Kaufbeuren: 25 years Kunsthaus as a place of cultural life – Munich

The Kunsthaus Kaufbeuren actually wanted to celebrate its 25th anniversary last year. But the pandemic knew how to prevent that cleverly. So what else is there to do than celebrate the anniversary this summer? Jan T. Wilms, head of the house for seven years, is currently working on the extensive commemorative publication that sheds light on the history of the art forum and the almost 90 exhibitions to date. And, of course, honors the founder, the Kaufbeuren building contractor Hans Dobler, who died in 2003 and donated the striking building. Despite the contemporary use of materials – concrete and glass – the house blends in well with the old town, the steep roof is reminiscent of a salt barn.

Patrons who are as generous as Hans Dobler are rare. He not only donated the exhibition center to Kaufbeuren, but also established a foundation that finances ongoing operations. It was opened in May 1996, founding director Boris von Brauchitsch presented brightly colored pictures by Alexej Jawlensky and masks from Burkina Faso. For the 25th or almost 26th birthday, the house attracts with a Horst Janssen exhibition. Peter Dobler, the founder’s brother, bequeathed 400 works by the draftsman and graphic artist to the city. Although they had a museum, they did not have a suitable place to exhibit Janssen. Certainly also a circumstance that prompted Hans Dobler to make his generous donation. The Kunsthaus itself does not have its own collection, but according to the purpose of the foundation it is responsible for the care, processing and regular presentation of the Janssen collection. The anniversary is a good reason to remember it again, says Wilms. Especially since the last Janssen presentation was more than ten years ago. Under the title “Of becoming and passing away” it effortlessly illustrates what a great treasure Kaufbeuren has with this collection.

Opinions differed on Horst Janssen (1929-1995) throughout his life. There was no doubt that he was brilliant at drawing, watercolouring, lithographing and etching. His fans considered him the most important German draftsman of the second half of the 20th century; others were multi-talented, very fond of alcohol, cigarettes and women all their lives, not intellectual enough and too coarse. At the moment, the artist who was omnipresent in the 1980s and 1990s has slipped a bit into the sidelines and is no longer “up to date” (Wilms). Wrongly, as the show proves.

With 150 works, it offers a good overview of all themes that were important to Janssen, showing landscapes, portraits, nudes, animals, dream images, stones, shells and of course self-portraits – Janssen probably drew more than 1000 of them. “My self-portraits are – for all their vulgarity – still lifes. Sometimes my face is as still as a rotten apple. Bon,” a blackboard quotes him as saying. Like someone possessed, he uses his own face as an example to depict deformation, dissolution and decay, which can be observed in particular in the grandiose etching cycle “Hanno’s Tod” from 1972, named after the youngest offspring of the Buddenbrook family, who was tormented by fear of school, nightmares and nocturnal panic attacks. At the age of 16, Thomas Mann let him die of typhus.

Open detailed view

The alienated self-portraits, which appear to have melted, challenge the viewer’s imagination. Sometimes you only see one eye, everything else dissolves. Transience is a central theme of the works. Not surprisingly, Janssen got to know death early on. He was only ten years old when his grandfather, with whom he grew up in Oldenburg, died. Four years later he lost his mother. His talent was of course recognized and encouraged early on, and Janssen was admitted to the State Art School in Hamburg after the war when he was still a minor. There he experimented with color woodcuts from 1947 onwards. Four large-format prints from the early period are hanging in the exhibition. Janssen’s first gallery owner, Hans Brockstedt, achieved initial sales success with them in Hanover in 1957. Janssen himself had long since arrived at etching and lithography at that point.

Incidentally, the famous erotic, sometimes pornographic works are hardly represented in Dobler’s collection, but there are all the more landscapes. Pollard willows in a desolate landscape, the lowlands of the Elbe with wild undergrowth and stunted birches. Janssen often captures almost idyllic moments on paper, but devastation and chaos remain palpable. If something fascinated him, he played through the subject over and over again, drawing stones and shells in all forms of abstraction. The lines of text, usually in the middle of the picture, do not necessarily refer to what is shown, but they are often funny. “She says she could also live on an island with an ornithologist – until the cat comes…” is written on a sheet from the series “Svanshall”, a small Swedish fishing village where Janssen stayed several times.

Open detailed view

Tight cash

The Kunsthaus now also owns its own paintings, mostly purchased from exhibitions. “Maybe 90 works,” estimates Wilms. He can’t work with that, at most use a picture if it fits into an exhibition context. Otherwise he has to start from scratch for every exhibition, has to convince institutions or collectors to lend their works and give them to Kaufbeuren. In the meantime, this has worked well, because the Kunsthaus has gained an excellent national reputation through its courageous exhibitions and daring dialogues – Wilms recently combined the painter Shannon Finley with the works of Rupprecht Geiger. Of course, insurance and transport are not cheap. And since a house with temporary exhibitions is not considered a museum, it receives comparatively little government funding. “Unfair,” Wilms thinks, “we have to overcome much greater financial hurdles and, unlike cash-strapped museums, we can never contest a show from our own collection.”

One format that has stood the test of time is “BlickCatch”, a presentation of contemporary art in the Allgäu introduced in 2016. Every two years, this sales exhibition presents works by young artists from the entire German-speaking area of ​​the EU. A specialist jury decides on admission to the show, which this autumn has the motto “Forbidden Territory”.

It somehow goes well with the next exhibition: “Terra Infirma” (June 3 to September 11) with the Berlin video artist Nathalie Grenzhaeuser, the sculptor and photographer Magdalena Jetelová and the Irish filmmaker Clare Langan. Three women who, in their art, trace global climatic changes in a way that is as subtle as it is poetic.

Horst Janssen: On becoming and passing away, extended until May 15, Kunsthaus KaufbeurenHospital Gate 2, Kaufbeuren