Thomas Zipp Transforms Kunsthalle Fridericianum into a Psychiatric Hospital

Written by Otto Messenger Sunday, 14 March 2010 20:18

KASSEL, GERMANY - The exhibition (White Reformation Co-Op) Mens Sana in Corpore Sano combines a large part of Thomas Zipp's oeuvre with new works to an elaborate installation. Zipp is dedicating his show in Kassel to the question of standard and deviation, social exclusion and the exploration of the self, by turning the spaces of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum into a "psychiatric hospital" depicted with a gloomy aesthetic and satirical exaggeration. On exhibition through 13 June, 2010.

The Kunsthalle Fridericianum has undergone a complete transformation: Thomas Zipp replaced the large inscription on its portal with the words MENS SANA IN CORPORE SANO, and the foyer has been turned into the lobby of an "institution." In the spacious main wings of the Fridericianum, the artist is combining powerful installation interventions with a large selection of his sculptural and painted oeuvre. By lowering the overall lighting and employing garish neon lights, Zipp creates the illusion of long corridors whose doors lead to accessible and inaccessible rooms, in which the themes of the exhibition are taken up again and again in paintings and sculptures. These corridors connect to the side wings, which house the large installations of a padded cell, a gymnasium, and a hall of mirrors with concave and convex forms.

Thomas Zipp (born in Heppenheim in 1966) is one of the most important German artists of our time. The artist brings together individual works - paintings, sculptures, prints, drawings and installations - to create an overall concept that completely integrates the spaces of the exhibition venue. By working in this way, Zipp lends his exhibition concepts a unique, unrepeatable existence. He knows how to relate developments in history and the humanities to the present age and to interpret them in a topical way. This total installation will interpret and reformulate the first public museum building on the European continent and the significance of the Fridericianum as an institution of enlightenment.

Under the direction of Rein Wolfs, The Kunsthalle Fridericianum, art and artistic attitudes are characterised by strong communicative abilities, that are bold, proud, and confident and do not shy away from provocation. Not as program filler in between documenta exhibitions, but as a serious and distinguished formulation of utmost ambition, the oldest public museum on the European continent will regain its function as a mock-up for contemporary and sometimes future-oriented contents.

This energetic tension between the outside and the inside of this building of 1779 bears at the same time the rare chance to be unique and distinctive. The Kunsthalle Fridericianum is presenting art that strives to be ambitious and committed. It shall be human with a spark of grandeur here and there, a pleading for the preconditions of humanity in the 21st century. Visit : http://www.fridericianum-kassel.de/

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