Views on Mainz

111 Artists in One Office

Opens Mon, March 23, 2015, 7 pm

With works by Nicole Ahland / Nevin Aladağ / Maria Anwander / Heike Aumüller / Josef Bauer / Marc Bauer / Lothar Baumgarten / Thomas Bayrle / Anne Berning / Johanna Billing / Monica Bonvicini / Brandstifter / Kerstin Brätsch / Andrea Büttner / Daniele Buetti / Tom Burr / Gerad Byrne / Ernst Caramelle / David Claerbout / Attila Csörgő / Edith Dekyndt / Anna Dot / Nils Dräger / Björn Drenkwitz / Heinrich Dunst / Uroš Đurić / Anne Eggebert / Stephan Engelke / Samuel Fath / Vadim Fishkin / Frank Gabriel / Rainer Ganahl / Susann Gassen / Agnès Geoffray / Harald Gfader / Nicola Goedecker / Polly Gould / Tamara Grcic / Sofia Greff / Sabine Groß / Katharina Grosse / Sandra Heinz / Nina Heinzel / Marc von der Hocht / Nikolas Hönig / Anne Hoffmann / Sofia Hultén / I. Helen Jilavu / Sven Johne / Franz Kapfer / Dieter Kiessling / Oliver Kelm / Herwig Kempinger / Esther Kläs / Jakob Lena Knebl / Peter Kogler / Anton Kokl / Claudia Larcher / Marko Lehanka / Sonia Leimer / Sara Masüger/ Christian Mayer / Gerhard Meerwein / Ilka Meyer / Sarah Mock / Matt Mullican / João Onofre / Daniel Pauselius / Goran Petercol / Peter Piller / Emilie Pitoiset / August Priebe / Florian Pumhösl / Tobias Putrih / Katja von Puttkamer / Max Reintgen / Cornelia Rößler / Michael Sailstorfer / Judith Samen / Hans Schabus / Benjamin Schaefer / Markus Schinwald / Erik Schmelz / Marten Georg Schmid / Thomas Schmidt / Martin Schwenk / Mary Sherman / Six & Petritsch / John Skoog / Slavs and Tatars / Margherita Spiluttini / Friedemann von Stockhausen / Stoll & Wachall / Bernd Thewes / Sabine Tress / Stephan Truschel / Anna-Lena Tsutsui / Upper Bleistein / Gediminas Urbonas / Winfried Virnich / Simon Wachsmuth / Markus Walenzyk / Christoph Weber / Lisa Weber / Peter Weibel / Jonas Weichsel / Lois Weinberger / Anna Witt / Leo Wörner / Bruno Zhu / Heimo Zobernig

A collection of artistic donations

The offices at galleries and museums fall into a different category from the exhibition space. They are working areas for everyday bureaucracy and organization, with neither high insurance or real estate values, nor any aura or discursive meaning. However, spatial hierarchies become more flexible during periods of transition. This, therefore, is an invitation to rediscover space and art. As my tenure as director of the Kunsthalle Mainz comes to an end—and before my successor moves in—I have transformed my office into a temporary exhibition, which will open to the public starting 23 March 2015, at 7:00 pm. The furniture in my office has been temporarily removed, creating space for objects from artists’ workshops to be put on display by Erik Schmelz. The types of items exhibited are random. There are curios, discarded objects, junk, motion or static pictures, books, photographs, films, videos, knickknacks, texts, and many other things. This “collection” embellishes the conventional concept of art and takes a gentle poke at canonized ways of perceiving it. It is about condensed forms and purported use, about improvisation and personal vedute, the forgotten and the outcast, and not least, about a trove of souvenirs, thoughts, and stories.

Thomas D. Trummer