For The Time Being: Wall Paintings, Painted Walls
Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Germany
During the late 1960s murals were regarded as a sign of rebellion against the art market, since the works could not simply be sold. Today, temporary wall paintings and installations are an integral component of the art world. That artists continue to pursue the process of working with spaces outside the bounds of the classic painting—“opting out of the painting,” as Laszlo Glozer observed about twentieth-century art—shows the explosive force of this groundbreaking art form.
Our exhibition, titled For The Time Being, starts with the reconstruction of outstanding works from the 1960s and ‘70s by Sol LeWitt, Richard Tuttle, and Blinky Palermo. Spanning an arc to the present day, works of abstract, figurative, and textual art by Ernst Caramelle, Jimmie Durham, Douglas Gordon, Arturo Herrera, Imi Knoebel, Michel Majerus, Gordon Matta-Clark, Dan Perjovschi, Kay Rosen, Bridget Riley, Ulrich Rückriem, Kilian Rüthemann, Karin Sander, Thomas Schütte, Anri Sala, Josh Smith, Rinus Van de Velde, Alexander Wagner, Kara Walker, Lawrence Weiner, and Richard Wright have been realized directly on the walls. The Kunsthalle, where freestanding walls are a dominant part of the architecture, provides extraordinary conditions for this special exhibition. In addition, Otto Herbert Hajek’s Farbweg (Color Path) in the stairwell to the Studio Gallery is a mural that has graced our building since 1971.