Press Kit

I am here! From Rembrandt to the Selfie

Parallel exhibition: Selfies

Contact Alexandra Hahn

Head of Press and Media

T +49 721 926 3890

hahn@kunsthalle-karlsruhe.de

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Hans-Thoma-Straße 2 –  6

D-76133 Karlsruhe

Contents

I am here! press release 2

Selfies press release 4

Interview with the curatorial team 5–6

The partner museums 7–8

Information on the exhibition and events programme 9–12

Multimedia guide with examples 13–16

Press images 17–19

Partners and sponsors 20

I am here!

From Rembrandt to the Selfie

31.10.2015 – 31.1.2016 The self-portrait occupies a core place in the history of European art. Ever since

the Renaissance, and in some cases even earlier, artists have self-consciously

created a picture of themselves, posed for themselves, and constructed and

cultivated their image. The exhibition I am here! From Rembrandt to the Selfie

presents some 140 works by 100 artists spanning six centuries - a richly diverse

panorama of self-portraiture in old and new media, from the intimate drawing to

the selfie going viral.

Three European museums − the Musée des Beaux-Arts in Lyon, National Galleries

of Scotland in Edinburgh, and Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe − have joined forces

as partners of a tri-national art event called I am here European Faces. Today’s

exhibition is part of the project. The European project has received generous

support from the EU as part of the Creative Europe programme − an initiative by

the EACEA (Education, Audiovisual and Culture Executive Agency).

I am here! reflects the early self-assurance of the Renaissance artist, the

magnificent spectacle of the self in the Baroque, the sentimental subjectivity of

Romantic self-portraiture, the increasingly unsparing view of the self in modern

art, and finally the obsessive questioning of the self in the era of digital

photography and video. It brings together works by Vincenzo Campi, Rembrandt

van Rijn, Marie Ellenrieder, Gustave Courbet, Hans Thoma, Anselm Feuerbach,

Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Henri Matisse, Max Beckmann, Andy Warhol, Marina

Abramović, Tracey Emin, Annie Lennox, and Ai Weiwei to name but a few.

Through the selection from three European collections, the exhibition also reveals

the shifting faces of art production in each of the participating countries over the

centuries.

The exhibition also features an interactive digital work: Visitors are invited to view

themselves in a magic mirror, using the interactive media artwork Flick_EU /

FLICK_EU Mirror, created by the ZKM | Karlsruhe. Designed by Peter Weibel and

Matthias Gommel, FLICK_EU allows visitors to have their portraits taken and

become part of the exhibition. FLICK_EU is an artistic reflection on the function of

the portrait in the age of digital media. At the same time, it creates a virtual

European community, since the visitor is also virtually present in the other

museums and cities. Another perspective on the community of FLICK_EU citizens

is provided by the installation FLICK_EU MIRROR, designed by Bernd Lintermann

and Joachim Tesch (ZKM | Karlsruhe). In it, the visitor sees a live video projection

of himself. After a short while, the image becomes increasingly pixelated, with

each pixel emerging as a portrait photo of the people who have taken part in

FLICK_EU. The projection oscillates between the depiction of individuals and their

dissolution in a sea of portraits.

Junge Kunsthalle

Selfies

Parallel presentation coinciding with the exhibition I am here!

31 October 2015 – 30 January 2016

A world without selfies is hard to imagine today. They have become an important

means of self-presentation for young people in particular. The exhibition Selfies at

the Junge Kunsthalle aims to encourage further contemplation of this relatively

new phenomenon.

Our programme begins with viewing the self-portraits in the exhibition I am here!

With the impressions of these works in mind, visitors can afterwards photograph

themselves at the Junge Kunsthalle, creating settings to make their own selfies. As

part of the process, we will also explore the technical limits of the medium: the

selfies will be hung up in a type of ‘net’- symbolising the Internet - that fills up and

becomes more intricate with time. The older selfies do not disappear, however,

but can always be found again. The visualisation of this process aims to encourage

reflection on what happens to images online and to improve the media literacy of

our young visitors. Through practical activities, links between digital production

and analogue techniques are established, making it possible to continually switch

perspectives and media. The goal of this outreach programme at the Junge

Kunsthalle is to generate awareness of the material conditionality of all creative

practice: just as a painting or a print is shaped by the application and properties of

the artistic media and tools used, the selfie is similarly defined by many external

factors, e.g., by the length of the photographer’s arms or the selfie stick that

determines the subject’s distance from the camera.

A range of activities on social media such as Twitter, Facebook, and the photo-

sharing platform Instagram will address target groups interested in selfies. Within

the framework of the tri-national cooperation, we will exhibit selfies of young

people made during courses held by the three museums involved in the project in

Karlsruhe, Lyon, and Edinburgh. We will also present the results of a selfie

workshop for young people sponsored by the EU and hosted by three students

from the art colleges in Karlsruhe, Lyon, and Edinburgh in advance of the

exhibition.

INTERVIEW WITH THE CURATORS

Why has the subject of self-representation gained such currency in recent

times?

At no time in history was society defined by images to such an extent as it is

today. The possibility to capture one’s likeness with a smartphone, to share it with

friends and post it on the net has enormous appeal. This ‘modern addiction’ to

sharing information about ourselves satisfies a desire that didn’t just start with the

smartphone generation, but is in a sense a fundamental human trait. The ubiquity

of the selfie today can be understood as a contemporary version of self-

presentation that is becoming more widespread and differentiated with the

progress of technology.

Why are you exhibiting selfies in an art museum?

Many artists are involved in the selfie phenomenon, too, and are enriching the

growing collection of images on the internet with pictures that range from quick

snapshots to carefully staged set-ups. As part of the exhibition, we’re showing a

series of selfies by Ai Weiwei, who takes a very experimental approach to the

medium but also attaches political significance to it. The museum of art should

neither attempt to definitively classify the selfie nor take a culturally pessimistic

stance and dismiss the subject entirely. The term selfie is not even clearly defined;

rather, its meaning is very flexible and expands every day. What fascination does

the selfie hold for artists? Why is it still so popular especially among young people?

We see the museum as a place where we can take a step back and reflect on this

multi-faceted phenomenon. Through the historical breadth of our project, we can

illustrate how the history of art is reflected in pop culture and, at the same time,

visitors can question their own self-image by taking a closer look at this history.

I am here! gives our visitors the opportunity to learn about different types of

artistic self-portraiture, which could change attitudes to contemporary media

consumption and the practice of taking selfies.

How will the works in the exhibition I am here! be presented?

A surprising arrangement of images and plaster casts of antique statues in the

very first room of the exhibition will make it clear that history is not being shown

here in a linear or chronological sequence, as a history of the genre of modern

self-portraits; instead, we bring together works from different eras that museums

would customarily categorise and display separately. This will result in unusual

pairings from Rembrandt and Robert Mapplethorpe to Annie Lennox and

Gustave Courbet or Marie Ellenrieder and Ken Currie.

The history of art is told from a broad European perspective in our exhibition but

only in fragments. The wide-ranging field of artistic self-representation will be

displayed in all its facets, not only letting the power of the large works come to

the fore but also shining a spotlight on artistic creations that are anecdotal,

scurrilous, or downright bizarre. Our presentation can be described as an

unconventional experiment that hopes to inspire our visitors to challenge and

leave behind ingrained ways of seeing.

The visitors in Karlsruhe, Lyon, and Edinburgh are supposed to participate in

the project − why is that important for this exhibition?

Nowadays, in the age of the selfie, it isn’t just artists who contemplate the

question of self-depiction. It seemed imperative to us to use the exhibits to get

the visitors directly involved in our exhibition, for instance through the art project

Flick_EU and Flick_EU Mirror, provided by the ZKM | Karlsruhe. Thanks to a photo

booth, visitors can make a portrait of themselves and become part of the

exhibition. This interactive project within the exhibition opens up questions on the

role of the individual, the urge to capture one’s self-image, and the dissolution of

the individual in masses and masses of digital images. The flood of selfies and self-

portrait poses which threatens to overwhelm us on social networks can, however,

also sharpen our senses in gauging the special qualities of the ‘historical’ self-

portraits.

The partner museums

KARLSRUHE

Presiding over three buildings on Hans-Thoma-Straße − the main building, the

Junge Kunsthalle, and the Orangerie − the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe is one

of Germany’s largest and most historical art museums. With its frescoes by Moritz

von Schwind dating from the year of its opening, 1846, the main building is one

of the last surviving museum Gesamtkunstwerke of its time. The Kunsthalle’s rich

collection provides fertile ground for its exhibition and art-education activities. The

collection’s roots lie in the collecting activities of the marquises and later grand

dukes of Baden, with collection records of the earliest works dating back to the

16th century. Constantly expanding thanks to an active collection policy, the

collection now boasts 3500 paintings and sculptures and some 100,000 drawings

and prints representing all important periods of art history, which combine to

form a multifaceted survey of Western art. Particularly well represented are

German painting of the Middle Ages and Renaissance, the art of the Dutch

Golden Age, with several brilliant examples featured in the exhibition, and French

and German painting from the 17th to the 19th century.

LYON

The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon is one of the largest art museums in France. It

is located in the centre of the city and is housed in a magnificent 17th-century

building. It was opened in 1801, making it one of the earliest museums to be

established in Europe. Spread over four wings including a chapel, the collection

displays give visitors an extraordinary survey of art and design from antiquity to

the modern era.

In addition to its holdings of Egyptian and Roman antiquities and its extensive

collection of sculptures, design objects, and numismatic objects, the museum is

also renowned for its department of European painting. It includes works from

the 13th century to the present, with a special emphasis on French, Italian, and

Netherlandish art. Thanks to a very active acquisitions policy, the museum

expands its portfolio continuously. The Musée des Beaux-Arts de Lyon is

represented in this exhibition above all through its outstanding works of French

painting from the 17th to 19th century.

EDINBURGH

The National Galleries of Scotland is one of the most important museum groups

in Europe. Based in Edinburgh, its collection is divided into three major groupings:

the Scottish National Gallery, with its outstanding collection of European painting

from the Renaissance to post-Impressionism; the Scottish National Portrait Gallery,

with a strong and deliberate focus on Scottish portraiture and Scottish portrait

photography that allows visitors to trace the history of the country through

portraits and cultural-historical objects; and, thirdly, the Scottish National Gallery

of Modern Art, a gallery of Scottish and international art dating from 1900

onwards, notable for the strength of its collection of Dada and Surrealist art. Each

of its three museums is known for holding internationally renowned

exhibitions. What the Edinburgh collections bring above all to the exhibition is a

large number of modern and contemporary works, ranging from Henri Matisse to

Andy Warhol.

Information on the exhibition

Project director: Prof. Dr. Pia Müller-Tamm

Curators: Dr. Dorit Schäfer, Dr. Alexander Eiling

Curatorial research associates: Dr. Juliane Betz, Dr. Kirsten Voigt, Dr. Tessa

Friederike Rosebrock

Curators for the Junge Kunsthalle: Dr. Sibylle Brosi, Petra Erler, Elena Welscher

CATALOGUE

Ich bin hier! Von Rembrandt zum Selfie

Edited by Pia Müller-Tamm and Dorit Schäfer.

Featuring texts by Michael Clarke, Alexander

Eiling, Imogen Gibbon, James Hall, Pia Müller-

Tamm, Stéphane Paccoud, Sylvie Ramond, Tessa

Rosebrock, Dorit Schäfer, Wolfgang Ullrich,

Ludmilla Virassamynaiken, Pierre Vaisse.

150 colour plates, 256 pages, 30 x 24 cm,

gatefold cover

Museum edition: €29.00, available from the

museum gift shop and from the museum’s online

shop.

Retail price: €39.80 [DE], Snoeck Verlag.

VISITOR INFORMATION

Opening times

Daily 10:00–18:00, Mondays closed.

Closed 24 December and 31 December, open on New Year’s Day from 13:00

Admission

€8 / concessions €6 / school pupils €2 / families €16

Public guided tours

on Saturdays and Sundays, at 15:00

Visites guidées en français: sam. 14 h 3o toutes les 2 semaines

Themed tours

Fortnightly: Tuesdays, 19:00 and Wednesdays, 13:00

Further details available in the calendar section of the museum website, or in

programme leaflet. Fee: €2

Bookings for group tours: 0721-926-2696,

info@kunsthalle-karlsruhe.de.

ACCOMPANYING EVENTS

PANEL DISCUSSION

Wed, 25 November, 19:00

Selfies, emojis, and the use of images on social media networks

Panel with Wolfgang Ullrich, art historian and cultural analyst, Anke von Heyl,

blogger and art historian, and Dr. Alexander Eiling, co-curator of I am here!,

Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe

Moderator: Christian Gries, art historian and digital media developer

CONCERT

Thurs, 26 November, 19:00

The Emotional Self

Concert featuring works including from Josquin des Prez, C. Ph. E. Bach, Franz

Schubert, and Karlheinz Stockhausen. Musicians: students and teachers at the

Hochschule für Musik Karlsruhe.

PANEL DISCUSSION

Wed, 2 December, 19:00

Where are we really (when we are)?

A conversation on producers in art and science.

Featuring Susanne Baer (expert in jurisprudence, one of the judges at the Federal

Constitutional Court), Tatjana Doll (painter, professor at the Akademie der

Bildenden Künste, Karlsruhe), Ursula Krechel (author and literature specialist), Pia

Müller-Tamm (art historian, director of the Kunsthalle Karlsruhe).

Moderator: Julia Voss (art historian, journalist: Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung)

Admission concert: €6 / conc. €4;

Admission panels: €4 / conc. €2

SOCIAL MEDIA EVENTS

TWEETUP #Iamhere

Fri, 13 November 2015

We are inviting all Twitterati to descend on Karlsruhe to take part in an exclusive

guided walk-through and tweet about the exhibition live. Whoever can’t make it

to the exhibition in person, can still find out all about the art via the hashtag

#Iamhere − in three languages. We also hope to receive many tweets and selfies

from Lyon and Edinburgh. In the Karlsruhe show, we’re not only presenting self-

portraits ranging from six centuries, but also many exciting selfie background

motifs, so that visitors can photograph themselves in a variety of roles and poses.

Blogparade #selfierade

From 15.10. to 31.1.2016

The Kunsthalle is inviting audiences to join a discussion on the topic of selfies on

social media platforms. The basis for the discussion takes the form of an essay

from the exhibition catalogue on selfies, written by art historian and cultural

scholar Wolfgang Ullrich. The essay has been posted exclusively on the pages of

the Munich network ‘Kulturkonsorten’ and the Kunsthalle’s own website. To kick-

start the debate prior to the exhibition, the Kunsthalle has asked five popular

cultural bloggers to write five initial posts on the selfie to get the ball rolling for a

#blogparade that anyone can join in with. The blog posts will be collated and

shown on a special feed on the Kunsthalle’s website.

Instagram competition #selfieassignment_ka

Mid-January 2016

A digital self-portrait only becomes a selfie when it is shared, liked, starred, and

commented on. In cooperation with the photography project ‘This Ain’t Art

School’ (@thisaintartschool) by cultural journalist Anika Meier and painter and art

teacher Jorg Sengers, the Kunsthalle is holding a competition in mid − January in

which participants are given four tasks related to self-portraits and selfies. Creative

contributions will be posted on Instagram under the hashtag

#selfieassignment_ka.

EVENTS AT THE JUNGE KUNSTHALLE

From self-portrait to selfie and back again

03–06.11., 14:00 –17:00

Inspired by the art in the exhibitions Selfie and I am here!, youngsters can make,

print, and alter their own selfies as well as print self-portraits and transfer them to

canvas or make collages. Ages 12 and up, 4 events, €20

Augen Blicke

Sat, 21.11, 14:00–17:00

Get inspired by the serious, laughing, or curious gazes of the artists in I am here!

and try to capture your own face with crayon and charcoal. Ages 10 and up, €5

Am I St. Nicholas?

Sat, 5.12.15, 14:00–17:00

Kids get to make a photo story of themselves disguised as St. Nicholas, captured

in a series of weird and wonderful, original selfies. Ages 8 and up, €5

Selfies instead of tinsel

Sat, 19.12., 14:00–17:00

Baubles on the tree are so passé! The new trend is for reindeer, sheep, or cattle

with superimposed kids’ faces and the selfie-angel on top. Ages 8 and up, €5

Face to Face

Sat, 30.1.16, 14:00–17:00

Draw one half of your face with pastel crayons and charcoal, hold it up to your

face and take a selfie − of the half-real, half-drawn you! Ages 10 and up, €5

Open Space

On Saturdays, Sundays, and holidays, 13:00–16:00

At weekends and during the holidays kids can get drawing with pastel crayons,

watercolours, or paint with tempera and oils and give shape to creative ideas

sparked from seeing the exhibition. No prior registration required; free entry!

Material costs: €1 to €3

For families

Every Sunday at 14:45

Activities programme for children ages 5 and up. Duration: approximately 2 hours;

no prior registration necessary, just turn up on the day. In that time, parents and

accompanying adults may take part in the guided tour through the exhibition I am

here! Fee: €3.50

Antenna International’s Multimedia Guide

I am here! It’s a powerful statement. Yet the many different self-portraits in

the exhibition also raise many questions. How do I see myself? How do I

portray myself? With whom do I portray myself? And what do objects betray

about me?

Posing questions like these, Antenna International’s multimedia guide suggests

different ways of approaching the works on display while providing a variety

of means for visitors to engage with them. One of these is an audio-

commentary which gives interpretations of selected works along with

background information, accompanied by a visual display with close-ups of

details and reference illustrations. There are also short biographies of all the

artists represented in the exhibition, so that visitors can contemplate individual

self-portraits while at the same time learning something about their subjects’

lives − some famous, others less well-known.

A third approach is offered by the grouping of portraits in galleries with

particular themes: “I am body”, “I am playing a part” or “My other face”, for

example. This allows visitors to create their own personal tour of the

exhibition, making their own connections and perhaps coming to see the

theme of the self-portrait in new and unexpected lights.

Examples from the multimedia guide

(If reproducing, please acknowledge Antenna International as the source)

_____________________________________________________________

No. 103 Louis Janmot, Self-portrait, 1832

_____________________________________________________________

No-one can escape the stare of this young artist: his eyes pin us down. But the

penetrating intensity and unwavering concentration of Louis Janmot’s gaze are

not directed at us, as it appears, but at his own reflection in a mirror. The brush in

his hand is poised like a scalpel. The symmetry of this uncompromisingly frontal

portrait accentuates its spellbinding intensity.

Nothing detracts from the individual portrayed. Yet this bold and unconventional

composition is not a work of 20th century ‘New Objectivity’, but a painting from

the year 1823!

The background is made up of two simple zones of red and green colour. Janmot

is suggesting here a draped curtain, a classical background motif in European

portraiture. Yet the reference is so casual as to be almost abstract. Instead, the

viewer’s attention is drawn to the face and hands. Here Louis Janmot makes

skilful use of light and shade, employing delicate nuances of colour to emphasise

the sculptural effect.

The tension and concentration involved in the act of painting are forcefully

conveyed by the artist’s pose. The penetrating gaze seems to suggest that the

creative process requires not only technical skill but the highest level of mental

and spiritual awareness.

Louis Janmot was eighteen years old and a student at the Lyon Academy when

he painted this self-portrait. Later, you will meet several of his fellow students and

teachers in works on loan from the Musée des Beaux-Arts Lyon. The other two

institutions taking part in the exhibition are also introduced in this room.

Look under the menu “I’m all eyes!” to see how other artists have put their own

eyes centre-stage.

_______________________________________________________________

Nr. 109 Vincenzo Campi, The Ricotta Eaters, around 1580

_______________________________________________________________

Look at them all tuck in! These merry folk are enjoying to the full their fresh, white

ricotta cheese. With big spoons they are scooping pieces out of the cheese wheel

and shoving them into their mouths with much smacking of lips. The painter

himself, Vincenzo Campi, has joined the jolly group around the table; he’s the

older man with the beard next to the young woman. His wink tells us he’s playing

the role of jester; as does his white pointed collar, part of the typical costume of

the Pantalone, a figure from Italian Commedia dell’Arte.

But Campi is not only serving up a pleasant genre scene with his painting − he’s

also giving us food for thought.

For − have you noticed? − it’s all in the ricotta cheese: with its round scooped-out

holes, it resembles a skull! To reinforce this reminder of the transience of earthly

pleasure, there is also a fly crawling over the cheese − a classical vanitas symbol in

still-life painting. Don’t forget that you, too, are transient: that’s the message. All

of a sudden, your laugh − or the cheese − might stick in your throat ... But the

infectious merriment of the subjects takes the sting from this moral seriousness.

After all, there’s another way to look at it − Carpe diem! Seize the day!

That other temptations besides food and drink are on offer is suggested by the

young woman, with her generous décolleté and sensuously flushed cheeks − and

her coquettish glance in our direction….

This mixture of enigmatic ambiguity and gay abandon obviously appealed to

contemporaries: six further versions of the painting are known. It must also have

meant a lot to the painter himself, since he kept this particularly fine version in his

own possession.

_______________________________________________________________

Nr. 119 Ai Weiwei, Selfies

_______________________________________________________________

The harsh flash of a cell phone flares in the small, reflective interior of the lift −

and the selfie has been taken. The Chinese artist Ai Weiwei snapped this image on

12th August 2009: he had just been arrested in a hotel in the city of Chengdu.

Along with rock-musician, Zuoxiao Zuzhou, seen on the right of the picture, he is

being taken away by police. Yet Ai Weiwei managed to document his arrest in a

split-second. A little later the well-known critic of the regime uploaded his selfie

on Twitter. Now no power in the world could stop the photo.

The perfect composition of the spontaneous shot is astonishing: the artist places

himself symmetrically in the centre. The bright flare of the flash turns him into a

figure of light. One can’t help thinking of images of Christ and the saints: the

bearded Ai Weiwei, in his torn, blood-red T-shirt, appears like a modern martyr.

As a result of the brutal police assault Ai Weiwei suffered a brain haemorrhage.

§ On screen: 119b.jpg (Ai Weiwei cat. 144)

Later he received treatment in a Munich clinic − and documented this, as you

can see now on your screen, in selfie

By constantly capturing his life in photos and networking all over the world, the artist

is making himself into a public persona. The reasons behind this are quite pragmatic:

Ai Weiwei’s international reputation and the watchful eyes of the public are his best

life-insurance policy. No-one so famous can be arrested, harassed or silenced without

anyone knowing.

§ On screen: 119c.jpg (Ai Weiwei cat. 145)

Ai Weiwei is one of the first to use the smartphone selfie as an artistic medium − thus

adding a new dimension to the traditional genre of the self-portrait. But even before

the age of the internet, artists belonged to social networks. It was a theme they

sometimes expressed in their self-portraits by depicting themselves in the company of

friends, colleagues, or family members − as social beings.

Partners:

For their generous support, we thank: