Kunstmuseum Stuttgart


	Drei. Das Triptychon in der Moderne		This sumptuously designed volume with gilt edge and poster-cover outlines the different types of triptychs from the end of the nineteenth century to the present. The triptych as an altarpiece or devotional image played a pivotal role in Western art since the Middle Ages. This religiously motivated artistic tradition came to a halt with Rubens and was first readopted at the close of the nineteenth century, producing radically new images and focusing on novel, drastic subject matter. Taking up the Christian motif of suffering, many significant artists in modern times make existential statements on humanity. Otto Dix, Max Beckmann, or Markus Lüpertz conceives modern myths and expresses political viewpoints. Others, such as Jannis Kounellis, Dieter Roth, or Ellsworth Kelly, ennoble materials, color and form by means of the triptych. The publication exemplarily shows the transformation of this type of image, its impact and current relevance, and investigates also the demarcation between it and the image series or sequence. Supported by the Ernst von Siemens Kunststiftung Edited by Marion Ackermann, Texts by Marion Ackermann, Wolfgang Ullrich, Joachim Valentin and others, 328 pp., 100 ills. in color, 21.5 x 26.5 cm, German, Hatje Cantz, 2009 ISBN 978-3-7757-2327-5 Museum price: 29 € Regular: 39.80 €

	KALEIDOSKOP. HOELZEL in der Avantgarde		With Adolf Hölzel a new chapter in modern painting commenced. The artist, who was born in Olmütz (Moravia) in 1853 and died in 1934, moved to Stuttgart in 1905, where he struck an independent path to the modern picture. Artistically, he was less interested in achieving the totally non-representational than in ensuring that the actual nature of the picture amounted to a »surface covered with color« (Maurice Denis). His late pictures recall a kaleidoscope in which the artist let the variety of colors and forms in the picture form a unity. Hölzel’s ideas on art became the theoretical basis of modernism for future generations. On the occasion of the seventy-fifth anniversary of Adolf Hölzel’s death, the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, which houses the most important Hölzel collection worldwide, illuminated the meaning of his work for the art of our epoch on 1,000 square meters in the exhibition »KALEIDOSCOPE. HOELZEL within the Avant-Garde«. Some paintings were on view for the first time, including landscape and figurative pictures from Dachau, pastels, stained glass, Hölzel’s famous red series and works on paper as well as exponents of his art theoretical works from the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. Edited by M. Ackermann, D. Spanke, G. Leistner Texts by A. Klee, A. Plank, C. Wagner, D. Spanke, G. Leistner, K. von Maur, M. Ackermann, M. Linger, M. Pogacnik, N. Smolik, R. Zieglgänsberger, U. Röthke Kehrer Verlag, German, 2009, 392 pp., 503 color and b/w ills., 25,5 x 30,4 cm, hardcover ISBN 978-3-86828-089-0 Museum price: 29.90 € regular: 39.90 €

	Ben Willikens. Licht und Dunkel		For three years duration, Ben Willikens studied Leonardo da Vinci’s »Last Supper« in the former Dominican Monastery Santa Maria delle Grazie in Milan. In 1979 he completed this artistic dialogue, which was documented in numerous conceptual drawings and a monumental panel painting. After a period of almost 30 years, the panel painting will be exhibited in Stuttgart for the very first time. Discarding the Apostles and the figure of Christ or further narrative elements, the artist has reduced the biblical scene to the essential architectural distribution of light and space; the art-historical model has been compressed in order to unveil its relevance for contemporary times. Furthermore, the Kunstmuseum will present the complete series »ORTE« in the exhibition. In these works Willikens addresses existing architectural monuments built in the 1930s, including buildings in Nuremberg, Berlin, and Munich, to symbolize the omnipotence of the NS dictatorship. However, devoid of all insignia of power, they reveal their fatal countenance: Darkness dominates the work, and behind it death and destruction inevitably lurk. The series was executed between 1996 and 1999, including ten canvases and fifteen gouaches. Licht und Dunkel. Ben Willikens – Orte im Dialog Edited by Marion Ackermann, texts by Dieter Bartetzko, Walter Grasskamp, Johann-Karl Schmidt, Manfred Schneckenburger, Werner Spies, Christoph Vitali, Hatje Cantz, German, 2009, 128 pp., 64 ills., 61 in color, 22.40 x 27.90 cm, hardcover ISBN 978-3-7757-2525-5 Price: 24.80 €

	Concrete Art. The Heinz and Anette Teufel Collection		Art dealer and collector Heinz Teufel, who died in 2007, was one of the great patrons of Concrete Art in Germany. From the time he opened his gallery in 1966 in Koblenz until his period in Berlin in 1998, the gallery maintained a strict profile, regardless of the varying trends on the art market. The collection he and his wife Anette assembled, which contains works by nearly fifty prominent artists, will become part of the permanent collection of the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart in 2009. This group of about two hundred paintings, numerous sculptures, and an extensive inventory of prints provides an overview of Concrete works created throughout Europe after World War II. The collection’s special quality lies in the inclusion of Eastern European, Italian, and French artists, such as Zdenek Sýkora, Antonio Calderara, and Aurélie Nemours, whose works are rarely seen in museums. However, there are also »Swiss classics« such as Max Bill and Richard Paul Lohse, as well as outstanding works by the important artist Bridget Riley. Edited by Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, texts by Marion Ackermann, Kai-Uwe Holze, Simone Schimpf, prepared by Simone Schimpf Hatje Cantz, German / English, 2009, 308 pp., 120 ills. in color, 23 x 26,8 cm, hardcover ISBN: 978-3-7757-2419-7 Museum price: 29 € (without DVD) / 39 € (with DVD) regular: 39.80 € (without DVD)

	Elger Esser. Eigenzeit		Elger Esser’s photographs give us the impression that we just had a déjà vu: his magical images of river landscapes, bridges, villages, and coastlines evoke distant memories even if we have never been at even a single location where the pictures were taken. The artist, born in Stuttgart in 1967, consciously alludes to Marcel Proust by setting out, again and again, »in search of lost time« in his poetic and melancholic photographs. This also reflects in his choice of photographic techniques: His recent heliogravures, an almost forgotten technique dating from the 19th century, will be exhibited for the first time in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart. As one of the last and youngest graduates of the renowned classes of Bernd and Hilla Becher at the Düsseldorf Kunstakademie, Elger Esser counts today as one of the most important German fine art photographers. Edited by Kunstmuseum Stuttgart Texts by Hubertus von Amelunxen, Peter Herzog, Friedrich Wolfram Heubach, Cees Nooteboom, Alexander Pühringer and Simone Schimpf 180 pp., 73 ills. (partly in color), 24 x 28 cm German / English, Schirmer/Mosel, 2009 ISBN 978-3-8296-0418-5 Museum price: 25 € (soft cover) - SOLD OUT! Regular: 49.80 € (hard cover)