Out of the Box: Traces of Interest

ifa Art Collection

Traces of Interest is the third part of an artistic-curatorial excavation of the layers and narratives contained in the ifa’s extensive art collection. The exhibition brings together ideas and art works issuing from a reflective process, which began in Fall 2021 with artists Isaac Chong Wai, Lizza May David, Wilhelm Klotzek, Ofri Lapid, Adrien Missika, and Gitte Villesen.

In the previous, two-part exhibition project, titled Spheres and Chains of Interest, the artists reflected upon the mission and context of the ifa’s collecting and exhibition practice and thus opened up a dialogue for new perspectives on its inventory of East- and West-German art works. In 1992, in the wake of the radical right-wing assaults in Rostock-Lichtenhagen, Günther Uecker developed a complex of works titled "Der geschundene Mensch" (The Battered Man) for the exhibition toured globally by ifa. These works addressed the "Maltreatment of man by man." He took words like "strangle," "scream," "cry," "nail," smack, and "revile" from the Old Testament and gave each one of them expression as a visual object. Uecker’s artistic stance has lost none of its impact over time. We present it at the entrance to the exhibition in Stuttgart.

Traces of Interest juxtaposes critical and humorous approaches and perspectives. The exhibition touches on urgent issues of today’s world and highlights the need for collective memory as well as action. The reclining figure is a classical motif of sculpture. In this show, three "reclining figures" face off: a sculpture by Heinrich Apel from the collection of the ZfK (the GDR’s Zentrum für Kunstausstellungen, or Center for Art Exhibitions), which is exhibited here for the first time in over thirty years; a wooden figure by the autodidact Erich Bödeker from the exhibition "Naïve Art;" and a reclining figure quietly enjoying a cigarette by Wilhelm Klotzek.

The three reclining figures all seem to gaze at the video of Lizza May David, whose performance is inspired by indigenous songs and myths from both sides of the Pacific Ocean, in Mexico and the Philippines. Her sonorous "mmmms" spill over into the surrounding space and resonate with David’s painting, whichin turn—enters into a dialogue with the text and image collages of the Chinese-Filipino artist Elisa Tan. For David, when confronted with the empty drawer for "Asian Graphic Art" in the ifa depot in Stuttgart, decided to symbolically fill this gap.

Ofri Lapid initiated a complex chain of translations, which is based on Joseph Kosuth’s lexical oeuvre "Titled (Art as Idea as Idea)" and follows the touring route of the exhibition Kunstraum Deutschland from the year 2000 on. From this, she also developed a polyphonic performance with the same title, using over 30 voices. Lapid’s process, like the parlor game "broken telephone," has terms used by Kosuth translated successively from one language to the next, following the exhibition’s touring route, and thus deconstructs the ostensible definitions of the terms "meaningless," "purple," and "volume." The alienating effect which results creates a critical distance to Kosuth’s black-and-white linguistic pictures, while at the same time the linguistic spaces of the exhibition’s more than 30 locations are reproduced acoustically here.

Gitte Villesen’s film "Strings and Berries" is an homage to Hannah Höch. Taking Höch’s collage "Seidenschwanz" (Waxwing) as its point of departure, Villesen follows the bird into various gardens and epochs. At the same time, she brings in traditional role perceptions and references to two Afro-American feminist authors, Octavia Butler and bell hooks. Here, the garden house in Berlin-Heiligensee, where Hannah Höch moved two weeks after the outbreak of the Second World War, also has an important role to play. Höch used this secluded site to hide documents and art works of her friends from the National Socialists.

Wilhelm Klotzek’s "ZfK-Blende" (ZfK Panel), originally created for the façade of the ifa Gallery in Berlin, brings to light for the broader public miniature sculptures from the collection of the ZfK. Klotzek is linked by an artistic affinity with Carlfriedrich Claus, who formed a part of the critical avant-garde in the GDR. In the early 1990s, the ifa put together a touring exhibition called "Denklandschaften," which helped bring international recognition to Claus’s work.

Taking the concept of the touring exhibition as his starting point, Adrien Missika founded, with MOTUS, a mobile, two-wheeled art space, which intervenes in the public space with a zero-carbon footprint. For this project, Missika re-activated works from ifa’s Fluxus exhibition. The chess sets of Takako Saito dialogue with the photographs of Endre Tót, who in the period immediately following his emigration from Budapest to Cologne mainly played chess. Missika commissioned a new interpretation of Dick Higgins’s composition in Berlin, while the polluted water from the Rhine river of Joseph Beuys and Nicolás García Uriburu inspired him to create a Pop-Up Exhibition on a Netto parking lot.

Isaac Chong Wai’s affinity to the work of Käthe Kollwitz led him to her woodcut "Die Mütter" (The Mothers, 1922/23), which depicts a collective body marked by the experience of war. This work on paper with sculptural effect inspired Wai to develop a similarly titled performance in 2022. The performers, in the ruins of Berlin’s Cloister, give voice to Kollwitz’s depiction of resistance and protection and lead spectators to a room of healing.

Curated by Inka Gressel and Susanne Weiß in collaboration with Wilhelm Klotzek.