The West Shines Bright – Kunstmuseum Bonn – July 10 – October 24, 2010

The Luminous West
July 10 – October 24, 2010

THE LUMINOUS WEST – one of the largest exhibition projects in the history of the Kunstmuseum Bonn – brings together 33 artists from two generations in a total of 3,500 m² of exhibition space for a broad assessment of the art landscape of the Rhineland and North Rhine-Westphalia. In conjunction with the major annual festivals European Capital of Culture Ruhr.2010 and Quadriennale 2010 in Düsseldorf, the show forms the southern complement to a grand tour of the Rhineland art and culture scene in the federal state of North Rhine-Westphalia.

Starting from a historical core embodied by Joseph Beuys, Imi Knoebel, Blinky Palermo, Sigmar Polke, and Gerhard Richter, DER WESTEN LEUCHTET presents the essential artists of the older generation with new works. These are in turn linked with key positions of young emerging art to form a comprehensive exhibition of 33 participants. The aim is deliberately not to provide an exhaustive overview, but rather a pointed selection in order to sharpen the profile of both the exhibition and the region.

THE LUMINOUS WEST differs from previous exhibitions dedicated to art from the Rhineland and/or North Rhine-Westphalia in two ways: firstly, through its combination of historical and contemporary perspectives, and secondly, through its dual curatorial objective. The older generation was selected by the museum's team of scholars (Volker Adolphs, Stephan Berg, Stefan Gronert, Irene Kleinschmidt-Altpeter, Sabina Leßmann, and Christoph Schreier). The younger artists, on the other hand, were nominated by these selected artists. This division of curatorial responsibility between art historians and artists is intended as a conscious statement against the phantasm of the omnipotent curator and as recognition of the priority of the artists' work.

In line with the collection concept of the Kunstmuseum Bonn, the participants are not presented with individual works, but with entire rooms. In addition to the “historical” core mentioned at the beginning, the Kunstmuseum team selected the following pioneering positions from the older generation: Bernd and Hilla Becher, Anna and Bernhard Johannes Blume, Tony Cragg, Isa Genzken, Andreas Gursky, Georg Herold, Jürgen Klauke, Marcel Odenbach, Albert Oehlen, Ulrich Rückriem, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Sieverding, Rosemarie Trockel, and Timm Ulrichs. They have proposed 14 young artists who, in their view, have the potential to productively develop or reexamine the impressive artistic heritage of the Rhineland in the future. Specifically, these are: Thomas Arnolds, Martina Debus, Simon Denny, Chris Durham, Claudia Fährenkemper, Natascha Sadr Haghighian, David Hahlbrock, Benjamin Houlihan, Bernd Kastner, Christian Keinstar, Erinna König, Gereon Krebber, Ursula Neugebauer, and Michail Pirgelis. Ideally, THE LUMINOUS WEST will thus become both a survey of the artistic heritage of the Rhineland and a blueprint for its artistic future.

PRESSEMITTEILUNG, Kunstmuseum Bonn