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Paula Modersohn-Becker / Ian Wilson

Brush, line and assertion - face to face and side by side #10

An empty room with pink walls and a dark tiled floor. A small portrait hangs on the left wall. On the right wall is white text. A large white circle is drawn in chalk in the middle of the floor between them.
Installation view Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Ian Wilson, Circle on the Floor #14, 1968, chalk, Haubrok Collection and Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) self-portrait, bust portrait with brush in raised hand 1902, photo: Philip Fröhlich
Portrait of a young woman, up to the breast. The brushstrokes are clearly visible. A window in the background. She is wearing her brown hair tied back, a yellowish-blue collar that looks like a necklace and a dark top. She is holding a paintbrush in her left hand.
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) Self-portrait, bust portrait with brush in raised hand 1902 Oil on cardboard Gift from Dr. Friedrich Johenning, Düsseldorf, in grateful memory of his grandparents Carl and Katharina Miele, née zu Wickern 2017, Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer

In the exhibition series “face to face and side by side”, a work from the collection of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld meets a selected loan from another institution. This encounter leads to new, often surprising perspectives.

The work “Self-Portrait. Half-length portrait with brush in raised hand”, 1902, by Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) from the Kunsthalle collection meets the work “Circle on the Floor #14”, 1968/2024, by the South African-American conceptual artist Ian Wilson (1940-2020) from the Haubrok Collection. While Modersohn-Becker portrays herself with a brush in her hand, demonstratively positioning herself as a painter in a groundbreaking way for the period around 1900, Ian Wilson asserts a sculpture, detached from a context, with a circle drawn on the floor with chalk.

An empty room with a pink wall and dark tiled floor. A large white circle is drawn on it with chalk.
Installation view Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Ian Wilson, Circle on the Floor #14, 1968, chalk, Haubrok Collection, photo: Philip Fröhlich

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with the haubrok foundation.

The exhibition series is produced in cooperation with the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1288 “Practices of Comparison. Arranging and Changing the World” at Bielefeld University.

Face to Face
and Side by Side

The series “face to face and side by side” focuses on a work from the collection of Kunsthalle Bielefeld that addresses central issues in juxtaposition with a selected external work. The focus is always on a concentrated comparison of the selected works.

Media guide


If this woman were to meet you here and now in the Kunsthalle. What would be your first impression of her? How old might she be? Is she rather shy or self-confident? Take a moment to form your own impression of her!

The woman is Paula Modersohn-Becker. She is 26 years old when she portrays herself here before her second stay in Paris.

On New Year’s Eve 1900, she traveled from Bremen to Paris for the first time, as she was determined to become a painter. In Germany, women were not allowed to study at art academies at that time. Things are different in France: here Paula Modersohn-Becker can learn, ask questions, educate herself!

Perhaps she is courageous, determined, but also a little shy. Courageous, because here she confidently presents herself as a painter. With brush in hand! And she looks straight at us. There have been portraits of male artists in this style for centuries. Did you notice her red cheeks? Perhaps she is also a little excited about her statement: “Here I am, Paula-Modersohn-Becker, and I am a painter!

 

Text: Christiane Lutterkort
Audio by: Charlotte-Sophie Laege
Recording and editing in cooperation with the Making Media Space in the Digital Learning Lab at Bielefeld University.

An empty room with a pink wall and dark tiled floor. A large white circle is drawn on it with chalk.
Installation view Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Ian Wilson, Circle on the Floor #14, 1968, chalk, Haubrok Collection, photo: Philip Fröhlich
Portrait of a young woman, up to the breast. The brushstrokes are clearly visible. A window in the background. She is wearing her brown hair tied back, a yellowish-blue collar that looks like a necklace and a dark top. She is holding a paintbrush in her left hand.
Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) Self-portrait, bust portrait with brush in raised hand 1902 Oil on cardboard Gift from Dr. Friedrich Johenning, Düsseldorf, in grateful memory of his grandparents Carl and Katharina Miele, née zu Wickern 2017, Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
An empty room with pink walls and a dark tiled floor. A small portrait hangs on the left wall. On the right wall is white text. A large white circle is drawn in chalk in the middle of the floor between them.
Installation view Kunsthalle Bielefeld: Ian Wilson, Circle on the Floor #14, 1968, chalk, Haubrok Collection and Paula Modersohn-Becker (1876-1907) self-portrait, bust portrait with brush in raised hand 1902, photo: Philip Fröhlich

KB Journal

Between color volume, drippings and braiding
German women artists of the Informel after 1945

Black and white photograph of a woman pouring paint from a pot onto the floor.

In the literature on Art Informel, abstract art in Germany after 1945, the role of women in this art movement is rarely mentioned. This is where we begin to fill this void. We present four German women artists of the post-war period and explain the special German cultural scene of the time in which they were active.

Black and white photograph of a woman pouring paint from a pot onto the floor.

More from the archive

A woman has her head tilted to the left. She looks old and emaciated. She holds her chin with a bony hand. Her eyes are closed, her hair looks a bit untidy, it is probably pinned up at the back.

Taking a stand. Käthe Kollwitz, Mona Hatoum
Schwarz-weißes Bild eines mittelalten Mannes mit kurzgeschorenen dunkelgrauen Haaren, breiter Nase und dunklen Augenbrauen. Er blickt schräg nach unten und scheint in Gedanken versunken zu sein. Das Bild ist im unteren Bereich nicht zu Ende koloriert, es sieht unfertig aus.

Viewpoints

View into the collection #7
A car is travelling along a country lane. There are some fir trees on the wagon and the driver of the wagon can be seen in the side profile. The car is kicking up dust. There are wind turbines in the background.

Silke Schönfeld

Invented Traditions - Imagined Communities
Abstract forms such as stripes, implied rectangles, egg shapes and surfaces in different colors. Partly the colors overlap, some shapes are painted quickly and look very moved.

Action, Gesture, Paint

Women artists and abstraction worldwide 1940-70
Two pictures hang on a wall with reflective silver foil. On the left is a photo of an old doll with a black head and thick lips. The doll is broken: the right leg lies severed in front of her. Behind her is a dark blue background. On the right, a painting with a pile of toys against a white background: dolls, stuffed animals, cars, on top of which lies a doll with long limbs and a white dress.

Christa Dichgans | Paul McCarthy

Innocent Games? Face to Face and Side by Side #9
A drawing showing two cats, the tail of another cat and some star shapes. Cats and stars look as if they were floating around each other in the air. The colors are contrasting with blue, yellow, red, orange and purple to pink.

Keren Cytter. Hot Lava Night
A structure of a house built of wood. Walkable, quite low for a house, with a gable roof. On some of the wooden posts are colored circular shapes on a white background. In all four corners of the structure are corner benches. In the center of the house a cylindrical stove.

Oscar Tuazon

What we need
Several red houses with trees behind them and a green meadow in front.

Brauchen und Haben

Blick in die Sammlung #6
A brown lump of cloth wrapped with twine is mounted in an old picture frame. The background is golden, the wide border blue and gold, with a fine pattern. A plexiglass hood serves to protect the work. On both sides, white fabric panels hang from the ceiling.

Katrin Mayer / Christo

Shroud or unfold. facing each other #8
A postcard, with fountain pen in old handwriting, from 1914

Hermann Stenner

Letters, sketches, drawings. View of the archive
Eine türkisgrüne Farbfläche. Darauf ein ausgerissenes Stück Pappe in der Form eines Trichters. Diese Form ist grau und am rechtren Rand helltürkis.

Yto Barrada

Bad Color Combos
Eine Landschaft. Bäume, Palmen, ein

Connections

Look into the collection #5
Eine Skulptur einer abstrahierten menschlichen Figur. Die Beine sind schmal, der Oberkörper etwas breiter. Ihre Augen sind nur durch große Augenhöhlen angedeutet. Sieht ein bisschen aus wie schnell geknetet.

Alberto Giacometti / Martin Disler

Small and big demons. with each other opposite #7
Von unten sind Eisbrocken an der Wasseroberfläche zu sehen. Licht scheint hindurch. Darunter im Wasser ein Taucher in der Ferne. Die Farben nur weiß und graublau.

Aurel Dahlgrün

Summit
dark_matter_dev

Thomas Ruff, James Welling

Dark Matter
In an exhibition room of the Kunsthalle. In front of the wall-high window is a yellow-green, roundish object, about 1.60 meters high. In front of the window a curtain with an architectural photograph printed on it. Behind it, paintings on two walls.

In(visible)

View into the collection #4