MARCH 21 – MAY 17, 2009

LIST OF PARTICIPANTS:
Alte Kinder / Artists Unlimited / Jörg Baier / Bielefelder Colloquium Neue Poesie / Katinka Bock / Peter August Böckstiegel / Kilian Breier / Pierre Cordier / galerie 61 / Alex Gerbaulet & Ines Meier / Hein Gravenhorst / Karl Martin Holzhäuser / Jackson Pollock Bar / Gottfried Jäger / Korpys & Löffler / Künstlerhaus LYDDA / Niklas Luhmann / Wolfgang Müller / Julika Rudelius / Carl Strüwe / Rena Tangens & padeluun, Art d’Ameublement / Günther Uecker / Elmar Zimmermann

The group exhibition »Das Bielefelder Gefühl« grasps itself, in this jubilee year (80 years of the Bielefelder Kunstverein), as an approach towards the city. Furthermore the concept of the show does not intend its theme to be a historical examination of cultural history or an encyclopaedic account of cultural production in Bielefeld and its region. Indeed the project cast an artistic eye over Bielefeld in the sense of series of topics investigating past and present. Questions as to the city’s cultural and social identity and its connection to art do occupy the centre-ground: What determines the image or the images of Bielefeld? Who are the people, what are the things in the city’s cultural life, which places and precise locations in the city’s history or in the art it produces are really significant? How do artists get to grips with this city nowadays?

This exhibition tries to track a feeling, which lies concealed in some in-between space and accordingly articulates itself through a view both inward and outward, through links both direct and indirect. The individual works are not sorted chronologically, but seek to generate a narrative space for experience in the conjunction and contrast of historical and contemporary positions. »Das Bielefelder Gefühl« brings Bielefeld into focus as cultural context and beyond that it seeks to stimulate getting involved right now and in a wide-ranging way with the city and in debating what it is.

The exhibition presents, on the one hand, artists who have engaged with the city for the first time. We will display new contributions developed by Jörg Baier, Katinka Bock, Alex Gerbaulet, Wolfgang Müller and Elmar Zimmermann. On the other hand, artists and projects will be presented, that in the past has already played a significant role in Bielefeld and has had effects beyond the city’s boundaries. This selection of works includes for instance a painting by Peter August Böckstiegel, photographs by the representatives of the Bielefelder Schule der Fotografie, a collection of posters by the Bielefelder Colloquium Neue Poesie, a drawing by the sociologist Niklas Luhmann, a kind of time capsule by the Super 8 film group Alte Kinder, a nail painting by Günther Uecker as well as an installation realised by Rena Tangens & padeluun, Art d’Ameublement. In addition, the exhibition shows works whose themes indirectly relate to the city. For this chapter of the exhibition we invited the following artists: Korpys & Löffler, Julika Rudelius and the artist group Jackson Pollock Bar.

With the Künstlerhaus LYDDA (Bethel), Artists Unlimited and galerie 61, three local, non-commercial galleries and institutions were invited to furnish a wall at the exhibition for three weeks each. That was meant to make individual interpretations of the exhibition’s theme possible or to present current production. With this connection and with the School for Historical Research (University of Bielefeld), with the Bielefelder Botschaft and the initiative capella hospitalis the Bielefelder Kunstverein is seeking to combine the exhibition with the city and to address existing themes across the board.

The contribution by Julika Rudelius is kindly supported by the Netherlands Consulate General, Düsseldorf.