DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT - VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST
Annual Art Commission at Haus der Kunst, Munich

Haus der Kunst is pleased to announce that Haegue Yang will be the inaugural artist for DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT - VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST, an annual art commission conceived especially by the museum for the Middle Hall of the historic building with the support and collaboration of Gesellschaft der Freunde. This initiative - marking the 75th anniversary of the museum and the 20th anniversary of the launch of the public/private Stiftung Haus der Kunst München, gemeinnützige Betriebsgesellschaft mbH - focuses on the active role that contemporary art plays within public institutions. The first in this series of commissions of contemporary art, Haegue Yang's specially developed work will be unveiled to the public on November 8th, 2012.

The commission DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT at Haus der Kunst addresses a generation of artists, who have developed a clear and challenging line of artistic inquiry. The yearly commission is grounded in the idea of the central role that art and artists play in global debates. With this view, Haus der Kunst wishes to acknowledge international artists who, over the course of their careers, exemplify and have demonstrated models of artistic excellence, conceptual rigor, experimental spirit, and whose ideas have had enduring impact in the field of contemporary art and its discourses.

As Andreas Langenscheidt, President of the Gesellschaft der Freunde, says: "The Gesellschaft der Freunde is pleased to collaborate with Haus der Kunst on an art project unique to both the museum and Munich. We are proud to venture down innovative paths in Munich with this multiyear art commission and, with this support, to demonstrate our close ties with Haus der Kunst by funding this work of art." The Gesellschaft der Freunde has been supporting and promoting Haus der Kunst for more than 50 years, and has been a co-partner in the public-private foundation Stiftung Haus der Kunst since 1992. The association supports exhibition making both financially and conceptually, to promote Haus der Kunst as an international stage for innovative, critical contemporary art, and to accompany its path into the future.

The commissioned work will be developed specifically for Haus der Kunst's Middle Hall, which during the National Socialist regime was originally called the "Ehrenhalle" (hall of honor). Located at the heart of the building, the 800 square-meter hall is being imagined as an open and freely accessible public plaza. It is thus the natural place to commence the evaluation of the criteria surrounding discussions of public space, serving as the principal node of access to the entire contents of the museum. The Middle Hall is to be understood as a conduit for the museum's various programs (exhibitions, research, lectures, and educational activities), or as a place where visitors can gather, sit and read, or simply linger.

The title DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT - VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST presents philosophical, conceptual, and historical leitmotifs that structure the presentation and exhibition of the commissioned artworks. The central gesture of its title is to animate a discussion on the norms and agendas of public dedication implicit in its subtitle von den Freunden Haus der Kunst. Another key aspect of the annual commission is to extend the idea of a dedication to the constituent ideas of the public. DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT proposes not only the idea of dedication, but also the prospect of acting in the public with the artwork as the central material around which public participation, discussion, debate, and exchange coalesces. In his classic work on the concept of the public sphere, the philosopher Jürgen Habermas writes, "We call events and occasions 'public' when they are open to all." While "open to all" might be confused with a resurgent populism both in politics and culture, DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT, in contrast, offers the possibility of epistemic doubt. Therefore, rather than take the norms of publicness as a fait accompli, each commission compels the museum audience to use the field of contemporary artistic practice to explore and examine what it means to act in the public realm, or alternatively how the concept of public access attaches to the space of the museum.

Haegue Yang

Haegue Yang (*1971 in Seoul, lives and works in Berlin and Seoul) is the first artist of the DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT - VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST commission. Throughout her career, Haegue Yang has shown extensively in renowned international art institutions, including BAK, basis voor actuele kunst, Utrecht (2006); Portikus, Frankfurt (2008); Artsonje Center, Seoul and New Museum, New York (both 2010); and more recently Kunsthaus Bregenz and Modern Art Oxford (both 2011). In 2009, Haegue Yang represented South Korea at the 53rd Venice Biennial. This year she is participating in dOCUMENTA (13).

Living in Germany since 1994, this Munich comission marks the first major project for Haegue Yang at a German institution. Yang will create a large-scale sculptural installation specifically for the Haus der Kunst's Middle Hall. Conceived around the idea of the "Epic," Yang's new suspended Venetian blinds sculpture employs a volumetrically ambitious and perceptually intricate setting. This extensive installation consists of three autonomous, yet united parts: firstly "of a towering structure which is confrontationally located to the hall's entrance, while the second part is rather a flat vertical grid wall, which provides a sudden and airy space to encounter. Finally, the last part is equipped with a rather chunky volume on top, yet gradually fragmented toward the floor." (Haegue Yang) Depending on the angle of approach the blinds overlap in conjunction with the interplay between light and shadow, appearing either semi-opaque or opaque, interspersed with moments of complete translucency. The visual experience is thereby continuously transformed, and the boundaries between an ostensible inside and outside dissolve, much as the distinction between the openness and closure. An inimitable dramaturgy emerges, as Yang choreographs the viewer within the space. Due to Yang's non- European upbringing, history for her is often a "learned experience" which, by introducing abstraction to a narrative, she translates into a spatial experience.

DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT - VON DEN FREUNDEN HAUS DER KUNST will be supplemented by accompanying publications, as well as a series of lectures, discussions, and workshops on the subject of Öffentlichkeit or public(ness). Haegue Yang's installation will be on view until September 2013. More details on the installation, as well as a keynote lecture on DER ÖFFENTLICHKEIT, will be announced in due course.

If you have further questions, please do not hesitate to contact us:
Elena Heitsch and Jacqueline Falk

Haus der Kunst
Prinzregentenstraße 1
80538 München
+49 89 211 27-115
+49 89 211 27-157 Fax
presse@hausderkunst.de
www.hausderkunst.de

Handelsregister München
HRB 100018
USt-IdNr. DE 811612530