Tony Cokes. Fragments, or just Moments

10.06.–11.09.2022

The first institutional solo exhibition of work by Tony Cokes in Germany also marks the first collaboration between Kunstverein München and Haus der Kunst. It is the result of a close dialogue between the American artist, both institutions, and their archives over the past two years. In his work, Cokes explores the ideology and affective politics of media and pop culture and their impact on societies. He develops collaged video essays out of found text and sound material that often reject representational imagery. For this exhibition spanning the Kunstverein München, Haus der Kunst, as well as the public space and pedestrian underpass between them, Cokes has developed a body of work entitled Some Munich Moments 1937–1972 (2022) that examines the past of the two closely located institutions by drawing on historical source material. The work combines archival material from and about the two exhibition sites with contemporary sources, taking as its starting point their ideological-propagandistic connection during the Nazi era as well as their respective cultural-political roles within the context of the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich. The exhibition at the Kunstverein München is curated by Maurin Dietrich, Gloria Hasnay, and Gina Merz.

Pippa Garner – Act Like You Know Me 

24.09.–23.11.2022

Opening 23.09.

Act Like You Know Me is the first comprehensive solo exhibition of the artist Pippa Garner (b. 1942) in Europe which offers a necessarily fragmentary insight into an incredibly extensive body of work spanning more than 50 years. The U.S.-American artist and author formerly known as Philip Garner, is pushing back against systems of consumerism, marketing, and waste and has created a dense body of work including drawing, performance, sculpture, video, and installation. Her uncompromising approach to life and practice has allowed her to interact with the worlds of illustration, editorial, television, and art without ever quite becoming beholden to them. The exhibition at the Kunstverein, which is co-curated by the writer and author Fiona Duncan, brings together a selection of photographs spanning Garner’s life in art that both have the status of autonomous works as well as documentation of her practice. Anti-materialist, most of her art objects were repurposed, recycled, or given away and lost, leaving these photographs as the central remaining documentation of the work.