The Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden Museum ~ This Cultural Oasis Is Toured By Our Editor

Written by Seth Schiesel Monday, 13 December 2010 23:17

The Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden museum is an exhibition venue for international modern and contemporary art and is one of the oldest cultural institutions in Baden-Baden. The gallery, with its neoclassic façade, designed by architects Hermann Billing and Wilhelm Vittali, is situated in Lichtentaler Allee park. It houses no collection of its own, but the best of traveling exhibitions. It serves as an ideal platform for artistic media of all kinds: a forum where paintings, sculptures, photographs and videos can express themselves to the full. The Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden has been for many years the beacon of the avant-garde movement, here artists, who later became world famous, had their first major exhibits. Works like the legendary "14 x 14" by Klaus Gallwitz plus displays of the pieces by Ellsworth Kelly, Bruce Nauman, Imi Knoebel and Dan Flavin have converted Staatliche Kunsthalle into a magnet for the international art scene. The museum was founded by the German painter Robert Engelhorn, who presented the 1906 "project for a permanent art exhibition in Baden-Baden”. The construction of the building finished in 1908 and was officially opened in 1909 as an exhibition hall. Under the title "Permanent Art Exhibition Baden-Baden" the museum had two exhibitions a year until the 1930s with only an average participation of members of the Free Artists Association. The curators of the museum made improvements and attracted artists from all over the world. Since the late 1950s the Staatliche Kunsthalle was transformed into an institution of international standing. Under the leadership of Dietrich Mahlow (1957-1967), the museum was a showcase of world cultures. From that point onwards the Staatliche Kunsthalle evolved showing the works of important new and classical artists in the same venue. The museum’s architecture is unique. It has nine sky-lit rooms and a chamber (approx. 800 square metres) for mounting alternating exhibitions. The Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden rises on a hill, the asymmetric structure appears to be closed in, yet it is surrounded by open terraces. Although the architectural style is late Art Nouveau, the building has Greek and Roman elements. There are triangular gables, pilasters with Ionic capitals, the circulating and verkröpfende cornice with egg bar that appears next to the scrolls and the year 1908 in Roman numerals on the distinctive arched portal. The structure has a high rectangular portal with triangular pediment Mittelrisalith similar to the ones in Delphi, Greece. The staircase leads to the lower floor of the Kunsthalle, in which there are now a cafe, the box office and administrative spaces. This opens to the side of the sculpture gallery. The art gallery has undergone numerous alterations in the course of their history and continuous improvement of technical equipment. The extensive library of the Art Gallery is housed in a separate building. September 2002 saw the beginning of construction work on the building that will house the internationally first-rate Frieder Burda Collection, the Kunsthalle's partner and future neighbor. The years 2003 and 2004 also meant a period of reconstruction and renewal for the Kunsthalle. The foyer is to be considerably extended so as to be able to accommodate new functions. The reconstruction will integrate the glazed bridge in the foyer linking the Kunsthalle and the Frieder Burda Collection. The foyer is used during the day as reading-room, while in the evening it is a venue for film showings and other events. The museum has four to six exhibitions a year devoted to individual artists. Every exhibition has an extensive program of tours, lectures, readings and films. The shows usually include works of art gathered from museums and private collections. The special structure of the architecture and spatial sequences provide opportunities for on-site installations and wall paintings for the duration of the exhibition. Among the hidden paintings on plaster are works of Palermo, Helmut Middendorf, Gerhard Merz, KRH Sonderborg, Hamish Fulton, Corinne Wasmuth, Holger Bunk, Nic Hess, Paul McCarthy and Stephen Prina. The exhibition program for 2010 opened with Stefan Mueller, who taught with unusual materials and techniques between the grand gesture of painting and the economy of artistic and scenic resources. Later in the year, Christopher Williams, a leading exponent of conceptual photography, examined in a group exhibition, the theme of self-portraits in contemporary art, a genre with which since the 1960s, artists such as Andy Warhol, Martin Kippenberger, Jeff Koons in paintings, sculptures and installations. Baden-Baden is one of the most picturesque of all the German bathing towns. The springs of Baden-Baden have been known for more than 2,000 years, and their composition resembles that of the Roman baths of the 3rd century. The water at the baths of "Caracalla-Therme" spa is rich in sodium chloride, and comes from artesian wells 1,800 metres (5,900 ft) under the Florentiner Mountain. The Spielbank casino is more than 200 years and the oldest of its type in Germany. Dostoyevsky is said to have written "The Gambler" after he lost his money and even his shirt here.

The exhibition program for 2010 opened with Stefan Mueller, who taught with unusual materials and techniques between the grand gesture of painting and the economy of artistic and scenic resources. Later in the year, Christopher Williams, a leading exponent of conceptual photography, examined in a group exhibition, the theme of self-portraits in contemporary art. Daniel Buren, the great French conceptual artist, transforms until February 11th 2011, at the minimalist art gallery into an accessible work of art. In the future, positions of conceptual art in relation to ground-breaking perspectives of art from the 20th and the early 21st Century. The newest exhibition of the Staatliche Kunsthalle is "Every artist is a person !: Positions of the Self-Portraits” on show until January 9th 2011 explores the artists’ feelings through their self-portraits. Since the15th century artists began to paint portraits of themselves as a way to find out their role in society and these work have become part of history, showing representations physical representations of masters like Albrecht Dürer, Rembrandt van Rijn and Max Beckmann. The development of artistic self-examination in the years after 1945 has been studied to certain extend with works of pop art of the late 1980’s, this exhibition takes a look at the self-portrait from the historical point of view. The increasing prevalence and importance of photography led not only Andy Warhol to a critical examination of the genre, but it caused the public to reflect on the artist's personality and the development of cults based on the artists’ works. A young generation of artists have found other ways of expressing themselves using photography, video art and painting. Self-portraits offer the possibility of a radical reformulation and critical engagement with one of the great themes of art history. Artists such as John Baldessari, Bruce Nauman, Sigmar Polke, Gerhard Richter, Martin Kippenberger, Albert Oehlen, Katharina Sieverding, Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman and Andrea Fraser opened the self-portrait topics of art and intellectual history and critical questions about authorship, individual, gender and genius. Artists stage themselves in ways that reflect their own personality or radically surround themselves with cultic auras, setting themselves against a backdrop of social or historical references. The painted self-portrait offers an opportunity for radical re-framing and a critical engagement of one of art history's great themes. The work of the American artist Bruce Nauman figures prominently in the exhibition. He is an sculptor, photographer and experiments with neon, video, drawing and printmaking. In 1993, Nauman received the Wolf Prize in Arts (an Israeli award) for his distinguished work as a sculptor and his extraordinary contribution to twentieth-century art. The basis of Nauman's artistic approach and the resulting actions is his own existence as an artist involved in an incessant process of self-experience. Nauman seeks the challenge in situations which lead himself and the viewer beyond the limits of one's own horizon of experiences; "one is thus forced to become increasingly aware of oneself and the situation. The Staatliche Kunsthalle is one of the few museums in the world where every time you visit you will find a different works of arts exhibited.