IL MONDO ANIMALE

We are pleased to present an array of different artistic perspectives on real and mythical fauna and, in cooperation with the New York gallery Sperone Westwater, to show William Wegman’s famous dog portraits for the first time in Munich. William Wegman (*1943 in Holyoke, MA), who is particularly well-known for stagings of his Weimaraner dogs in the style of human portrait photography, is represented by five characteristic works to be seen in Galerie Klüser 2. Other photographic depictions of animals include those by Ute Klophaus, whose photographs document the actions ‘How to explain pictures to a dead hare’ (1965) and ‘Titus / Iphigenia (1969)’ by Joseph Beuys, or Claudio Abate, who photographed Jannis Kounellis’ sensational exhibition of twelve living horses (1969) in the Roman Galleria L’Attico. Olaf Metzel’s black horse on a deserted beach also seems like the perfect staging of a surreal, perhaps even dystopian scenario. In fact, however, it was a coincidentally found moment on the Adriatic coast, which the artist captured during one of his stays in Italy. Cindy Sherman, on the other hand, portrays herself behind an animal mask and at the same time recalls Beuys’ high esteem for animals (1986, from the portfolio ‘Für Joseph Beuys’). In the rooms of Galerie Klüser 1, works from the gallery and the Klüser Collection invite visitors to explore the graphic, painterly and sculptural work of the last five decades – with the exception of a somewhat older dinosaur egg. Domesticated and wild animals are highly varied protagonists here, appearing in representational and abstract, ideal and material forms. The depiction of animals plays an important role in Joseph Beuys’ oeuvre. One example is the honey bee: Beuys transferred the aspects of work, energy, social structure and production associated with the insect into his theories of social sculpture. In Jan Fabre’s work, the jewel beetle (or rather its dazzling shell) is a recurring motif, as a symbol of metamorphosis. Gregor Hildebrandt’s early work “Like Moths to the Flame”, on the other hand, is a poetic harbinger of his future works, of which music is always the true focus. Stephan Balkenhol has created a new sculpture especially for the theme of this exhibition. An entire room is dedicated to Julian Rosefeldt’s work ‘The word is always the vanguard of action’ (2018), in which the artist translates the political symbolism of the horse in the art historical context to the current situation in Italy. Four riderless horses gallop through Rome, showing excerpts from the Italian constitution on their saddlecloths. Rosefeldt questions the dynamics of Italy’s current politics but also the tendencies of many other European governments. Almost 50 years after Kounellis, these four horses were also shown as part of the artwork at the Fondazione Memmo in Rome. We are delighted to be able to present the accompanying film and the main three horse blankets in ‘Il Mondo Animale’. ‘Il Mondo Animale’ opens up a perspective on artistic engagement with the animal world, the enduring topicality of the subject, and the manifold manifestations of the animal motif in contemporary art.