Bad Tölz: Exhibition “Death in Venice” – Munich

Willows, young birches, cotoneasters – green grows and proliferates from every crack in the tar. Only the faded white markings are reminiscent of the former parking lot. In the midst of all the shades of green, Katharina Sieverding’s large-format works light up. Some clearly visible, others hidden behind a thicket of bushes, such as the recording of the commemoration of Mao Tse-tung’s death from the series “Continental Core (XXVI)”. Placarding the eleven works was a tedious affair, says curator Florian Hüttner. Not only because the Düsseldorf photo artist insisted that not a single branch should be cut off. But also because the old poster stands are no longer in the best condition.

Nature doesn’t need a lot of time to reclaim urban areas. The car park on Seppstraße behind the foyer in Bad Tölz belongs to Jodquellen AG. The guests of the legendary Alpamare, which opened in 1970 as Europe’s first leisure pool, used to park here. In 2015 it was closed. Since then the parking lot has been deserted. The city and Jodquellen AG are unable to agree on the future use of the entire area. The former has so far insisted on tourist use of the site, while Anton Hoefter, head of Jodquellen AG, would like to build apartment buildings on the parking lot. For the gigantic foyer in which spa guests used to stroll, drinking iodine water – at 130 meters long and 15 meters wide it is said to be the largest of its kind in Europe – he has in mind a mixture of gastronomy, conference hall and apartments, plus a room for artists.

You don’t have to know all this to see the exhibition Landscape Art Gallery (GFLK) to watch. But it explains why there is such an overgrown wasteland in the middle of the well-kept spa district of the city. Since 2012, Hoefter has made the foyer available to the painter Florian Hüttner and the GFLK. In the past ten years he has brought many artists to Bad Tölz, including the object and installation artist Mark Dion from New York and Thomas Kilpper from Berlin. Some of his artist colleagues also deal with the historical uses of the foyer in their works in order to initiate a discussion about its future.

This time, the focus is not on the hall but on the parking lot. The exhibition, titled “Death in Venice,” was inspired by Michael Clegg, an artist who was born in Dublin and works in Germany. When he read that Thomas Mann owned a country house in Bad Tölz from 1909 to 1917, he immediately called Hüttner. “He thought that could be a starting point for an exhibition,” recalls Hüttner. Born in Tölz, the idea was rather worn out. “Actually, I always wanted to keep my hands off Thomas Mann.” But then he remembered the decaying parking lot, whose morbid charm could go well with Mann’s novella “Death in Venice”, written in Bad Tölz.

Youngsters used the space to hang out, and homeless people show up regularly

Incidentally, the square has long since found other users, says the painter, who has his studio in the former concert hall of the foyer. Young people used it as a meeting place to hang out, and the homeless also showed up regularly. Garbage stays where it is, broken glass too. “The crucial question for me is what happens here when the parking lot becomes the exhibition space,” says Hüttner. Art audience coming? Or only the homeless come to enjoy Sieverding’s work “Looking at the sun at midnight”. Will the artworks survive the exhibition undamaged?

Hüttner has invited five artists for his “free, open-ended experiment”. In addition to Sieverding, Michael Clegg, who has been working with Martin Guttmann since the late 1970s. As the artist duo “Clegg & Guttman”, the two of them, then living in the USA, realized their project “The Open Library” for the first time in 1989. In Bad Tölz they offer a “Thomas Mann Public Open Library” in a slightly rusty display case that Hüttner unscrewed in the former Alpamare. In the meantime, the idea and the work of art have long since become independent – the bookcases of the open libraries can be found in many places today. A prime example of a well-functioning social sculpture.

Open detailed view

Nana Petzet, who has been dealing with the issues of light pollution and the associated insect mortality for a long time, pursues a more scientific approach. The artist, who was born in Munich and lives in Hamburg, concentrates on the former parking lot lights, which she has darkened to varying degrees with foil. It’s about finding out how many and which insects fly at the lamps during the night and die. The evaluation takes place in a specially constructed test station in the lobby.

There is also a textile work by the young artist Philipp Gufler, who traces queer historical personalities, in this case King Ludwig II. The much larger quilt, a 17 meter long, multi-layered screen print entitled “Transience Delusion”, hangs outside. Gufler, a member of the Forum Queeres Archiv Munich, deals with Memento Mori depictions, combining Hans Holbein’s woodcuts of Totentanz with images that tell of his involvement with queer history. However, whether the delicate fabric can withstand thunderstorms – Hüttner seems slightly concerned.

Open detailed view

The weather will not harm the dixi toilet that Nils Norman has set up. The good piece fits Thomas Mann, who verbosely records his digestive problems in his diaries. However, the London artist, who has a professorship at the Munich Academy, is also concerned with the question of how human excrement can be sensibly composted, as two drawings in the toilet document.

Suddenly you are faced with Sieverding’s shot of the Enola Gay bomber, from which the first atomic bomb was dropped over Hiroshima. A film still from the documentary “Atomic Café” (1982) with the words “The last buttons are printed” is on the displayed line. Kinda uncomfortable at the moment. At the top right of the poster stand, a small sign points the way: “Exit. Thank you for your visit.”

death in Venice. Exhibition until August 31, Bad Tölz, free parking lot, lobby (Ludwigstraße 14) open Wed. to Sun., 4 p.m. to 8 p.m., and by appointment at 0176/80 44 65 38. Info at www.gflk.de