The primary institutional solo exhibition, “Fragments, or simply Moments,” by the U.S.-American artist Tony Cokes in Germany additionally marks the primary complete collaboration between the Kunstverein München and the Haus der Kunst and is the results of an in depth dialogue between the artist, the establishments, and their archives over the previous two years. Cokes connects the 2 venues situated in shut proximity with newly commissioned works which might be introduced each within the two establishments and within the public area located between them.

Cokes’s new works study the previous of the 2 venues by drawing on historic supply materials. The start line, on the one hand, is the propagandistic hyperlink between the 2 exhibition websites throughout the Nazi period when the “Haus der Deutschen Kunst” opened in 1937 with the primary iteration of the “Nice German Artwork Exhibition” and, in its fast neighborhood within the Hofgarten constructing, which for the reason that Nineteen Fifties homes the Kunstverein München, the “Degenerate Artwork” exhibition opened. However, Cokes’ new works middle across the establishments’ cultural-political function within the context of the twentieth Olympic Video games in Munich in 1972. As a “celebration of peace,” they had been supposed to characterize a radical antithesis to the video games final held in Nazi Germany in 1936 and to current the nation on a global stage as a efficiently denazified and cosmopolitan state. This political recoding was expressed each within the structure of the brand new Olympic Stadium, the infrastructural enlargement of town, in addition to a complete design for the Olympics by graphic designer Otl Aicher. Cokes, whose audiovisual works discover the affective politics of picture, colour, and typography, considers this design notably with regard to its colour idea and its related ideology.

The artist’s engagement with the occasion extends into public area with new works put in in numerous areas on the general public walkway between the establishments, together with the underpass there which was constructed as a part of the guests’ route for the nationwide sports activities occasion, and on the fence of the U.S. Consulate Common. In doing so, Cokes creates a mapping and allows the negotiation of public remembrance within the 12 months that marks the fiftieth anniversary of the 1972 Munich Olympics.

For greater than three many years, Tony Cokes has explored the ideology and have an effect on politics of media and common tradition and their impression on societies. Departing from a critique of the illustration and visible commodification of African American communities in movie, tv, promoting, and music movies, the artist has developed a novel type of video essay that radically rejects representational imagery. These fast-moving works are produced from discovered textual in addition to sound materials from numerous sources reminiscent of essential concept, on-line journalism, literature, and pop music. Composed of a spread of socio-cultural references, the collages enable for a brand new mind-set about structural racism, capitalism, warfare, and gentrification.

at Kunstverein München
till September 11, 2022

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