Cécile Hummel in an interview about ideas, changes of perspective and travel.

The ongoing series Cimetières [Cementaries] by Jean-Olivier Hucleux is exhibited at the Documenta 5 in Kassel in 1972 and is expanded five years later by Friedhof V from the Ludwig Collection. 

Stephan Huber visualizes biographical, philosophical, geographical, and artistic contexts. The artist’s life is the basis for Passage durch den Überbau.

What is still left to discover and explore in the 21st century? How can one satisfy the thirst for adventure and discovery?

Quo Vadis? is the first book of Jochem Hendricks’ well-stocked Reisebibliothek. It is placed on a wooden shelf, the outside of which is covered with municipal coats of arms and international registration codes.

Setting out to break the boundaries of the commercial art market, the artists of the Land Art realize their mostly large-scale projects in areas that are remote and difficult to reach.

Nowhere is Home refers to the Pegida demonstrations of 2015.

July 1969 – the United States win the race for the Moon and cause thereby a fascination in the strange celestial body.

The large-format paper works by Philipp Goldbach confront the viewers with minuscule pencil hand writing of only a few millimeters in size. Only barely decipherable up close, the lines blur to a striped grey surface from a distance.

In Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy Phlegyas is the ferryman who transports the deceased into the Hades in his bark, across the Styx, the river of the dead. Although this character is only briefly mentioned (VIII / 17-21), the crossing of the river is repeatedly addressed in the visual arts.

In 2008, Jerry Frantz proclaims the mobile embassy of the République Libre de Clairefontaine, which is in exile constantly at the IKOB – Museum of Contemporary Art in Eupen. Equipped with a flag, a coat of arms, and a national anthem, the republic stands for its main objective of absolute freedom of thought and expression.

Gizem Güven from Aachen is looking to get in touch with her fellow people. To this end, she decided to print  postcards and to distribute them in aesthetic places in public space. Only those who perceive their surroundings precisely can discover these cards, sometimes between flower pots, sometimes behind stones.  

I am looking at Silicon Valley – Silicon Valley is looking at Me is the result of a several-week stay of the photographer Mareike Foecking in San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

We are absorbing an estimated ten million im pressions per second. Only a few of these impressions can be digitally recorded.

In a dark chamber, on a jade-colored papyrus boat, a figure is laid out, a hybrid creature with a human body and an animal’s head. Two wolf-headed figures, equipped with arrows and arches, are placed at the entrance.

Burning on the stake, wrapped up, high in the treetops or fed to the birds: Like a mantra, Matthew Day Jackson stages his death year after year, always according to a different funeral rite.

Using simple black lines, Walter Dahn depicts a figure who tears its mouth open with both hands. The view into the gorge reveals a skull from which the figure tries to liberate itself.

Travelling? At that time, only works of art could do so, but not their creators. As soon as a first relaxation of the Iron Curtain was tangible, already presentations of unofficial Soviet art took place.

An almost white sphere hangs inside of a display case. Only the characteristic meridian still refers to the fact that it originally depicted the world as a globe.

Final spurt of the installation: Nicole Schuck arrived from Berlin, Cécile Hummel came all the way from Switzerland, Manaf Halbouni drove across the country from Dresden and a package by Anne Pöhlmann reached us from Düsseldorf.

A stormy sea? An imaginary map or the grimace of a god? The painting Die Reise nach Jamaica evokes various associations that defy all attempts of a definite interpretation.

Dots in rows, black-and-white dashed lines, and segments of a circle in different styles: From around the mid-1960s, the diagrammatic symbols of applied graphics arouse the artist’s interest.

At the invitation of Valdis Āboliņš, cultural advisor to Aachen University of Technology’s AStA (General Students’ Union), and the Cologne-based artist Tomas Schmit, Stanley Brouwn participates in the Fluxus Festival of New Art in Aachen on the 20th of July 1964, which aims to abolish the division between art and life.

The scene is reminiscent of an empty stage. Only a glass of water, illuminated from behind, is the focus of attention. Roaring and hammering sounds accompany the video work Passage by Christoph Brech.

In his performance I like America and America likes me that Beuys gives on the occasion of the opening of the René Block Gallery in New York in 1974, the artist lives with a coyote named Little John for five days.

The destination of the Expedition to Paradise Adrift is Sable Island, a Canadian island that constitutes a nautical challenge on the transatlantic shipping route.

The fate of indigenous American peoples is the subtle focus of the Carbon-series from 1989. For four months, Lothar Baumgarten travelled through the United States to document a photographic essay on the pioneering work during the colonization of the country.

Almost at the finish line! Our blog is online since Sunday, only a few artworks are not in place yet and this week has been somewhat more relaxed.

Scattered on the floor of an otherwise empty room are around 300 used, exclusively blue pieces of clothing. It only takes a quick glance at Kader Attia’s abstract and concentrated installation to understand the scope of the work, spatially as well as in terms of content.

In his work Shape No.1, the Japanese American artist Shūsaku Arakawa gives us a seemingly simple task: to forget all places – except the spots and outlines marked on the canvas with the word “place”.

In many of his works, Francis Alÿs deals with the subject of travel. The motif of movement is an essential principle of his artistic acts.

On the 30th of March 1988 Marina Abramović & Ulay set off on a 90-day, emotionally charged hike along the Great Wall of China. Ulay starts from the southwest of the Gobi Desert, while Abramović departs from its opposite side, from the sea.

All museums are closed in November. We will present an artwork of the exhibition Bon Voyage! Travelling in Contemporary Art every day until the end of the year, so that you can still enjoy art.

Full house this week – four male artists, three female artists, two milestones and a podcast. And as you’re not allowed to visit the exhibition in November, don’t worry, we’ll bring it to you!

A review of the first week of installation: How do more than 100 works get to their place? How does an exhibition installation proceed? How does it feel to leave your own comfort zone? And where does the term Retourkutsche (retort) come from?

Or: Why does this blog exist? Looking back on the last few months, we realize one thing in particular: Nothing is the same as usual, but often it is only through this that the opportunity to break new ground arises.

The last part of the way everyone has to walk alone. Although death belongs to life, it exists only in our imagination. No one knows what it is like to die. No one knows when, where, and how death will occur.

Artists are increasingly concerned with the overlaps between science and society, especially with the relationship between humans and machines or humans and their environment.

The artistic positions of the third stage show that art is not just limited to reacting to political and social grievances from a distance. With a high level of personal commitment and dedication, the artists travel directly to the crisis zones, the state of which they document, remind and warn us of.

Travelling creates new experiences, offers new perspectives and new points of view. In order to achieve these outcomes, one does not necessarily have to leave the immediate surroundings. Not every journey challenges us physically.

Anyone who wants to travel has to be at home first. Only the departure from the usual, everyday environment and the subsequent arrival define a journey, no matter where it leads.