Honey, I Rearranged The Collection
The Hamburger Kunsthalle owns an important collection of international contemporary art from the 1960s to the present. One of the museum’s central missions is to preserve its collection for future generations and to continue to expand it through acquisitions and gifts. At the same time, it is a great pleasure to keep the collection alive and accessible to our visitors by presenting the works in changing constellations. HONEY, I REARRANGED THE COLLECTION tells of the joy of working with such a rich collection, highlighting its narrative abundance and diversity.
HONEY, I REARRANGED THE COLLECTION – originally the title of a work group by the American artist Allen Ruppersberg – is a cordial invitation to (re)discover the Hamburger Kunsthalle’s collection of contemporary art. The large-scale presentation has been conceived to span a period of three years, with each year dedicated to a central realm of human knowledge and experience. The first exhibition addresses the relationship between people and things, the second will focus on interpersonal relationships, and the last on how we relate to the space that surrounds us.
# 1 The Magic of Things. Perfidious Objects (2016)
# 2 Help Me Hurt Me. Between Care and Cruelty (2017)
A Tribute to Bruce Nauman on his 75th Birthday
# 3 Bouncing in the Corner. Surveying Space (2018)
Like characters in a play, some artworks will put in a cameo appearance in individual scenes and then disappear again. Others will be »on stage« continuously throughout all three parts of the presentation, offering the opportunity to re-interpret them in these changing contexts.
#2 Help Me Hurt Me. Between Care and Cruelty
Bruce Nauman's large-scale video installation »Anthro/Socio« (1992), Nan Goldin's »The Ballad of Sexual Dependency« (1992) – an installation comprising 720 colour slides and an evocative soundtrack – and Gerhard Richter's series of paintings »S. mit Kind« (S. with Child, 1995) are iconic works of contemporary art in the collection of the Hamburger Kunsthalle. Each of these compelling pieces is an artistic exploration of human relationships. Intensely personal dramas unfold in the space between care (»Help Me«) and cruelty (»Hurt Me«), showing that love, hate, hope, grief and loneliness are fundamental aspects of the human condition. The exhibition pays tribute to Bruce Nauman on his 75th birthday.
Help Me Hurt Me. Between Care and Cruelty is the second exhibition in a three-part series entitled HONEY, I REARRANGED THE COLLECTION, which began in 2016 with The Magic of Things. Perfidious Objects and will conclude in 2018 with Bouncing in the Corner. Surveying Space.
The exhibition features works by Abramović / Ulay, Christian Boltanski, Nan Goldin, Felix Gonzalez-Torres, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Gustav Kluge, Paul McCarthy, Annette Messager, Bruce Nauman, Sigmar Polke, Daniel Richter, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Schütte, Jeff Wall, Andy Warhol a.o.
The conservation of Nan Goldin's dia works »The Ballad of Sexual Dependency« was made possible by
