Art without context? Publication of the SPK annual report for 2019
News from 06/04/2020
What did the SPK achieve in 2019? For starters: “Mantegna and Bellini”, the 250th anniversary of Alexander Humboldt's birth, the ground-breaking ceremony for the new National Gallery building at the Kulturforum – and over four million visitors
The recently published annual report provides information about the most important exhibitions, the most exciting construction milestones, the most interesting research projects, and the most successful education and outreach campaigns. It also contains an interview with the German and Namibian participants in the project on “Confronting Colonial Pasts, Envisioning Creative Futures,” as well as detailed figures on the foundation's budget, visitors, and users.
The booklet's featured topic is “the artist's life.” Taking as their starting point an exhibition that was probably the most hotly debated show of 2019: “Emil Nolde. A German Legend. The Artist During the Nazi Regime,” the curator of the exhibition, Aya Soika, the director of the Hamburger Bahnhof, Gabriele Knapstein, and artist Norbert Bisky discuss the respective connections between art and context, author and work, and reception and morality. For the photo spread, Anna Szkoda explored the storage facilities of all the SPK's institutions and turned her lens on the material bequeathed from various artists' estates. The result is a thought-provoking photographic essay about what remains of an artist's life.