19 February to 24 May 1999
Andy Warhol »Crosses«
Reencounter with the Unknown – Part 12
To launch the new exhibition year we have newly organised the presentation of major works of the collection. Crosses and crucifixes are the main focus of part 12 of the exhibition series »Reencounter with the Unknown«. Together with the Herimann Crucifix, an outstanding work of ancient art and medieval reliquary-busts, in addition to rosaries from different epochs, religious prints dating from the late 19
th century and a private collection of crucifixes for private devotion (on loan for the duration of the exhibition), a wide range of Andy Warhol’s series of “Crosses” is being shown. Polaroids, drawings and silk screen prints created between 1980 and 1982 give rise to the questions of evaluating the single picture as opposed to a series of paintings and of the picture meant for meditation as opposed to the logo, causing classifications which cancel each other out, such as “symbolic” or “decorative” to seem as if they arose from the picture surface. It is just as Oscar Wilde says in “The Picture of Dorian Gray”: »All art is at once surface and symbol. Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.« A catalogue is being published with texts by Robert Rosenblum and Joachim M. Plotzek.
(Book publication / out of print)