In 2024, Marta Herford is presenting itself as a multi-perspective institution with a total of six new exhibitions and a diverse accompanying programme. The interplay of spatial and sensory contributions in the curving Gehry Galleries with the rather more intimate encounters in the spaces of the Lippold Building makes it possible to offer a broad spectrum. The exhibitions invite interchange and provide different points of view on current issues.

After the first exhibition on the subject on political and feminist alliances with the generation of so-called guest workers, the Marta Herford is showing from mid-March a survey exhibition of the American artist Rodney McMillian in the Gehry Galleries. This solo exhibition is followed in July by a large group exhibition on the theme of post-digital painting developed together with the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, which will be held simultaneously in Herford and in Bielefeld. The artist Kathrin Sonntag looks from the perspective of the present at the early photographs of Gabriele Münter, who lived in Herford. Finally, in the winter, the museum will reflect its name by looking at design trends in upcycling and the work of Luigi Colani.

 

Annem işçi –
Who sews the red flags?

27 Jan–20 May 2024
Lippold Gallery

 

The opening exhibition in 2024 is a group show curated by guest curator Gürsoy Doğtaş: Annem işçi: Who Sews the Red Flags in the Lippold Gallery. Annem işçi (My Mother Is a Worker) tells of alliances between “guest workers” and artists and artists to combat discrimination, racism and violence. It begins with feminist and political alliances of the 1970s. The exhibition brings together films, paintings, graphic works, photographs, an installation texts, some of which were produced in West Germany when it was still a young nation, but their subject matter is still topical today. It asks what foreignness means half a century later and in which roles we live in the community.

Artists

Nuray Demir, Semra Ertan, Mehmet Güler, Gülsün Karamustafa, Asimina Paradissa, Monika Sieveking, Gerdt Marian Siewert, Nil Yalter and Serpil Yeter
   

 

Rodney McMillian
The Land: Not Without a Politic

16 Mar–16 Jun 2024
Gehry Galleries

 

This overview exhibition of the American artist Rodney McMillian (b. 1969, lives in Los Angeles) is the first in Europe to show works from all phases of his career. In the tradition of American Abstract Expressionism and socially critical Post-Minimalism, McMillian has developed a multi-layered, thematically and formally stringent oeuvre.

McMillian transforms discarded products of American consumer culture into impressive, gesturally abstract paintings. Here, as well as in the media of sculpture, installation and video, the artist addresses the role of Black people in art history and in the context of American life. He creates an exemplary material treatise on the social fabric of the USA, which is characterised through and through by categorisations based on class, economic status, race, gender and tradition.

An extensive monograph (Ger/Eng) will accompany the exhibition, published by Spector Books.

 

Kathrin Sonntag and
Gabriele Münter

The Travelling Eye

8 Jun–12 Jan 2025
Lippold Gallery

 

The photographs of the Expressionist Gabriele Münter (b. 1877 in Berlin, d. 1962 in Murnau), who is known primarily as a painter from the Blue Artist circle, are being shown for the first time in Herford, the native city of her family. Her extensive photographic oeuvre is importance evidence of her eye and her approach to composing with lines and planes. The artist’s choice of motifs and their arrangement provide an impressive look at her famous oeuvre.

For this exhibition, the artist Kathrin Sonntag (b. 1981 in Berlin, where she lives and works) was invited to engage with these photographs. Kathrin Sonntag has become known for her installations, in which her own photographs and those of others join in a spatial dialogue. In her work with the medium of photography she pursues questions concerning both the conditions and the traps of visual perception. The artist went in search of Gabriele Münter’s traces between Herford, Munich and Murnau and contextualises Münter’s photographs with her own.

This exhibition will also be shown from 18 Oct 2025 to 8 Feb 2026 in the Kunstmuseum Ravensburg.

With thanks to the Gabriele Münter- und Johannes-Eichner-Stiftung

 

Between Pixel and Pigment
Hybrid Painting in Post-Digital Times

7 Jul–10 Nov 2024
Gehry Galleries

 

This exhibition, which was developed together with the Kunsthalle Bielefeld and is being held in both venues simultaneously, is dedicated to hybrid painting and hence reflects our post-digital present, anchored between the digital and the analogue.

This large-scale cooperation focuses on a way of thinking about painting that has been greatly expanded by interweaving the hybrid in ways that treat content and technique as equals. International artists are fundamentally questioning the rich tradition of painting. To what extent do these changes influence materiality, media structures and aesthetics? How do hybrid spaces, solids that have become fluid and a feeling of being in between find correspondences in painting?

With the Kunstakademie Münster as a third project partner, museum practice is being combined with teaching and research. To accompany the exhibition, Kunstakademie is organising a symposium and a scholarly publication of its findings.

The exhibition will be accompanied with a two-day symposium on Fri 19 July in Bielefeld and Sat 20 July in Herford.

Artists

Sónia Almeida, Tim Berresheim, Salomé Chatriot, Vivian Greven, Wade Guyton,
Jacqueline Humphries, Charlotte Johannesson, KAYA, Peter Kogler, Vera Molnar, Mukenge/Schellhammer, Laura Owens, Seth Price, Rafaël Rozendaal, Pieter Schoolwerth, Amy Sillman, Avery Singer, Cheyney Thompson, Philipp Timischl, Corinne Wasmuht, Anicka Yi et al.

 

Luigi Colani
Forms of the Future

1 Dec 2024–2 Mar  2025
Gehry Galleries

 

In an exhibition on Luigi Colani (b. 1928 in Berlin, d. 2019 in Karlsruhe), the Marta Herford explores the work of an innovative design, which again addressing the question of how design ideas shape our daily lives and our aesthetic perception.

Colani’s streamlined designs ran counter to the design trends of his time. What may seem playful and eccentric is the result of his approach to bio design: inspired by nature, highly functional and conceived for optimal interplay with the human body.

Colani lived in eastern Westphalia in the 1960s and 1970s, where he designed for famous companies in the kitchen and furniture industries – from practical everyday objects to exclusive designs.

This regional connection will play a special role for the exhibition: part of it will be expanded interactively with the designer’s objects from private households.

Guest Curatorial Team:

Tobias Henschen and Julian Puszcz (Designbüro Zweieckig),
Prof. Tim Brauns (Technische Hochschule Ostwestfalen-Lippe)

 

11th RecyclingDesignpreis

1 Dec  2024–2 Mar 2025
Gehry Galleries

 

For the eleventh time, the RecyclingDesignpreis is dedicating itself to visionary ideas and original new uses for remnants and worn-out objects. The Marta Herford is the first venue to present these innovative developments in the field of sustainable design in an exhibition on this renowned design competition organised by the Arbeitskreis Recycling e. V. Herford. For the first time, this prize will be prominently presented in three of the galleries on the ground floor.

It shows a wide variety of current imaginative and functional upcycling produces as well as material studies and projects from the fields of circulation economy, social design and transformation design. The most convincing designs were selected by a jury of experts from hundreds of subjects from all over the world. The winners will receive their awards at the exhibition opening.

The works will then be shown at the Galerie Nord | Kunstverein Tiergarten, Berlin, and at the Neues Museum – Staatliches Museum für Kunst und Design, Nuremberg.

 

Marta Atelier is being expanded in 2024 – creating a “Third Place”

The Marta Atelier that was established in 2023 is opening up to a diverse urban society and visitors of all ages. In addition to the Marta Atelier, with its diverse offerings and creative workshops, other rooms on the second storey are being turned into a “Third Place” as a new space for getting together. This place for social encounter is intended to give everyone an opportunity to engage with art and culture, regardless of origins, age or general. It is intended to invite mutual interchange, learning, creativity and relaxation. The concept for its use and the design of its programme are the result of working closely with local cooperation partners and urban society.

There will also be offerings related to current exhibitions. It will emphasise the development of dialogical, inclusive and multi-perspectival formats as well as digital approaches. The education and outreach team welcomes inquiries about guided tours of exhibitions, tours of the architecture and creative workshops for children, adults and companies that can be arranged individually by request.

 

Statistics on visitors from
Germany and abroad

In 2022, the Marta Herford had 31,623 visitors; in 2023, it was 36,480. The Marta Herford is pleased by this success: Around 5,000 more visitors, an increase of 15%. The published prognosis of 40,000 was nearly reached. In 2023, 79 % of the visitors came from North Rhine-Westphalia – around 25% of those from the district of Herford, meaning that local visitors increased by 10% compared to the previous year. 17% of the visitors came to the Marta Herford from another German state. A slight growth in visitors from abroad could also be detected: in 2023 they represented 4%, compared to 3.3% in 2022.

 

Events at the Marta

Marta Discursive

For every exhibition, conversations with the artists, lectures by experts, performances, concerts and more take place. The content of the exhibitions, the positions of the artists and socially relevant themes are discussed in depth with experts – interchange and discussion are central.

Marta Philharmonic

In cooperation with the Nordwestdeutsche Philharmonie, concerts designed especially for the Marta are presented twice a year, followed by a tour of the exhibition.

City + Vision

Current issues in architecture and urban planning are presented and discussed four times a year in this series called Herford Architecture Conversations, in cooperation with the Bund Deutscher Architekten (BDA) of Eastern Westphalia and Lippe.

Enjoying Art in the Evening?

A visit to the Marta until 8 pm is possible every Wednesday, with the option of a tour of the exhibition at 6.00 pm.

Events

Conferences, events, presentations, parties and weddings at the. The Marta Forum, our lobby and seminar rooms can be rented. The Gehry Lounge in the Marta Café serves as the wedding venue of the registrar’s office of the Hanseatic City of Herford.

 

Acknowledgements

Many thanks to the Marta Herford Corporate Partners and Corporate Premium Partners as well as the Marta Fund for New Art for their ongoing support of our program.

Marta Supporters
Hanseatic City of Herford, Marta Freunde und Förderer e. V.

Corporate Premium Partner
Sparkasse Herford, Wemhöner Surface Technologies GmbH & Co.

Corporate Partners
Hettich Unternehmensgruppe, imos AG, inometa GmbH, Peter-Lacke GmbH,
Schaper Elektrotechnik GmbH & Co. KG, Brax Leineweber GmbH & Co. KG

Founding Partner
The State of North Rhine-Westphalia, the Hanseatic City of Herford

Media and Advertising Partners
Zeitungsverlag Neue Westfälische GmbH & Co. KG, Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung GmbH & Co. KG, fine print – digital druck GmbH, T+A elektroakustik GmbH & Co. KG

Cultural Partner
WDR 3

Marta Patronage Fund for New Art
Hettich Unternehmensgruppe, Leo and Ulrike Lübke, Joachim and Elisabeth von Reden, Schaper Elektrotechnik GmbH & Co. KG, Sparkasse Herford, Guido Strunck, Wemhöner Surface Technologies GmbH & Co

 

Press Information

This press release and print-quality press photographs can be found at the http://presse.marta-herford.de/

The password for the press area is: M4rt4pr3ss3

We are pleased to arrange conversations about the background and interview opportunities.

For this and all other information we are available at the telephone number

+49 (0) 5221-99 44 30-27 or by e-mail to presse@marta-herford.de.

 

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Address
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