05.06.2024
Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
Hamburger Bahnhof presents Something In and On Something Else (2024), Claudia Wieser’s new contribution to the Endless Exhibition. This site-specific exhibition will be expanded by one work each year, bringing the total number of artworks in and around Hamburger Bahnhof to 20. Admission to the Endless Exhibition is free. The presentation of Claudia Wieser's work kicks off the admission-free open days from 7 to 9 June 2024. This year's edition of the DJ series Berlin Beats with Oda Haliti will also begin on Friday, 7 June at 7 pm.
In Claudia Wieser's installation, space and time, the building and its past, merge into the present. The various functions of the building have left their mark on the architecture: artist Claudia Wieser focuses on the round elevator shaft at the entrance to the restaurant, placing an installation made up of 3,000 glazed ceramic tiles with abstract shapes and historical photographs in front of the cylindrical building form.
The renovations to Hamburger Bahnhof between 1994 and 1996 in preparation for its reopening as a museum for contemporary art also included the addition of elevators in the east wing to improve the building's accessibility. Wieser’s installation of around 3,000 glazed ceramic tiles on the eastern elevator shaft refers to these changes in use. The tiled surface, with its abstract shapes creates associations with figures, while at the same time historical photographs reveal the varied functions of the building between 1880 and 1980. The shiny and reflective surfaces echo the light of Dan Flavin's installation, also conceived for the museum, which is located in the neighbouring historical passageway. The title of Wieser’s site-specific installation refers to a text by the artist Donald Judd from 1965, and characterizes the artwork as an object between painting, sculpture, and architecture, which aims to create a sensual experience of the space for the viewer.
The Berlin-based artist Claudia Wieser (*1973; Freilassing) is known for her geometric compositions and room installations inspired by modernist artists such as Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee or the Bauhaus. Her works include drawings, paintings, tapestries, installations, and objects. Wieser completed her studies in painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich in 2004. In addition to her art studies, an apprenticeship as a blacksmith shaped Wieser's design of her fragmented mirror objects, sculptural works made of hand-glazed ceramics, and rotating wooden sculptures. Wieser has had solo exhibitions at The Drawing Center, New York, NY, Smart Museum of Art / The University of Chicago, IL, and the Museé Yves Saint Laurent in Paris. Her first public outdoor installation took place in 2021 in Brooklyn Bridge Park, New York, and was commissioned by the Public Art Fund.
Meanwhile, the Endless Exhibition includes 20 installations, interventions, and sculptures from Hamburger Bahnhof collection, which are permanent elements of the museum's interior and exterior spaces. Since June 2023, a free, self-guided tour with a microsite and booklet has led visitors through all parts of the museum complex, into the garden and the adjacent areas, linking the collection, history, building, and neighbourhood. The tour of artworks also includes Dan Flavin's iconic light installation from 1996 and historical sites such as the former Invalidenstraße border crossing. A new commissioned site-specific work by a female Berlin-based artist will be added to the Endless Exhibition every year; this occurred for the first time in 2023 with a work by Judith Hopf.
The Endless Exhibition combines art, collection, architecture, history, neighbourhood, and visitors and is part of the museum's range of free offerings. This also includes the Forum Hamburger Bahnhof, which deals with the history of the site, the DJ series Berlin Beats (7 June to 29 August 2024), the open days (7 to 9 June 2024), the discussion series In Conversation (every first Saturday of the month at 3 pm), and 1,000 public guided tours a year, making the museum accessible to everyone free of charge.
The project by Claudia Wieser is curated by Anna-Catharina Gebbers, curator at Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart.
The Endless Exhibition is conceived by Sam Bardaouil and Till Fellrath, directors of the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart, curated by Till Fellrath and Alice Koegel, Head of Exhibitions and Curator at the Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart
The Endless Exhibition is a project realised by Hamburger Bahnhof with the kind support of Peppermint and the Freunde der Nationalgalerie.
