Dreams of an Owl, Who the Bær and the Wounded Planet
Stories from the Kunsthalle collection and an intervention by Simon Fujiwara
When do owls dream? What do animals, which in cultural history often stand for foresight and wisdom, dream of? Perhaps the artist Hans (Jean) Arp was hoping for more insight when he renamed his 1937/38 sculpture “Owl” “Owl Dream” in 1957?
With his view that artistic and natural processes are of equal value and that man and his actions are always in relation to nature and by no means superior to it, Hans (Jean) Arp anticipated central aspects of our thinking today. Ever since humans began intervening in planetary systems such as the atmosphere for the first time and were confronted with the climate crisis, a change of perspective has been necessary in all areas of society. The exhibition raises the question of which images inspire or encourage us to change our perspective. Which works or themes in the Kunsthalle Bielefeld collection do we see differently against the backdrop of the climate crisis, planetary thinking – or in short: in the age of the Anthropocene – and what consequences do we draw from this for our museum work?
The collection exhibition is complemented by “Who the Bær”, an art figure created by the British-Japanese artist Simon Fujiwara (*1982 in London, lives in Berlin) based on the classic children’s book “Pooh the Bear” by A. A. Milne and has been continuously developed since 2020. “Who the Bær” appears in drawings, paintings, sculptures, installations and films and searches for identity and orientation in its engagement with art and museums.
Artists:
Hans Arp, Marina Abramović, Georg Baselitz, Rudolf Belling, Hubert Berke, Katinka Bock, Katharina Bosse, Monica Bonvicini, Daniel Buren, Teresa Burga, Michael Buthe, Herbert Brandl, Alexander Calder, Marc Chagall, Henri Gaudier-Brzeska, Sonja Delaunay-Terk, Robert Delaunay, Otto Dix, Marlene Dumas, Max Ernst, Lionel Feininger, Conrad Felixmüller, Gunter Fruhtrunk, Erwin Graumann, Richard Haizmann, Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack, Ferdinand Hodler, Gerhard Hoehme, Wassily Kandinsky, Anselm Kiefer, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Paul Kottenkamp, Kurt Kranz, Henri Laurens, August Macke, Goshka Macuga, Louis Marcoussis, André Masson, Henry Moore, Wilhelm Morgner, Karl-Heinz Meyer, Otto Mueller, Gabriele Münter, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Louise Nevelson, Olaf Nicolai, Emil Nolde, Jules Olitski, Yoko Ono, Anna Oppermann, Sigmar Polke, Man Ray, Gerhard Richter, Auguste Rodin, Ulrike Rosenbach, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, Katharina Sieverding, Robert Smithson, Hermann Stenner, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Anton Tapiès, Oscar Tuazon, Geer van Velde, James Welling, Erwin Wendt, Fritz Winter and others.a.
In cooperation with Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Prof. Dr. Timo Skrandies)
The exhibition is sponsored by:
