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Taking a stand. Käthe Kollwitz, Mona Hatoum

Portrait of a woman looking to the left and leaning her head on her bony hand. She looks tired.
Käthe Kollwitz, Head of a woman in profile facing left, around 1905, charcoal, pink and yellow pastel chalk, wiped, on olive-brown colored paper, mounted on drawing cardboard, Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne, Photo: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln

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Art A to Z

Press material

“Taking a stand” is more important than ever in today’s society – at a time characterised by worsening social inequalities, growing hostility towards those who think differently, increased experiences of flight and migration, conflict and war. The exhibition brings together two artists, Käthe Kollwitz and Mona Hatoum – one historical and one contemporary – whose art serves as a memorial against suffering and oppression and stands for greater humanity.

“I want to have an impact in this time” is one of the most famous statements by Käthe Kollwitz (1867-1945). Like few others, she linked her art with a sociopolitical, humanitarian and pacifist commitment. With empathy, she took on the people oppressed by poverty and misery due to industrialisation, rural exodus and unemployment at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century. Kollwitz’ experiences of two world wars and their consequences, including the loss of her own son who fell in 1914, are also reflected in her work.

The works of Beirut-born artist Mona Hatoum (*1952, lives in London), who was on a short visit to London in 1975 when the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War prevented her from returning home, adds a global perspective to the exhibition. Like Kollwitz, Hatoum, winner of the 2010 Käthe Kollwitz Prize, also addresses basic human experiences. Pain, suffering and vulnerability, but also the familiar and domestic, which is destroyed, endangered or alienated by institutional violence and systems of power, are central to her work.

Despite their subject matter, the works of both artists, who share the strategy of using a formal language reduced to the essentials and use colour in a pointed manner at best, are not an expression of resignation. The works of both artists appeal to our compassion and testify to positive commitment.

An exhibition in cooperation with the Kunsthaus Zürich, in collaboration with the Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln.

The exhibition is sponsored by the Kulturstiftung pro Bielefeld and the Förderkreis Kunsthalle Bielefeld e.V.

The education and communication of the exhibition is sponsored by Sparkasse Bielefeld.

 

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Mona Hatoum, Bourj A, 2011, Bourj II, 2011, Bourj III, 2011, Steel, Courtesy of the artist and MdbK Leipzig, © Mona Hatoum, Foto: © dotgain.info
A large table, a small table, four large chairs, four small chairs, a rolling pin and a toy car. Everything looks charred. There are also pieces of black on the floor.
Mona Hatoum, Remains of the Day, 2016-18, Wire mesh and wood, Courtesy of the artist and White Cube, © Mona Hatoum, Photo: © White Cube (Kitmin Lee)
Portrait of a woman looking to the left and leaning her head on her bony hand. She looks tired.
Käthe Kollwitz, Head of a woman in profile facing left, around 1905, charcoal, pink and yellow pastel chalk, wiped, on olive-brown colored paper, mounted on drawing cardboard, Käthe Kollwitz Museum Cologne, Photo: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln
Looks like a greatly enlarged prayer chain on a concrete floor. The chain contains about thirty bronze balls that look like cannonballs. At one point there is a metal element that looks like an old cannon barrel, to which four other small balls are attached.
Mona Hatoum, Worry Beads, 2009, Patinated bronze, mild steel, Courtesy of Mona Hatoum Foundation, Mona Hatoum, Photo: Courtesy Beirut Art Center; Photo: Agop Kanledjian (Installation view Beirut Art Center)
Face of a young woman with short hair, very close. She looks confidently past us on the left. Depicted in black and white in visible engravings.
Käthe Kollwitz, self-portrait (around 1890), pen and brush in ink on wove paper, Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt, Kunstmuseum Moritzburg Halle (Saale), © Kulturstiftung Sachsen-Anhalt
Face of a middle-aged woman, very close. She looks exhausted and is leaning her forehead on her left hand. Depicted in black and white in visible engravings.
Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait with Hand on Forehead (1910), line etching, drypoint, © Private collection
Upright mesh boxes made of construction steel mats, at least that
Mona Hatoum, Cellules, 2012-2013, Mild steel and hand-blown glass in eight parts, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, © Mona Hatoum, Photo: Courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; Photo: Florian Kleinefenn (Installation view at Centre Pompidou, Paris)
View from above into a mesh box made of construction steel with two round red glass containers inside.
Mona Hatoum, Cellules (Detail), 2012-2013, Mild steel and hand-blown glass in eight parts (detail), installation view at Centre Pompidou, Paris, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris, © Mona Hartoum, Photo: Courtesy Galerie Chantal Crousel, Paris; photo: Florian Kleinefenn (Installation view at Centre Pompidou, Paris)
The artist Käthe Kollwitz in side profile. Her right hand rests on her left ear. Little light falls on the hair, the face and the implied back.
Käthe Kollwitz, Self-Portrait, 1924, Woodcut, Kunsthalle Bielefeld, Photo: Philipp Ottendörfer
A person stretches his right arm upwards, his left hand rests on his chest. The mouth is open. Behind it, the words "Never again war" in very large letters.
Käthe Kollwitz, ‘Never Again War’, 1924, Crayon and brush lithograph (transfer), Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln, Photo: Käthe Kollwitz Museum Köln
Three upright steel blocks with many regular compartments inside. They have holes in them, as if they have been shot into. Reminiscent of shot-up high-rise buildings.
Mona Hatoum, Bourj A, 2011, Bourj II, 2011 and Bourj III, 2011, mild steel Courtesy of Mona Hatoum Foundation, © Mona Hatoum, Photo: Courtesy of the artist and MdbK Leipzig; photo: dotgain.info (Installation view at MdbK Leipzig)
An almost human-high cube of barbed wire in a room with a gray floor and light green, worn walls.
Mona Hatoum, Cube (9 x 9 x 9), 2008, black finished steel, Courtesy of Mona Hatoum Foundation, © Mona Hatoum, Photo: Courtesy Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin / Paris; photo: Holger Niehaus (Installation view at Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin)

Highlights

Tickets

The Kunsthalle puts in a late shift for night owls and art fans and opens its doors with exciting events:

From 18:00-22:00 Karola Eisenblätter and Lea Müßinger invite you to creative activities in the painting room (no registration required).
You can take a look inside our virtual art gallery with VR headsets until 23:00 (always on the hour and half hour, meeting point in the lobby under the stairs).
The Bielefeld Music and Art School will enliven the sculpture park with exciting performances.

More information about the night views and tickets for the evening can be found here: https://www.bielefeld.jetzt/nachtansichten

On this day, six Bielefeld museums (Historisches Museum, Kunstforum Hermann Stenner, Kunstverein Bielefeld, Museum Huelsmann, Naturkunde- Museum and Kunsthalle Bielefeld) in cooperation with the association “Bielefelder Konsens – Pro Bielefeld” invite you to the 3rd museum rally for young and old.

You can find out what else is going on with us on International Museum Day in our calendar as individual events for May 19. see.

Tickets

How does language make cultural identity tangible? What feelings do texts convey in their original languages? The actresses Brit Dehler (Germany), Nataliya Hovda (Ukraine) and Pauline Miller (England) will present a performative reading of lyrical texts on war and humanity in their respective native languages in the exhibition.

Registration at:
anmeldung@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521 329995018

Calender

Events

Tickets

The Kunsthalle puts in a late shift for night owls and art fans and opens its doors with exciting events:

From 18:00-22:00 Karola Eisenblätter and Lea Müßinger invite you to creative activities in the painting room (no registration required).
You can take a look inside our virtual art gallery with VR headsets until 23:00 (always on the hour and half hour, meeting point in the lobby under the stairs).
The Bielefeld Music and Art School will enliven the sculpture park with exciting performances.

More information about the night views and tickets for the evening can be found here: https://www.bielefeld.jetzt/nachtansichten

Tickets

Guided tour of our current exhibitions.
anmeldung@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521 329995018

Tickets

Guided tour of our current exhibitions.

anmeldung@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521 329995018

Tickets

Painting, drawing, printing, modeling – try different materials and techniques and have fun together. You can do all this in our Kids-ART-studio. Discover with us the exciting world of art with experiments rich in color and form.

Fourth of eight dates until 4.6.24. The course is aimed at children aged 5-8.

Registration and Information:
Tania Müller
mueller@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521.3299950-18

Christiane Lutterkort
lutterkort@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521.3299950-19

Tickets

Guided tour of our current exhibitions.
anmeldung@kunsthalle-bielefeld.de
T 0521 329995018

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.