Exposed/Illuminated
From the museum´s collection
Until autumn the Museum is exhibiting major works and work series from its own collection, which comprises photography and video pieces as well as installation works of art.
Stephen Willats, Fifteen Feet by Eight Feet and there are Two of us Here, 1980, Courtesy the artist
The central highlight of the show are the highly precise and groundbreaking black-and-white photographs by Bernd and Hilla Becher, which consciously cast a regional anchor of international contemporary art. A selection of their typologies – meticulously assembled grids consisting of groups of images of the same type of architectural structure – are on display: Next to the series “Framework Houses in Siegen”, grids of the steel mills and mines from the Siegen industrial area.
The Bechers’ extremely influential documentary photography is expanded by contemporary photographs from Aglaia Konrad and Armin Linke, who incorporate social aspects into their view on architecture. From a sociological point of view, the serial works by conceptual artists Hans Haacke and Stephen Willats examine strategies of communication and art’s narrow range of effect in a museum setting. The rediscovered early piece by Hans Haacke, Photographic Notes, documenta II, 1959, was generously sponsored by the Museum’s Circle of Friends.
Non-photography works were also part of the “Exposed/Illuminated” exhibition, such as an installation by the artist Diango Hernández, who won the Promotional Rubens Prize in 2009. Next to these pieces, photographs by the Rubens Prize laureates Cy Twombly and Sigmar Polke along with works by Nancy Holt and Michel Sauer are on display.
Further featured pieces were the video installation “Broken Circle”, 1997/2001 by Diana Thater and the quaint art interventions by Andreas Karl Schulze.