Women’s Role in the hidden History of Art uncovered in groundbreaking new Show

Women’s Role in the hidden History of Art uncovered in groundbreaking new Show

• Reconstructions of legendary works include Judy Chicaco’s Feather Room and Aleksandra Kasuba’s Spectral Passage

Munich, August 12th, 2023

Following three years of research and development, Haus der Kunst München will present a landmark exhibition as part of its ongoing re-examination of overlooked histories. Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956 through 1976 opens on September 8th, 2023, and runs until March 10th, 2024.

Spanning three generations of artists from Asia, Europe as well as North and South America, the exhibition reframes the accepted artistic canon by presenting women’s fundamental role in the development of immersive art, which has gone on to have a lasting impact in the field of visual art. 

The exhibition features full scale reconstructions and documentation of 12 key works by Judy Chicago (born in 1939), Lygia Clark (1920 through 1988), Laura Grisi (1939 through 2017), Aleksandra Kasuba (1923 through 2019), Lea Lublin (1929 through 1999), Marta Minujín (born in 1943), Tania Mouraud (born in 1942), Maria Nordman (born in 1943), Nanda Vigo (1936 through 2020), Faith Wilding (born in 1943) and Tsuruko Yamazaki (1925 through 2019). 

Situated at the threshold between art, architecture and design, the term environments was adopted in 1949 by the artist and founder of Spatialism, Lucio Fontana, to define a new type of artwork that actively involved its audience. Over the years, environments became a major feature in the international art world, however the historic narrative focuses almost exclusively on the works of male artists.

Inside Other Spaces will be the first show of its kind to painstakingly reconstruct the immersive art works, following a three-year research process, supported by the help of conservators and researchers digging deep into archival material, such as photographs, architectural plans, reviews, materials’ lists and providers’ invoices. The exhibition continues to 1976, the date of the first historic review of these experiential works with the exhibition Ambiente/Arte dal Futurismo alla Body Art curated by Germano Celant for the 37th Venice Biennale. 

The twelve iconic artworks featured in the exhibition include amongst others

• Trailblazing feminist artist Judy Chicago’s iconic Feather Room (2023), described as “a soft feminine space, an architecture that disappears”.

• Lygia Clark’s A casa é o corpo: penetração, ovulação, germinação, expulsão (The House is the Body) (1968), in which viewers undergo physical experiences examining perceptions of the body.

• Marta Minujín’s irreverent work dating from 1964 Revuélquese y viva! (Roll Over and Live!), an inhabitable multi-coloured mattress structure.

• Visitors who enter Tania Mouraud’s room We used to know, dating from 1967, experience intense light, sweltering heat and are described as being “engulfed in a feeling of inexorable anxiety”.

• Faith Wilding’s Crocheted Environment (1972), referred to as “womb room”, was originally part of the 1972 exhibition Womanhouse, organised by Judy Chicago and Miriam Schapiro, co-founders of the California Institute of the Arts Feminist Art Program. 

As part of the programme for the exhibition, in a groundbreaking collaboration with the Getty Research Institute, Haus der Kunst will host a Symposium on Sat, 11 November 23 on new forms of exhibition making, new approaches to conservation and transmission. That evening Tania Mouraud will premiere a live electronic music composition inspired by family history and the history of Haus der Kunst itself.

Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director, Haus der Kunst, said: “Given the experimental nature of environments through most of them were destroyed right after their display through their art historiography is characterised by a sense of loss. Therefore, the erasure of the fundamental contribution of women is a double loss. The reconstruction of these historical and to-be-historicised environments as close to their original condition as possible aims to bridge the gap between then and now and let the works of women artists come to the fore.” 

Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956 through 1976 is curated by Marina Pugliese and Andrea Lissoni with Anne Pfautsch, and funded by the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue, featuring contributions by specialists from across the world. It is one of a series of exhibitions at Haus der Kunst which have focused on the work of major women artists including Joan Jonas, Fujiko Nakaya, Heidi Bucher, Phyllida Barlow and Katalin Ladik.

Inside Other Spaces is installed alongside and in dialogue with the futuristic world of American artist WangShui to provide a contemporary perspective on today’s environments, advanced by the introduction of machine learning and artificial intelligence simulation. WangShui. Window of Tolerance (8 September 23 through 10 March 24), their first institutional solo show in Europe, features ethereal paintings etched into aluminium, each co-authored with a machine-learning programme trained on previous paintings by the artist. The centrepiece is a new video sculpture Certainty of the Flesh (2023), incorporating artificial intelligence simulation to develop real time movement and dialogue. The audience will encounter different hybrid beings whose interactions develop a supernatural narrative drawn from reality TV and ancient mythologies, played on an infinite loop between the characters. The work questions how humans will appear and communicate in a technologically supported future.  

Inside Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956 through 1976

• September 8th, 2023, throug March 10th, 2024

WangShui. Window of Tolerance

• September 8th, 2023, through March 10th, 2024

Andrea Lissoni, Artistic Director, #Haus der #Kunst #München, invites to the Press Preview of the exhibitions “Inside Other Spaces” and “Window of Tolerance”. Introduction and presentation together with the curators Marina Pugliese and Sarah Johanna Theurer, the artists Judy Chicago and Tania Mouraud as well as WangShui will be present. Followed by curator-led exhibition tours and the opportunity for talks and interviews. A separate invitation will follow. 

Meredith Monk. Calling

The most comprehensive survey to date of the trailblazing artist is a collaboration in two acts at Haus der Kunst and Oude Kerk, Amsterdam, together with the Hartwig Art Foundation. Renowned for her site-specific performance, Meredith Monk’s interdisciplinary approach has had a significant influence on subsequent generations of artists and performers. Moving seamlessly across disciplines, Monk has continuously explored the evocative power and dimensionality of the human voice. While she is widely recognised in the worlds of music and theatre, Haus der Kunst will present the first exhibition in Europe dedicated to her immersive work, featuring multi-sensorial installations, embracing the cross-disciplinary way in which she has worked throughout her six-decade career.

November 10th, 2023 through March 3rd, 2024

Martino Gamper. Sitzung

The Mittelhalle of Haus der Kunst has become a constantly evolving social space of movement and encounters with a playful new work by the acclaimed Italian designer, Martino Gamper OBE. Gamper was in residence at Haus der Kunst in July 2023, creating a series of newly designed chairs. Throughout the course of the exhibition, the number of chairs will increase and be positioned according to layouts developed by Gamper. Through the different arrangements of the chairs, which are then in turn moved by our visitors—to gather, to rest, and to play—various constellations of social dynamics become apparent, turning the Mittelhalle into a vibrant, constantly changing space. Until the end of the exhibition, self-brought food and drinks, as well as games, are welcome in the Mittelhalle. We call this "BYOE (Bring Your Own Everything)". Everything (well, almost everything) is allowed.

Until April 1st, 2024

“Tune”. Sound and beyond live at Haus der Kunst

“Tune”, a series of short sound residencies, is in its third year and firmly anchored in the programme of Haus der Kunst. The invited artists work primarily in sound and present different strands of their work in the form of performances of solo works and collaborations, screenings, and installations. The artists move across genres, eras, and influences, and generate sonic responses and exchanges with the wider programming at Haus der Kunst. TUNE’s Autumn/Winter programme will be dedicated to exploring the voice of AI further, including artists Alex Zhang Hungtai, Tadleeh, Joanne Robertson and guests, and Nivhek.

Year round

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