2022 – 8. Januar 2023^[39]

• Filmplakate 1953–1974. Zwischen Mainstream und Avantgarde, 21. Januar – 16. April 2023^[40]

• Mona Kuhn: Kings Road. A Rudolph Michael Schindler House. 29. April – 4. Juni 2023^[41][42]

• Jim Dine: Storm of Memory. 17. Juni – 17. September 2023^[43]

KuQua - Göttingen's Art Quarter[edit]

The Kunsthaus is part of the concept KuQua - Kunstquartier Göttingen. In 2008, Gerhard Steidl and the then Lord Mayor Wolfgang Meyer presented the idea of an art quarter with the Kunsthaus as its center. The art quarter is located in Göttingen's city center between Düsterer Straße, Nikolaikirchhof, Nikolaistraße and Turmstraße.[5][7][58][59][26] The quarter now houses art and cultural institutions such as the Literaturhaus with Literarisches Zentrum and Göttinger Literaturherbst, as well as Galerie Ahlers, the bookstore Rote Straße and Steidl Verlag .

Since 2015, the Günter-Grass-Archive.^[44][45](Düstere Straße 6), which is supervised by the University of Göttingen and located directly next to the Kunsthaus, has been active as another exhibition and event venue. Owner Gerhard Steidl received a district "prize for monument preservation" from the Lower Saxony Savings Banks Foundation in 2016 for the gutting and conversion of the listed half-timbered house from 1310 planned by the Braunschweig architects Uwe Kleineberg and Axel Pohl[61].[62][63]

Förderkreis Kunsthaus Göttingen e.V.[edit]

Since 2019, the Kunsthaus Göttingen has already been supported ideally and in part through donations by a loose circle of interested parties, which was formed as a "circle of friends" during the development phase of the Kunsthaus. This has resulted in a large distribution list, which the Kunsthaus has regularly provided with information about the exhibitions and mediation offers by mail since the opening in the summer of 2021. In the spring of 2023, the desire for social commitment for the Kunsthaus was put on a professional footing and a registered association was founded under the name "Förderkreis Kunsthaus Göttingen e.V.". Initiated by Rolf-Georg Köhler (retired mayor) and Alfons v. Uslar (former founding managing director of the Kunsthaus), the association pursues three goals in particular: 1. the promotion of the activities of the Kunsthaus, 2. associated with this, the further development of the art district, and 3. the strengthening of the network into the cultural scene within the region. The organization of the association is ensured by a board with at least five members. The first general meeting took place in June 2023.^[46]

References[edit]

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