We Call It Lud­wig curated by Yilmaz Dziewior at Mu­se­um Lud­wig, Cologne Au­gust 27, 2016 – Jan­uary 08, 2017 Open­ing: Fri­day, Au­gust 26, 7 p.m.

For this celebratory group exhibition I have specially created two large ‘wave’ murals (Sailors, 2016)  and a metal ‘wave’ bench (Ludwig, 2016). These works will be installed in the first floor of The Museum Ludwig in Cologne. We call it Ludwig is a rather ambitious exhibition that marks several important anniversaries for The Museum Ludwig in Cologne. The spirit of We call it Ludwig is all about celebrating the monumental work of this great museum. My contribution for this group exhibition takes the shape of a present, my modest gift to a place that have greatly inspired me since I’ve arrived to the Rhineland in 2006. I  want to give something to this house, to its architecture, something that also visitors can use and touch. The ‘wave’ murals are composed by a selection of artists’ names that previously exhibited in the house, these two murals look like seascapes in which you can see ‘sailing boats’ sailing through colorful and playful ‘waves’. The metal ‘wave’ bench has 6 waves that stand for L U D W I G, each of the letters has been transformed into a wave in which visitors will eventually seat and from there enjoy the view.

 

The group ex­hi­bi­tion We Call It Lud­wig is the high point of the land­mark year 2016 at the Mu­se­um Lud­wig. For the an­niver­sary ex­hi­bi­tion, which was joint­ly con­ceived by the di­rec­tor and all the mu­se­um’s cu­ra­tors, twen­ty-five in­ter­na­tio­n­al artists and artist col­lec­tives have been in­vit­ed to en­gage in depth with the in­sti­tu­tion and to re­act to the ques­tion of what the Mu­se­um Lud­wig means to them.

The ti­tle We Call It Lud­wig was pur­pose­ly kept open-end­ed, since the ex­hi­bi­tion is not in­tend­ed to of­fer a con­crete def­i­ni­tion, but a va­ri­e­ty of sub­jec­tive per­spec­tives that to­gether form a kalei­do­s­cop­ic im­age of the in­sti­tu­tion. The Mu­se­um Lud­wig defines it­self in large part based on its own his­to­ry, its col­lec­tion, and, above all, the peo­ple who have shaped it – as an artists’ mu­se­um. We Call It Lud­wig ac­counts for this si­t­u­a­tion by re­flect­ing along with th­ese par­ti­ci­pants in the art sys­tem on what the mu­se­um has been, is, and can be.

The se­lec­tion of twen­ty-five par­ti­ci­pat­ing artists span­n­ing ev­ery conti­nent de­lib­er­ate­ly un­der­s­cores Peter and Irene Lud­wig’s glob­al ap­proach to the col­lec­tion. For in­s­tance, they main­tained close con­tacts with Cu­ba, where they met the artist Dian­go Hernán­dez in the mid- 1990s. Now Hernán­dez will trans­late im­por­tant ex­hi­bi­tion ti­tles from the his­to­ry of the mu­se­um as well as its lo­go in­to a sen­su­al and po­et­ic land­s­cape of un­du­lat­ing seat­ing and mu­rals.

The Guer­ril­la Girls col­lec­tive will take a very dif­fer­ent ap­proach by crit­i­cal­ly ree­val­u­at­ing the col­lec­tion from a femi­n­ist per­spec­tive. Maria Eich­horn, by con­trast, will deal with the pro­cess­es that led to the sign­ing of an em­ploy­ment con­tract with her as an artist, thus em­pha­siz­ing the ad­min­is­tra­tive struc­ture of the mu­se­um. With The Cho­co­late Mas­ter from 1981, Hans Haacke will pre­sent the re­sult of his metic­u­lous and crit­i­cal re­search on the fam­i­ly and cor­po­rate his­to­ry of the cho­co­late man­u­fac­tur­ers and art col­lec­tors Peter and Irene Lud­wig.

Par­ti­ci­pat­ing artists: Ge­orges Adéag­bo, Ai Wei­wei, Ei Arakawa, Min­er­va Cue­vas, Maria Eich­horn, An­drea Fras­er, Meschac Ga­ba, Guer­ril­la Girls, Hans Haacke, Dian­go Hernán­dez, Can­di­da Höfer, Bodys Isek Kin­gelez, Kuehn Malvezzi, Chris­tian Philipp Müller, Mar­cel Oden­bach, Ah­met Ögüt, Claes Ol­d­en­burg, Pratchaya Phin­thong, Alexan­dra Piri­ci & Manuel Pel­muş, Ger­hard Richter, Av­ery Singer, Jür­gen Stoll­hans, Rose­marie Trock­el, Vil­la De­sign Group, Chris­to­pher Wil­li­ams.

Au­gust 27, 2016 – Jan­uary 08, 2017
Open­ing: Fri­day, Au­gust 26, 7 p.m.
Concept: Yilmaz Dziewior
Curatorial Team: Katia Baudin, Stephan Diederich, Yilmaz Dziewior, Barbara Engelbach, Julia Friedrich, Miriam Halwani
Curatorial Assistant: Leonie Radine
I would like to thanks: Galerie Barbara Thumm, Marlborough Contemporary, Anna Czerlitzki and Andreas Wexel
Museum Ludwig
Heinrich-Böll-Platz
50667 Köln
Germany

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