externes schreiben - startseite€¦  · web viewfoundation in istanbul. the word tanas is an...

21
DVR-Nummer 0002852 LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz Information Sheet ICH KENNE KEIN WEEKEND The Archive and Collection of René Block 18 March until 5 June 2015 LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, A-4021 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1 Tel: +43 (0)732.7070-3600 Fax: +43 (0)732.7070-3604 www.lentos.at

Upload: others

Post on 25-Sep-2020

1 views

Category:

Documents


0 download

TRANSCRIPT

Page 1: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

DV

R-N

umm

er 0

0028

52

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz

Information Sheet

ICH KENNE KEIN WEEKENDThe Archive and Collection of René Block

18 March until 5 June 2015

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, A-4021 Linz, Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1 Tel: +43 (0)732.7070-3600 Fax: +43 (0)732.7070-3604 www.lentos.at

Page 2: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Content

Exhibition Facts ………………………………………………………………………….. 3

Press Text …………………………………………………………………………………… 4

Exhibition Booklets .……………………………………………………………………………..5

Press Images ……………………………………………………………………………….. 14

Seite 2

Page 3: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Exhibition Facts

Exhibition Title ICH KENNE KEIN WEEKEND

The Archive and Collection of René Block

Exhibition Period 18 March until 5 June 2016

Opening Thursday, 17 March 2016, 7 pm

Press Conference Thursday, 17 March 2016, 09:30 am

Exhibition Venue LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, upper floor

Curators Marius Babias, Stella Rollig

Exhibits Exhibits and archive documents from the René Block`s archive and collection

Publication The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive publication with the collected texts by René Block and a detailed chronology. It is edited by Marius Babias, Birgit Eusterschulte and Stella Rollig, published by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, Cologne, 540 pages with numerous illustrations, € 39,80 (Prize at the museum € 29).

Magazine A magazine, compiled by René Block, adds to the exhibition with background information and contributions by various authors, 120 p., more than 300 images, € 3

Exhibition Booklet There is an exhibition booklets available with information. Their

purpose is to facilitate the visitors’ individual approach to the

artworks.

Contact Ernst-Koref-Promenade 1, 4020 Linz, Tel. +43(0)732/7070-3600;

[email protected], www.lentos.at

Opening Hours Tue–Sun 10am to 6pm, Thur 10am to 9pm, Mon closed

Admission € 8; concessions € 6

Press Contact Johanna Hofer, T +43(0)732.7070.3603, [email protected]

Available at the Press Conference: Bernhard Baier, Deputy Mayor and Head of Municipal Department of Culture

Stella Rollig, Director LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Marius Babia, Director Neuer

Berliner Kunstverein as well as René Block.

Seite 3

Page 4: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Press Text

The LENTOS is dedicating a show to the manifold and interdisciplinarywork of gallery owner and exhibition organizer René Block. Being one ofthe pioneers to promote intermedia art, Fluxus and happenings, RenéBlock played a decisive role in the Neo-Avantgarde. As director andinitiator of numerous biennials worldwide, Block established a unique story of tracking, showing, collecting and exhibiting modern art.

Block’s career began in 1964 in West Berlin, where he opened his gallery with the legendary show Neodada, Pop, Décollage, Kapitalistischer Realismus, presenting at the time unknown artists such as Joseph Beuys, Nam June Paik, Sigmar Polke and Gerhard Richter. The LENTOS presents works of art and favorite pieces from the curatorial work of René Block since 1964 as well as materials, documents, photographs and films from his archive. Additionally on show, there are works of art created on the occasion of numerous exhibition projects.

The exhibition was developed by the Neuer Berliner Kunsterverein (n.b.k.) and is a

collaborative venture of n.b.k, Berlinisches Galerie-Museum für moderne Kunst and the

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz.

Seite 4

Page 5: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Wall Texts

1964 René Block opened the legendary Neodada, Pop, Décollage, Capitalist Realism exhibition in a small basement space in Berlin-Schöneberg. From then on his gallery introduced Berlin to the most recent art by previously unknown artists such as Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Nam June Paik and Wolf Vostell. As art dealer and project supervisor of the DAAD’s (German Academic Exchange Service) Artists-in-Berlin Programme between 1982 and 1992, Block was one of the key figures of neo-avant-gardism. A pioneer of the multiple, who quickly made a name for himself as a publisher of prints, Block’s primary concern was the democratization of art, which went hand in hand with a new self-conception on the part of artists. How can art be expanded to encompass diverse media? How can it be reconceived in close proximity to literature, music, performance and theatre?

The interdisciplinarity of the visual arts seems self-evident today, but in the 1960s and early 1970s Block was a pioneer and trailblazer for new art forms. During his international career−as artistic director of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum in Kassel from 1998−2006 and as the curator of numerous biennales, for example in Istanbul and Sydney−René Block has left a unique record by discovering, showing, collecting and exhibiting modern art.

The exhibition brings this story to life with documents, photographs and films from the Block Archive dating from 1964 to 2014 and combines them with selected works from his collection.

Print Cabinet

Block came to Berlin from the Rhineland in the summer of 1963 to continue his art studies. In May 1964 he opened the “Cabinet René Block. Grafisches Kabinett der Freien Galerie” above the rooms of Dieter Ruckhaberle’s “Freier Galerie” on Kurfürstenstrasse. In quick succession he put on two exhibitions featuring prints by Klaus Peter Brehmer and Bert Gerresheim. Block cultivated close relationships with artists, critics and the Berlin public. Within weeks he conceived the idea of breaking away from the Freie Galerie and all it stood for and founding a gallery of his own. Galerie René Block opened in September 1964.

The Cabinet published two print editions on the occasion of the exhibitions, which sold for 10 DM a copy. As an artistic experiment, Block issued Brehmer’s first machine-made original color print. Signed and numbered, its price was only 3 DM. In addition, the Spandauer Volksblatt newspaper published an original print made from Brehmer’s specially prepared printing block to accompany its exhibition review. In this way, 30,000 newspaper buyers each received an original work of art.

First Years and Capitalist Realism

The term “Capitalist Realism” was coined in 1963 by Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Konrad Lueg and Manfred Kuttner. This was the label these artists used for a number of artistic actions in and around Düsseldorf. Block was fascinated by the ability of these artists to make their art reflect the current social situation in the Federal Republic, which was marked by post-war reconstruction and the repression of National Socialism. When he opened his gallery on September 15, 1964, Block therefore gave his first exhibition the title Neodada, Pop, Décollage, Capitalist Realism. The transfer of the phrase “Capitalist Realism” from the Rhineland, where the high profile of the so-called economic miracle had lent it anti-consumerist overtones, to the divided city of Berlin, which was then defined by the Cold War, resulted in the term acquiring additional sociocritical layers of meaning in the particular context of West Berlin, a process that

Seite 5

Page 6: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

was enhanced by the advent of artists such as KP Brehmer, K. H. Hödicke andWolf Vostell.

Early Actions

Action art, performances and happenings put in their first appearance in the second half of the 20th century. And in Berlin of the 1960s and ‘70s it was the Galerie Block that led the way. The gallery’s first action, Stanley Brouwn’s This Way Brouwn, took place during the gallery’s first exhibition in 1964. The Surinam born artist was obsessed with measuring the world literally step by step. He asked passers-by to record their way to the Galerie Bock. Brouwn’s action promptly came to a tumultuous conclusion.

Many actions did not restrict themselves to the gallery space proper but also extended into the city: Wolf Vostell carried out a happening in a junkyard and Nam June Paik in front of the Brandenburg Gate. Bazon Brock staged experimental theatre on the Kurfürstendamm. In the Installation Raum der Realität − Axel-Springer-Denkmal: Immer daran denken [Room for Reality – Axel Springer Monument: Keep thinking of it], 1963/65 he inserted barbed wire barriers between household utensils und pieces of furniture.

By 1967, the Forum Theater on Berlin’s Kurfürstendamm had become theGalerie Block’s second venue, specializing in film evenings, concerts, festivalsand performances. The concerts ranged from jazz and modern classical musicto the electronic sounds of Tangerine Dream. Gilbert & George appeared thereas “living sculptures” and films by Richard Hamilton and Dan Graham werescreened. In 1970, the Forum Theater hosted the Festum Fluxorum Fluxusfestival.

Actions by Joseph Beuys

There is hardly another artistic oeuvre with which René Block as an art dealer is as closely associated as with that of Joseph Beuys. Beuys’s first solo action in the gallery, the Fluxus chant The Chief in December 1964, was followedby other installations, actions and concerts. They include the 1969 concert I try to set (make) you free in the Akademie der Künste, Berlin, which had to be terminated prematurely due to rampaging spectators, and the Sweeping Up action in Karl-Marx-Platz in Berlin-Neukölln that can be seen as a commentary on the city’s May Day demonstrations.

Allan Kaprow: Sweet Wall

In November 1970 the American action artist Allan Kaprow organized the happening Sweet Wall in collaboration with the Galerie Block. On a bombed-out site near Potsdamer Platz he and several participants erected an approximately 30-meter-long wall, using concrete blocks, bread and jam as mortar. They built the wall in just a few hours and then immediately joined forces to knock it down again.

For Kaprow, Sweet Wall was a parody of the Berlin Wall standing within sight of the happening in particular and of border walls in general. Dick Higgins documented the happening in photographs that were later published by Edition Block as the art book Sweet Wall/Testimonials.

Fluxus

The Fluxus art movement originated in New York during the 1950s and grewrapidly into a network with branches around the world. With its actions,happenings and festivals as standard components, Fluxus transcends theboundaries between the performing and the visual arts. The name Fluxus (Latin:fluxus = flow or flux) already suggests that here the transitions to music, theatreand everyday life are fluid.

Seite 6

Page 7: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

The Galerie Block was the venue of numerous Fluxus exhibitions and actionsby such artists as George Brecht, Robert Filliou, Wolf Vostell, Nam June Paik,Arthur Køpcke, Dieter Roth and George Maciunas, the pioneer of the Fluxusmovement. Along with Wiesbaden, Berlin became a centre of the GermanFluxus movement. In his New York gallery René Block similarly exhibitedAmerican Fluxus artists who were not represented by any gallery in their nativecountry.

Block curated Fluxus retrospectives in the 1980s and ’90s, includingexhibitions in Wiesbaden in 1982, 1992 and 2002, where Germany’sfirst Fluxus Festival had taken place in 1962. His commitment to Fluxusbecomes apparent also from a touring exhibition organised by the Institut fürAuslandsbeziehungen (ifa, the Institute for Foreign Relations) in Stuttgart: Einelange Geschichte mit vielen Knoten. Fluxus in Deutschland 1962–1994.

Blockade ‘69

In 1969 a series of exhibitions entitled Blockade ‘69 opened at the GalerieRené Block. Eight artists were each given the opportunity to arrange their ownexhibition in the gallery. The underlying idea was the inseparable link betweenwork, presentation and space.

Beuys exhibited the grand piano that had been damaged at the Akademie derKünste during his I try to set (make) you free concert along with relics from thataction. Inspired by a piece composed by Henning Christiansen that was beingplayed simultaneously, Palermo marked corners and edges of the room withminimalist wall drawings. K. H. Hödicke installed a living artwork in the whitespace by way of a chicken coop with white poultry. IMI Knoebel projected blankslides as a light event. Reiner Ruthenbeck developed a space blockade madeof stretched strips of fabric. Sigmar Polke “imagined that a particle was orbitingthis room” and placed this message in individual letters on the floor.

These changes taking place in the same venue opened up the interpretation ofart under the aspects of action, experience and intellectual process.In 1970 Block showed a series of sound art installations called Acoustic Spacesdesigned by artists such as Mauricio Kagel, Conrad Schnitzler and Wolf Vostell.

Klangkunst

Joseph Beuys’s very first action at the Galerie Block, The Chief, subtitled FluxusChant, already belonged to the domain of sound. Block brought a wide rangeof sound art to Berlin, starting with his gallery’s first concert in 1965 featuringNam June Paik and Charlotte Moorman. Concerts in the gallery’s own spacesand in the Forum Theater were firmly established parts of the Galerie Block’sprogramme.

Sound art meant concerts, sound objects, happenings and installations. The1976 exhibition New York - Downtown Manhattan: SoHo had already beenremarkable for its high-profile performance and concert programme.

Paris Biennale

The highlights of Block’s musical and sound arrt activities include Musik inContainern (Music in Containers) as part of the Section Son (Section Sound)at the Paris Biennale 1985.

Seite 7

Page 8: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

The Nouvelle Biennale de Paris, curated by Kasper König and Achile Bonito Oliva took place in early 1985 in Paris’s newly opened Parc de la Villette. Block was responsible for the sound installations within the Biennale’s sound section. In ten containers positioned in front of the Grande Halle de la Villette he presented works and performances by the American sound poets and composers Bill Fontana and Terry Fox, the French composer Philippe Fénelon, the Berlin sound artist Rolf Julius and Michel Waisvisz from the Netherlands, among others. The initial idea of subsequently shipping the containers by train to other European cities could not be realized.

René Block Gallery New York

Block’s most important venture as a gallerist was surely the Beuys action I like America and America likes me on the occasion of the opening of his New York gallery in 1974, which brought both men international fame. Beuys famously locked himself into a room at the New York gallery which was also occupied by a wild coyote.

After its spectacular opening with I like America and America likes me the René Block Gallery put on a succession of exhibitions of: KP Brehmer, K. H. Hödicke, Rebecca Horn, Reiner Ruthenbeck – and Fluxus artists resident in New York such as Robert Watts, Geoffrey Hendricks, Nam June Paik, Shigeko Kubota and Joe Jones. Even though the Gallery managed to pull off several important deals it was forced to close after three years when the property in which it was housed changed hands. Block summed up the experiences he had made as a gallerist in New York in the 1976 Berlin exhibition New York – Downtown Manhattan: SoHo.

The Beuys environment Richtkräfte ‘74 (Directional Forces 74) shown in New York is acquired for the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, Nam June Paik’s installation The Moon is the oldest TV Set goes to the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

Szene Berlin and Kunstmarkt

After a fact-finding visit devoted to art in Berlin, Uwe Schneede, then director of the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, invited the art dealer Block to put together an exhibition on Berlin’s unknown art scene. In order to include foreign artists, the guests of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin Program, Block developed the concept of transporting the scene of a specific month. As a consequence, the Stuttgart exhibition and the subsequent shows in London and Hamburg each presented different artists. DAAD artists were included in a Berlin exhibition for the first time.

In 1966 Block was invited to join the Verein progressiver deutscher Kunsthändler, the Association of German Progressive Art Dealers. Only a year later, the Association organised the first Kölner Kunstmarkt, which was to morph into Art Cologne eventually. The spectacular sale of Joseph Beuys’s installation The Pack at the 1969 Kölner Kunstmarkt represented the gallerist’s first major success. The same year saw Berlin’s art dealers band together and pool their resources to put on the first International Berlin Spring Fair, in which Block likewise participated. The “discontent with the art market”, which he articulated in the 1971 trade fair catalogue, led him to rebrand the 4th Berlin Spring Fair in 1972 as the “First Trade Fair for Multiplied Art”. Multiplied art was to become an instrument with which to democratize art. The commercialization of the art market, boosted especially by Art Basel, led to Galerie Block’s complete withdrawal from art fairs since 1975.

Biennalen

Biennales play a special role in the world of contemporary art. They are not merely exhibitions that take place every other year. Since the 1990s at the latest, biennales

Seite 8

Page 9: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

serve as barometers gauging the state of the visual arts in various places around the world. Modelled after the Venice Biennale, one of the world’s most important art events, the term “biennale” has become synonymous for a system of internationally networked group exhibitions.

Block participated in the conception and realisation of numerous biennales. Towards a Biennale of Peace, for example, was shown at the Hamburger Kunstverein in 1985. Block served as artistic director of the biennales at Sydney 1990 and Istanbul 1995. The Cetinje Biennale 2004 formed the conclusion of the Balkans Trilogy and Block curated a section of the biennale at the South Korean city of Gwangju 2000. These globally oriented biennales not only introduce regional art scenes to international audiences but in turn also offer important impulses for local artists.

Paris, 1985Nouvelle Biennale de Paris [New Paris Biennale]Section Sound. Sound installations in ten containers located in front of theGrande Halle de la Villette

Hamburg, 1985For an Art-of-Peace Biennale

Sydney, 1990The Readymade Boomerang. Certain Relations in 20th Century Art,8th Biennale of Sydney

Istanbul, 1995Orient/ation, 4th International Istanbul Bienniale

Gwangju, 2000Man + Space, 3rd Gwangju BiennaleEurafrica, Section Europe and Africa

Cetinje, 2004Love It or Leave It, Cetinje Biennale V

Belgrade, 2006Art, Life & Confusion, 47th October Salon

Venice, 2007Welfare – Fare Well. Nordic Pavilion and Alvar Aalto Pavilion52nd Venice Biennale

Lidice

The Hommage à Lidice exhibition 1967 references a massacre perpetrated by German soldiers during World War II. On June 10, 1942, all male inhabitants of the Czech village Lidice older than fifteen years of age were murdered in retaliation for the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, the Deputy Reich Protector of Bohemia and Moravia. The women and children were deported and the village razed to the ground.

In 1967 the chairman of the International Lidice Committee called on artists to donate works for a museum that was planned for the memorial in Lidice. Block supported this action and invited 21 artists to take part. The result was a unique collection of works by West Germany’s avant-garde that Block himself brought to Prague in early 1968. The collection was long considered lost after the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in August of that year. When it was rediscovered in 1996 Block added works by 31 artists of the younger generation that had been part of the Pro Lidice exhibition. These works now make up the core of the art collection at Lidice. In 2015 a new chapter entitled

Seite 9

Page 10: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Remember Lidice was added to the project. While the first two events had relied exclusively on German artists. Remember Lidice assembles works by 44 international artists.

Art Allemagne Ajourd`hui

With its 1981 exhibition Art Allemagne Aujourd’hui (Art Germany Today), the Musée d’art moderne de la ville de Paris presented the first comprehensive overview of contemporary art in Germany to be shown in France. The ARC’s director, Suzanne Pagé, and Block selected established positions like Gerhard Richter, Hanne Darboven, Hans Haacke and Joseph Beuys and artists who were then still comparatively unknown, like Isa Genzken, Anselm Kiefer, Thomas Schütte und Jörg Immendorff. More than 40 artists took part in the exhibition. The catalogue features an extensively researchedchronological compilation of national and international artistic and cultural events since 1945. It also analyzed the results of a survey Block conducted among museums and galleries.

Liberated Sound / Plans for upper Austria’s 1988 regionalexhibition

Two projects link Block to the City of Linz and the region. One is Upper Austria’s regional exhibition, Der befreite Klang. Kunst für Augen und Ohren (Liberated Sound. Art for Eyes and Ears), which was planned for 1988, the other an invitation by Ars Electronica 1988 to take charge of several sound installations in the Donaupark.

In 1988, Upper Austria’s regional exhibition was to have been devoted to the border area between fine art and music. The venue designated for the exhibition, the newly restored Weinberg Castle in Kefermarkt, was to be made to resonate with the exhibition and the concerts that were to accompany it. Conceived under the aegis of Wieland Schmied, the exhibition involved contemporary artists and composers such as Connie Beckley, John Cage, Dick Higgins, Laurie Anderson, La Monte Young and Yannis Xennakis, who had been commissioned with creating works especially suited to Weinberg and its environs.

In the autumn of 1987, the exhibition was cancelled at short notice, only a few months before it was due to open. For his decision, the governor of Upper Austria cited differences of opinion concerning the conception of the exhibition and misgivings about the lack of support from the local population. Having thus been deprived of his role in the regional exhibition, Block concentrated on projects by Henning Christiansen, Joe Jones and Yoshimasa Wada at the Klang-Park of Ars Electronica 1988.

Block oversaw two curatorial projects in Austria, the exhibition Über Malerei – Begegnungen mit der Geschichte (On Painting – Encounters with History) in 1992 to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the foundation of the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna and the exhibition Eine kleine Machtmusik. Bericht aus dem Depot (A Little Might Music. Report from the Depot) at the Essl Museum in Klosterneuburg in 2013.

Editions and Multiples

Art objects issued in limited editions known as multiples represent a fundamental innovation in the history of 20th century art. They adhere to a democratic idea, namely the availability of reasonably priced art for everyone. The multiple is hence surrounded by an aura of rebellion because it sets itself up as an alternative to high-priced originals.Multiples play an important role in René Block’s work. Since 1966, he has published a large number of editions which were conceived together with the artists. Block regularly extolled the cultural significance of the multiple, for example at the 1972 “First Trade Fair for Multiplied Art” in Berlin, which he coinitiated, and at his 1974 Multiples exhibition dealing with the history of this art form at the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein.

Seite 10

Page 11: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

In 1968 the Edition Block published Joseph Beuys’s first multiple, Evervess II 1, and with Nam June Paik’s The Thinker (TV-Rodin), Block issued the very first video multiple in 1976/78. Joseph Beuys’s Sled, produced in 1969 in the context of his installation The Pack, Richard Hamiltons The Critic Laughs 1968-71 and The Manuscript by Marcel Broodthaers 1974 are among the best known multiples to be published by the Edition Block. More recently published editions include multiples by Mona Hatoum, Olaf Metzel, Ayşe Erkmen and Alicja Kwade.

The Bofinger Chair as an object

A 1971 cooperative project between the Galerie Block and the Modus furniture store in Berlin-Charlottenburg resulted in a number of artworks that focused on a classic of modern design: the so-called Bofinger Chair designed in 1964 by Helmut Bätzner. Bofinger provided the artists with as many chairs in whatever colours they desired. Alongside the chairs on show here by K. H. Hödicke, Sigmar Polke, Tomas Schmit and Günter Uecker, there were also chairs styled by Joseph Beuys, KP Brehmer, H. J. Dietrich, Dieter Roth, Wolf Vostell and Stefan Wewerka.

DAAD / Ifa

Between 1982 and 1992 Block was Head of Fine Arts Projects in the DAAD’sArtists-in-Berlin programme. From 1984 he was also in charge of theprogramme’s musical activities. In this period, his remit included responsibilityfor the exhibition programme of the DAAD Gallery and for the artists andcomposers who had come to Berlin on a DAAD scholarship.

Between 1993 and 1995 Block was head of the exhibition service of the Institutfür Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), the institute in charge of the presentation ofGerman artists in countries outside Germany. Particularly noteworthy in thiscontext, in addition to solo exhibitions by Günther Uecker und Hanne Darboven,were the exhibitions Leiblicher Logos. 14 Künstlerinnen aus Deutschland(Embodied Logos. 14 Women Artists from Germany) in 1995, Künstlerbücherin Deutschland (Artists’ books in Germany) and the great exhibition Eine lange Geschichte mit vielen Knoten. Fluxus in Deutschland (A long story with manyknots. Fluxus in Germany) which toured the world for many years.

TANAS

The Instanbul Biennale brought a steady increase in contacts with Turkey. Injoint ventures with the Vehbi Koç Foundation and the Yapi Kredi publishinghouse Block edited a series of monographs on Turkish contemporary art andput on a slew of exhibitions of works by contemporary Turkish artists such asHale Tenger, Esra Esren, Gülsün Karamustafa und Gengiz Çekil.

In 2008 René Block opened a non-commercial venue for contemporary art inBerlin called TANAS, the product of his close collaboration with the Vehbi KoçFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkishword for art.

The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

After the series of exhibitions Blockade ´69 and the 1970 Akustische Räume(Acoustic Spaces) the programme of the Galerie Block began to include agrowing number of international artists. Particularly noteworthy were exhibitionsof works by Richard Hamilton, the twin exhibition Minimal Art USA und NeueMonumente Deutschland in 1968 and the first Marcel Duchamp exhibition in

Seite 11

Page 12: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Berlin in 1971.

Many artists who had come to Berlin at the invitation of the DAAD’s Artists-in-Berlin Programme put on exhibitions at the Galerie Block, which resulted inthe gallerist’s close collaboration with the DAAD. He realized exhibitions withPiotr Kowalski, Dan Graham, Roman Opalka, Braco Dimitrijević, James LeeByars, Endre Tót and especially On Kawara, with whom the gallerist had beenpersonally acquainted since his time in New York.

A spectacular action also accompanied the 1979 closing of the Berlin gallery,15 years to the day from its opening. For the exhibition Ja, jetzt brechen wir hierden Scheiß ab (Yeah, Let’s Stop This Shit Now) Beuys had the plaster removedfrom the walls and arranged five spatial installations as a retrospective of his 15years of collaboration with Block.

Fridericianum Kassel

From 1998 to 2005 Block headed the Museum Fridericianum (since 2001 Kunsthalle Fridericianum) in Kassel. After a number of international biennales Kassel offered him the opportunity to develop a complex long-term programmatic structure for a single venue.

Block began in 1998 with Echolot oder 9 Fragen an die Peripherie (Echo Sounder or 9 Questions to the Periphery), an exhibition presenting works by artists from Iran, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, China, Korea and Australia that addressed such themes as geographical periphery, cultural identity and the Western art business. The exhibition Toi Toi Toi. Drei Künstlergenerationen aus Neuseeland (Toi Toi Toi. Three generations of artists from New Zealand) explored the art scene in New Zealand, after Australia had first attracted attention in the 1980s. In den Schluchten des Balkan. Eine Reportage [In the Gorges of the Balkans. A Reportage] from 2003 made up the start of the Balkans Trilogy, a series of exhibitions lasting over a year devoted to the art scene in Southeast Europe.

Seite 12

Page 13: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Press Images

Press Images available for download at www.lentos.at.

Free use of press images only in conjunction with the relevant exhibition.

Joseph Beuys, René Block, Installation of the

exhibition Ja, jetzt brechen wir hier den Scheiß

ab (Yeah, Let`s Stop This Shit Now), Galerie

René Block, Berlin 1979,

Photo: Christiane Hartmann

Joseph Beuys, René Block,

Installation of the exhibition

„Richtkräfte `74“ (Directional

Forces 74), René Block Gallery,

New York 1975,

Photo: Archiv Block

Nam June Paik, The Thinker, 1976/1978,

Sammlung Block, on loan in the Neues Museum

in Nürnberg, Photo: Archiv Block

Allan Kaprow, Sweet Wall, Berlin 1970, Photo: Archiv Block

Aydan Murtezaoğlu, Untitled (Antenna), 2000,

Sammlung Block, on loan in the Neues Museum

in Nürnberg, Photo: Sammlung Block

René Block im Büro seiner

Galerie mit Plakat Hommage à

Berlin, 1969, Photo: KP Brehmer /

KP Brehmer Nachlass, Berlin

Seite 13

Page 14: Externes Schreiben - Startseite€¦  · Web viewFoundation in Istanbul. The word TANAS is an anagram of sanat, the Turkish. word for art. The end of Block´s activities as a gallerist

Mangelos, Energija, 1978, Sammlung Block. On loan in the Neues Museum in Nürnberg, Photo: Neues Museum in Nürnberg (Annette Kradisch)

René Block in der Galerie vor Gerhard Richters „Prinz Sturdza“ (1964), 1966, Photo: KP Brehmer / KP Brehmer Nachlass, Berlin

Aydan Murtezaoglu, At Room Temperature, 2000-2003, Sammlung Block. On Loan in the Neues Museum in Nürnberg

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein Weekend,

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo: Reinhard

Haider

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein

Weekend, LENTOS

Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo:

Reinhard Haider

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein Weekend,

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo: Reinhard

Haider

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein Weekend,

LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo: Reinhard

Haider

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein

Weekend, LENTOS

Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo:

Reinhard Haider

Exhibition View Ich kenne kein Weekend, LENTOS Kunstmuseum Linz, Photo: Reinhard Haider

Seite 14