SOMMER DER KÜNSTE

VILLA MASSIMO AS GUEST IN STUTTGART.

18 ARTISTS, 8 LOCATIONS:

The interdisciplinary cooperation project "Summer of the Arts" is showing works by the 2022/2023 and 2023/2024 Villa Massimo Rome Prize winners in eight institutions in Stuttgart. The Staatsgalerie Stuttgart is showing works by Yael Bartana, Manaf Halbouni and Bjørn Melhus, which were created during their time in Rome in conjunction with works from the Staatsgalerie.

In her internationally exhibited films, installations, photographs, performances and public monuments,Yael Bartana (born in Israel in 1970, now lives in Amsterdam and Berlin) deals with themes such as national identity, trauma and displacement. At the Staatsgalerie, she will be showing her works in juxtaposition with works by Max Ernst and negotiating them in the context of current political and social crises. At the same time, Yael Bartana will be exhibiting in the German Pavilion at the 60th Venice Biennale from April to November 2024.

Manaf Halbouni (*1984 born in Damascus, now lives in Berlin and Zagreb) draws attention to political and social upheavals with his works and addresses flight and displacement as part of his own Syrian-German family history. In the exhibition, Halbouni places his socially critical works in dialog with architectural miniatures by Hermann Finsterlin from the 1920s, which were originally conceived as a game. His works "Broken Dreams", "Democracy has fallen" and "White Flag" create images for current social fractures and crises and confront Finsterlin's architectural models of a mosque and a church with a current political context.

In his award-winning and internationally exhibited videos and installations,Bjørn Melhus (born in Kirchheim Teck in 1966, now lives in Berlin and teaches at the Kunsthochschule Kassel) takes a critical and humorous look at newly created narratives and role-playing games, mass media phenomena and society. In juxtaposition with a series of prints by Max Beckmann from the 1940s, his new video work created for the exhibition deals with the depiction of the apocalypse and shows it as a contemporary scenario.

The "Rome Prize of the German Academy Rome Villa Massimo" is considered one of the most important awards for German artists and artists working in Germany abroad. The German Academy Rome Villa Massimo was founded in 1910 by Eduard Arnhold and donated to the Prussian King. Today it is supported by the Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media. The Rome Prize is awarded jointly with the Kulturstiftung der Länder.

"Summer of the Arts. Villa Massimo as a guest in Stuttgart" can be seen in the Staatsgalerie parallel to the new collection presentation "THIS IS TOMORROW", which shows contemporary artistic positions in dialog with works of art from the 20th century collection.

A joint project by:
Literaturhaus Stuttgart, Kunstmuseum Stuttgart, Bund Deutscher Architekt:innen Stuttgart, Weissenhofmuseum im Haus Le Corbusier, architekturgalerie am weißenhof, Städtebauliches Institut der Universität Stuttgart, Musik der Jahrhunderte e. V. and Staatsgalerie Stuttgart.

More about the "Summer of the Arts" program here.