On the Volcano

On the Volcano
A collection presentation with works by Jean-Michel Alberola, Paweł Althamer, Belkis Ayón, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Erik Bulatov, María Magdalena Campos-Pons, Walter Dahn, Fischli/Weiss, Wang Guangyi, Richard Hamilton, Duane Hanson, Joan Jonas, Robert Kushner, Thomas Lanigan-Schmidt, Roy Lichtenstein, Nadenka Creative Association, Bruce Nauman, Hilka Nordhausen, Dan Perjovschi, Raymond Pettibon, Lady Pink (Sandra Fabara), Robert Rauschenberg, Rissa, Ulrike Rosenbach, James Rosenquist, Mikołaj Sobczak, Telewissen, José Toirac, Franz Erhard Walther, Andy Warhol, Annette Wehrmann, Ai Weiwei, Garry Winogrand

On the Volcano, the title of the current presentation of works from the Ludwig Forum’s collections, is borrowed from one of Franz Erhard Walther’s “word-pictures,” a device the artist used to open up “spaces of projection” which viewers could then fill, through their own thoughts, with meaning and content. The paraphrased metaphor to “dance on the lip of a volcano” goes back to an observation made by the French statesman and publicist Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy on the eve of the 1830 July Revolution to describe risky, almost naïve behavior in the face of imminent disaster. Relating this imagery to our reappraisal of the collections at the Ludwig Forum enables us to critically plot the crucial upheavals and the conflicts and divisions marking our contemporary age: the current discourses on freedom (of speech and of expression in the arts) and justice irrespective of origin, gender, or class, are the starting point to realign artistic positions within the collections.

Curated by Eva Birkenstock and Holger Otten