Anna Oppermann

Anna Oppermann, 1985

Anna Oppermann , born as Regina Heine (born February 18, 1940 in Eutin , † March 8, 1993 in Celle ), was a German visual artist . She lived and worked in Hamburg .

Anna Oppermann occupies a prominent, synthesizing position in the visual arts of the 1960s and 70s, which manifested itself in directions such as conceptual art , Arte Povera , forensics , individual mythology and story art. Her “ensembles” found a combination of conceptual and artistic working methods, with which they both analytically and vividly narrated the art and everyday world at the end of the 20th century.

Life

Anna Oppermann was born on February 18, 1940 in Eutin with the name Regina Heine. She studied from 1962 to 1968 at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg and philosophy at the University of Hamburg (1962–1968). After graduating, she lived and worked as a freelance artist in Hamburg. In 1968 she became a member of the CO-OP artist cooperative Hamburg . In 1986 she was one of the founding members of Galerie Vorsetzen . From 1987 she chose her second home in Celle. She died here on March 8, 1993 and was buried in Celle Lachtehausen.

After visiting professorships at the Hamburg University of Fine Arts in 1976 and 1978, she taught at the Bergische Universität Wuppertal from 1982 to 1990 and then until her death at the Berlin University of the Arts (today: Berlin University of the Arts ).

In 1967 she married the Hamburg artist Wolfgang Oppermann and took on the artist name Anna, who accompanied her career as a freelance artist. The artist couple's son is Alexander Oppermann. After the separation in 1977, the artist lived until her death with the Hamburg administrative lawyer and head government director Herbert Hossmann, who accompanied her to numerous exhibitions and supported her in her work.

plant

From the end of the sixties, Anna Oppermann developed her special way of working, influenced by such opposing currents as on the one hand Pop Art and on the other hand process and conceptual art , the central representatives of which were shown and intensely received in the Hamburg art scene at the time. Her ensembles are open collections and arrangements that sometimes consist of several hundred picture canvases, photographs, drawings, objects, sculptures, architectural elements, writing tablets and tapes and are to be understood as image and thought processes spread out in space. Central themes of the artist were transitions between reality and fiction, conflicts in dealing with people, art, traditions and questions of economy.

Based on small thematic still lifes, she shaped, photographed, painted and wrote, and also collected quotes from philosophy, science and print media. Each new element in the image process became part of the arrangement and the subject of further images and reflections. Spacious ensembles were successively created in which still lifes, which were brought closer, alternate with distant arrangement views in which details are emphasized or hidden by overlays. Until her untimely death, the artist worked on more than 60 bundles of different sizes and phases of growth - depending on the relevance and topicality that the rolled-up topic had for her.

reception

In 1972 Oppermann exhibited the first ensembles in the Hamburger Kunsthalle , in Trier and in Berlin. The work caused a stir and initially sparked controversial discussions. Unsettled by the rampant, incomplete form and the partly personal content, the conservative art critic treated the works as confused self-confessions. Oppermann's “offer for communication” (Oppermann) can only be accepted by those who, together with the artist, question traditional conceptions of art. She rejects the myth of the artist and the cult of genius . Instead of clearly formed results, it shows the path of image production with its errors, detours and excesses. And when creating images, she moves between everyday personal life and the art world, between mass media and various scientific disciplines, in order to trace the interdependencies and effects between the private and the general.

Oppermann's way of working and topics touched on important questions that have been discussed again and again since the late 1960s. Accordingly, the work has successively and permanently received international recognition. Ensembles have been shown at many international exhibitions such as documenta 6 (1977), documenta 8 (1987) in Kassel and the Sydney Biennale (1984). She was invited to the Venice Biennale in 1980 as an important representative of the art of the 1970s. Two major retrospectives, which for the first time presented eight of the major ensemble works at the same time, took place in 1984 and 1985 at the Kunstverein in Hamburg and at the Bonner Kunstverein . The ensembles Oil on Canvas (1981–1992) and MKÜVO (Make Small Manageable Objects for Sale) (1979–1984) can be seen in the Hamburger Kunsthalle today . In 1991, the artist set up the Ensemble Pathosgeste - MGSMO - Mach large, powerful, power-demonstrating objects (1984–1991) as a permanent installation in the Altona town hall . It is part of the Hamburg program Art in Public Space.

After her death, numerous ensembles were interpreted and reconstructed in museums and art institutions around the world such as the Sprengel Museum Hannover (1993), the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney (1994), the PS 1 New York (1999), La Maison Rouge Paris (2004), the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2005), the Falckenberg Collection (2005, 2009), the Villa Arson Nice (2012) and most recently at the Sao Paulo Biennale (2012). In 2007 two large retrospectives took place in the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and in the Anna Oppermann retrospective of the Generali Foundation Vienna. Since May 2012, the Ensemble Be an artist (drawing from nature - for example linden blossom leaves) (1969–1986) can be viewed at the Abteiberg Museum in Mönchengladbach .

Prices

Anna Oppermann has received important prizes and grants such as the Edwin Scharff Prize of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg (1977), the ars viva Prize of the Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft (1977), the Villa Romana Prize Florence (1977), the sponsorship prize Glockengasse (1980), the Cité Internationale des Arts Paris grant (1981), the art prize of the Heitland Foundation , Celle (1985) and the Barkenhoff grant with a stay in Worpswede.

The Berlin University of the Arts has been awarding the Anna Oppermann Prize annually since 2012 (for outstanding achievements in artistic practice in the BA course of the Faculty of Fine Arts). The prize is endowed with € 2,500.

Exhibitions (selection, since 2004)

• 2019 "Anna Oppermann - Being an Artist", Kunsthalle Bielefeld , March 23 to July 28, 2019
• 2014 “Playtime”, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus , Munich, March 15 to June 29; Exhibited work: E 35 - The economic aspect
• 2013 “Anna Oppermann - Ensembles”, Presentation House Gallery Vancouver, Canada
• 2012 “The immenence of Poetiques”, 30th São Paulo Biennale
• 2012 “Super Bodies”, 3rd Triennial des arts plastiques, Hasselt
• 2012 “L'institut des archives sauvages”, Villa Arson , Nice
• 2012 "Anna Oppermann - Self-Portrait" Galerie Barbara Thumm Berlin
• 2011 “go, bloom, flow - natural conditions in art”, Stadtgalerie Kiel
• 2010 "Squatting. remember, forget, occupy ”, Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin
• 2010 "Anna Oppermann - being an artist ..", Galerie Barbara Thumm Berlin
• 2010 "The more I draw. Drawing as a concept for the world “, Museum of Contemporary Art , Siegen
• 2010 “Habiter poétiquement - The World as Poem”, Lille métropole musée d'art modern d'art contemporain et d'art brut
• 2007 "Anna Oppermann - Revisions of Ensemble Art ", Württembergischer Kunstverein , Stuttgart
• 2007 "Anna Oppermann - Ensembles", Generali Foundation , Vienna
• 2007 “True Romance - Allegories of Love”, Kunsthalle Wien , Kunsthalle zu Kiel and Villa Stuck , Munich
• 2006 "Anna Oppermann - The Economic Aspect", Gallery Kienzle & Gmeiner, Berlin
• 2005 “Contexts of Photography”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Siegen
• 2004 “Anna Oppermann. Mirrors / Spaces ", art agents gallery, Hamburg
• 2004 "Central Station. La collection Harald Falckenberg ”, La Maison Rouge, Paris
• 1987: documenta 8 , Kassel

Permanent installations

• since 2012 “being an artist (drawing from nature - for example linden blossom leaves)” (1969–1986), Museum Abteiberg , Mönchengladbach
• since 1991 "Pathos Geste MGSMO (Make large, powerful, power-demonstrating objects)" (1984–1991), Altona City Hall , Hamburg

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Anna Oppermann "Gesture of Pathos - MGSMO - Make large, powerful, power-demonstrating objects!" . Cultural authority of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
2. ^ Anna Oppermann: Revisions of Ensemble Art . Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
3. ^ Anna Oppermann: Ensembles . Generali Foundation. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
4. ↑ Anna Oppermann "To be an artist (drawing from nature - for example linden blossom leaves)" . Municipal Museum Abteiberg. Retrieved January 10, 2019.
5. ↑ Kulturkreis.eu: Well-known ars viva awardees / 1977 Anna Oppermann ( Memento from October 5, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) (accessed on November 20, 2018)

Literature (selection)

• Anna Oppermann. Ensembles 1968–1992, Ute Vorkoeper (ed.), Hatje Cantz, Ostfildern-Ruit 2007 (on the occasion of the exhibitions Anna Oppermann. Revisions of ensemble art in the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and the Generali Foundation Vienna)
• Claus Pias, Anna Oppermann in the Hamburger Kunsthalle (with a documentation on DVD by Martin Warnke, Carmen Wedemeyer and Christian Terstegge), Hamburg 2004
• Perdita von Kraft, Anna Oppermann , Hanover 1994 (= contemporary art from Lower Saxony 40 )
• Andrea Legde, Anna Oppermann: The Ensemble as a Method , in: Ursula Peters, Moderne Zeiten. The 20th Century Collection, in collaboration with Andrea Legde, Nürnberg 2000, pp. 270–273 (= cultural-historical walks in the Germanic National Museum , vol. 3).
• Anna Oppermann. Paradoxical Intentions , ed. v. Ute Vorkoeper, publication accompanying the exhibition at Kunstverein Celle 1998, Hamburg, Brussels 1998.
• Carmen Wedemeyer, Anna Oppermann's ensemble “Hugs, the inexplicable and a line of poetry by RMR”. A hypermedia image-text archive on the ensemble and work , (CD-ROM with enclosure) Frankfurt am Main 1998.
• Anna Oppermann - Pathos Geste, Brussels and Hamburg 1987
• Anna Oppermann. Ensembles 1968–1984, catalog for the exhibition at the Kunstverein Hamburg, Bonner Kunstverein, Hamburg / Brussels 1984
• Anna Oppermann Ensembles, catalog for the exhibition in the Neue Galerie - Ludwig Collection, Aachen 1976

Web links

• Literature by and about Anna Oppermann in the catalog of the German National Library
• Materials by and about Anna Oppermann in the documenta archive
• Anna Oppermann in the Hamburger Kunsthalle
• Oppermann's work estate in the Barbara Thumm Gallery