Bonner Kunstverein
The Bonner Kunstverein is a non-profit and registered association based in Bonn , which is dedicated to the presentation and communication of contemporary art. It was founded on May 24, 1963 and has an exhibition hall, an "Artothek" and a studio house. The Bonner Kunstverein is a member of the Working Group of German Art Associations .
history
The Bonner Kunstverein was founded on May 24, 1963 by a Bonn artist group and citizens interested in art as an “Art Association for the City and District of Bonn and for the Siegkreis” in the Godesberg Gallery Schütze. The founders included u. a. the artists Paul Magar, Gerhard Naumann and Ernemann Sander, as well as the later chairmen Dorothea von Stetten and Thankmar Freiherr von Münchhausen. The aim of the art association was to “bring young art closer to the many newcomers in Bonn” [1] and to offer a platform for Bonn artists to bring them into contact with those interested in art. Under the founding chairman of the Bonner Kunstverein, the journalist from Münchhausen, exhibitions of classical modernism and young art were presented in changing exhibitions.
Under the direction of the director of the Bonner Landesmuseum Harald von Petrikovits as chairman of the Bonner Kunstverein, the association was able to regularly use the premises of the Rheinisches Landesmuseum for its exhibitions from 1967. Under Dorothea von Stetten the exhibitions of the Kunstverein became more international and programmatic: “We are of the opinion that the Kunstverein must deal with the concept of art in its entirety, that with and in addition to the classic media and forms of expression, its members must deal with the unusual, the should confront new, perhaps also different art forms [...] It should push the boundaries of art, whereby it can very well turn out that these boundaries can be shifted and the areas enclosed by them can be expanded ” [2] . For example, there were solo exhibitions with Anselm Kiefer and the Artist Placement Group , an exhibition on “Art as a Social Strategy” or a dispute between Joseph Beuys and John Latham on their social-artistic approaches.
In 1978 the city of Bonn helped the art association to its first own domicile in the "Kleiner Königshof", where under Margarethe Jochimsen the works of some "forgotten" artists such as Jeanne Mammen (1981), Grethe Jürgens (1982), Gerta Overbeck (1982 ) and Lea Grundig (1984). In 1985, the Peter-Mertes winery was won over to enable two grants to be awarded once a year to promote young artists in the Rhineland. Since then, individual exhibitions at the Kunstverein have been organized for the scholarship holders at the end of the scholarship cycle, accompanied by a publication (since 2013 by StreleczkiBooks, Cologne).
In December 1986 the Bonner Kunstverein was able to move into the flower hall in the north of Bonn's old town, which was redesigned by Haus-Rucker-Co (today: Ortner & Ortner Baukunst) into an exhibition hall. On the initiative of Dorothe Optiz-Hoffmann, head of the art education working group and 2nd chairwoman of the art association, a newly founded art library with 44 works of art for the time being was housed in the premises of the art association. Under Annelie Pohlen, the first full-time director of the Kunstverein, over 200 exhibitions have been realized in her 18-year management activity, including solo and themed exhibitions on questions of current social developments, which brought the Bonn Kunstverein international recognition. Under the direction of Christina Végh, with the assistance of the chairman of the board, Hans Hansen, the range of activities of the art association was expanded from 2004 to include the sponsorship of the Bonn studio house. During the renovation phase (2006–2012) Christina Végh relocated the exhibitions of the Bonner Kunstverein with “Terrain Vague. Wheely ”with a series of external projects in Bonn's urban space. Michelle Cotton was director of the Bonner Kunstverein from 2015 to 2019. Under her leadership, the first solo exhibitions by well-known international artists took place in Germany. The exhibition “The Policeman's Beard is Half Constructed - Art in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” (2017), with over 100 loans from 36 artists, was the most extensive exhibition at the Kunstverein in 30 years.
[1] Baroness Speyart in an interview with Henning Boecker, 1963-2013. 50 years Bonner Kunstverein. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Bonner Kunstverein. 2013, p. 14.
[2] Dorothea von Stetten: Foreword. In: Artist Placement Group (APG) - Art as a social strategy. Exhibition catalog, Bonner Kunstverein, Bonn 1977, p. 3.
building
Since 1986 the Bonner Kunstverein has had its headquarters in an 800 m² part of the former flower hall. The flower hall at August-Macke Platz was redesigned to be an exhibition hall by the architects Haus-Rucker-Co (today: Ortner & Ortner Baukunst) for shared use with the Society for Contemporary Art and the Bonn Artists' Forum. Freely erectable wall elements made a variable floor plan possible and took into account the criticism of fixed structures of society in an architectural way. The galvanized steel girders on August-Macke-Platz formulated “an ironically broken temple motif as the entrance to the site of art”.
The renovation carried out in December 2006 by the architects Marie-Céline Schäfer and Karsten Weber was awarded the Bund Deutscher Architekten eV (BDA) prize in 2010. It was made possible by the exhibition and charity auction "The art of its rooms" of the then director Christina Végh, which brought in a financial base and u. a. was supplemented by municipal funds.
Art library
The Artothek was founded in 1987 on the initiative of the then board member Dorothee Opitz-Hoffmann and integrated into the premises of the Bonner Kunstverein as an expanded form of conveying contemporary art. With its loan stock, which has grown to over 1,500 works, the Artothek is one of the largest Artothek in Germany. A large part of the works was u. a. in 1992 and 1994 included in the Artothek's holdings by the Sparkasse Köln-Bonn as a permanent loan.
Studio house
The studio house at Dorotheenstrasse 99 has been part of the Bonner Kunstverein since 2004 and offers seven city-funded studio rooms for artists residing in the Bonn area. Free studio spaces are regularly advertised, the selection of artists is the responsibility of a jury.
Management (directors)
- Margarethe Jochimsen (1978-86)
- Annelie Pohlen (1986-2004)
- Christina Végh (2005-2015)
- Michelle Cotton (2015-2019)
literature
- Bonner Kunstverein 1963–1993 (on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Bonner Kunstverein), Bonn 1993.
- 19632013. 50 years Bonner Kunstverein. Festschrift for the 50th anniversary of the Bonner Kunstverein , with interviews, artist statements, contributions from Anne-Marie Bonnet, Christina Végh, Margarethe Jochimsen , Annelie Pohlen, Irene Horn, Elisabeth Wynhoff, Philipp Kaiser , Yilmaz Dziewior , Stephan Strsembski and Michael Stockhausen, Bonn 2013.
- Bonner Boden, Haus-Rucker-Co, O&O Baukunst, exhibition catalog, May 13th-9th July 2017, gkg - Society for Art and Design eV © O&O Baukunst
Web links
- Literature by and about Bonner Kunstverein in the catalog of the German National Library
- Official website
Individual evidence
- ↑ Andreas Denk: Poetry of Architecture, On the drafts of Haus-Rucker-Co and O&O Baukunst. In: Bonner Boden, Haus-Rucker-Co, O & OBaukunst, exhibition catalog, May 13 - July 9, 2017 . gkg - Society for Art and Design eV 2017, p. 3