Charlotte Posenenske
March 19 to May 15, 2005

The Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, will be showing a retrospective of Charlotte Posenenske (born 1930 in Wiesbaden, Germany) from March 19 to May 15, 2005.

Charlotte Posenenske was one of the leading artists of the 1960s who is associated with Minimal art in Germany. Her objects and sculptures that relate strongly to architecture emphasize aspects such as variability and movement. She worked with materials as different as aluminum and steel sheet and cardboard. A playful approach to dimensions and reflection on the artistic notion of work and authorship as well as the role of the viewer are significant factors in Charlotte Posenenske’s approach to art.

The exhibition will be showing for the first time pieces from all of the important phases of her artistic career. The viewer will be able to follow Posenenske’s development that took place over a short span of time, leading from painting to real space. The exhibition will feature paintings from the late 1950s and early 1960s, Striped Pictures and Three-Dimensional Pictures from the mid-1960s, Reliefs (1967) as well as the Square Tubes that she presented both indoors and outdoors (1967) and her Revolving Vanes (1967/68) – the last group of works Posenenske produced before she gave up art in 1968. A central piece of the exhibition is a Revolving Vanes piece made of press board which was restored on this occasion. In this late piece the traces of earlier viewers are inscribed in a literal sense. For Posenenske these traces of use constituted an integral part of her work.

This presentation of Posenenske’s both radical and multi-facetted artistic approach is rounded off by her stage set designs from the 1950s, her art-in-architecture projects from the 1960s and in particular her two film strips from 1968 that were created with the active participation of Peter Roehr and Paul Maenz on a drive through Holland in spring 1968. The public will have a chance to see these works for the first time as part of this exhibition. 

Documents and TV contributions will situate Posenenske’s approach in the art context of her time. There is, for example, a TV contribution on the exhibition „Dies alles, Herzchen, wird einmal dir gehören“ [All this, sweetheart, will be yours] (Galerie Loehr 1967) will be shown in the exhibition. Here a group of young men can be seen, constantly showing new configurations of her square pipes as instructed by the artist.

The retrospective at the Galerie im Taxispalais 2005 will provide extensive insights of Charlotte Posenenske’s oeuvre which to date has only been familiar to expert circles. Twenty years after the artist’s death the exhibition is the first comprehensive solo-show of Charlotte Posenenske’s work in Austria.

Exhibition organized in cooperation with Dr. Eva Schmidt, Museum für Gegenwartskunst in Siegen, where the exhibition is to be shown from June 2 to August 28, 2005.

Lecture, catalogue presentation, reconstruction
Saturday, April 23, 2005, 6 p.m.

A lecture will be given by Dr. Burkhard Brunn, Frankfurt/M., Charlotte Posenenske estate, followed by a discussion with Dr. Eva Schmidt, director of the Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, Dr. Silvia Eiblmayr and Astrid Wege.

In connection with the lecture, the installation of Square Tubes from the DW series will be reconstructed in the hall on the lower floor.

Catalogue 
Charlotte Posenenske
D Ed. Silvia Eiblmayr / Astrid Wege, Galerie im Taxipalais / Eva Schmidt, Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen
Texts by Eva Schmidt, Gerald Schröder, Astrid Wege and a conversation between Konstantin Adamopoulos and Burkhard Brunn (German/English)
128 pp., approx. 70 ill., 40 in color
Revolver – Archiv für aktuelle Kunst
ISBN 3-86588-077-0

Thanks go to
Dr. Burkhard Brunn, Frankfurt/M., Charlotte Posenenske estate, Konstantin Adamopoulos, Cologne, the lenders, and BOE Gebäudemanagement GesmbH