The Hands-on Approach is what I like about Sculpture

Last December, our author Ursula Karpowitsch talked to curator and cultural manager Anemone Vostell about special encounters at her events, golden calves, and waving bears. This interview marks the beginning of a series of conversations with the coordinators of Sculpture Network, who form the core of our network in nine different countries.

Sculpture Network celebrates its 20th anniversary. What is the best moment you personally associate with the network?

And that is every single Dialogue event that the Sculpture Network coordinators –  like me for Berlin and its surrounding area – have hosted, and most of all, meeting the members and interested parties. One Dialogue was especially memorable: last year's visit to the “Sculpture Summer” in Pirna, where Dr. Helmut Heinze, a former professor of sculpture at the Dresden Academy of Fine Arts and the project's mentor, personally guided the group through the exhibition of contemporary figurative sculpture by artists from Germany and the Czech Republic.

Do you have a favorite sculpture?

Again, I would like to mention more than one: To begin with, the event sculpture at Rathenauplatz, 2 concrete Cadillacs in the shape of the naked Maja, which Wolf Vostell installed and encased in concrete at the site in 1987 for the 750th anniversary of Berlin. Wolf Vostell's intention was to expose the ‘24-hour dance of car drivers around the golden calf’, to which he alludes with the work named after a famous Goya painting. The two Cadillacs take up the body positions of the ‘Naked Maya’ on the Divan. 

Brigitte and Martin Matschinsky-Denninghoff's sculpture Berlin on the divider strip of Tauentzienstraße was also created as a contribution to the sculpture boulevard. Its tubes of chromium-nickel steel, with the two intertwined but separately positioned “goals”, brilliantly encapsulate the historical situation of Berlin, which was still divided at that time.

The Berliner Bär, a sculpture created by the prominent animal sculptor Renée Sintensis in 1957, to which I always wave when entering and leaving Berlin, and which we also know as the trophy of the Berlin International Film Festival.

You are planning an art trip to Extremadura this year. Is there anything you care to reveal about it at this stage?

Oh yes, it actually takes place in spring from March 6th to 9th. The planning has already been completed, and I am excited to offer our members, as well as all other friends of sculpture, an exclusive visit to the international art fair ARCOmadrid during the professional preview, which puts a special focus on contemporary sculpture.

From Madrid, we will take the bus to Cáceres, a medieval town in the heart of Extremadura where we will visit not only the historic city center, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, but also the ultra-modern museum of the Spanish gallerist Helga de Alvear. The museum is home to over 3,000 works of her collection, including pieces by Louise Bourgeois, Richard Long, and Thomas Hirschhorn.

The highlight of the trip will surely be the visit to the Museo Vostell Malpartida in the unique landscape of the plutonic magma rock formation, Los Barruecos. This is where nature, art, and people come together. The museum houses one of the largest collections of Fluxus and conceptual art in Europe, the Donación Gino di Maggio, an Italian collector and patron of the arts, whom Wolf Vostell was able to entice to the Extremadura with his particular concept for the museum: the Museo Vostell Malpartida is not only a place for exhibitions but also a place for participation and encounters.

This concept also manifests itself in the event sculpture VOAEX (Viaje de (H)ormigón por la Alta Extremadura), a concrete journey through Upper Extremadura, which Wolf Vostell, together with the trades of the municipality of Malpartida de Cáceres, embedded in concrete ten kilometers from Cáceres in 1976. This is the “cornerstone” of the Museo Vostell Malpartida, which, in addition to the Wolf & Mercedes Vostell collections, the Fluxus collection, and the Portuguese conceptualists, also shows temporary exhibitions of contemporary art.

Currently running there is an exhibition that I curated, BAR DELUXE – The Reversal of the Readymade, by the Berlin-based conceptual artist and sculptor MK Kaehne.

How did your interest in three-dimensional art come about, and how did it manifest itself?

From the very beginning, my studies in journalism brought me into contact with “media art”, often in the form of installations. I was fascinated, straight away, by the works of Rebecca Horn, Nam June Paik, and Wolf Vostell. Of particular importance to me was the participatory approach, the possibility of direct communication. This approach is particularly evident in the work of the Dadaists and Fluxists, but also in that of the Constructivists, with their mission to create art for everyday life and for working people.

During my time as director of the Berlin Gallery Association, I had a lot to do with the art market, where “flatware” is the easier discipline. But objects, sculptures, and light, sound, or simple installations have never ceased to fascinate me.

As an example, I organized the Berlin Lounge, a joint presentation of Berlin galleries as part of ART FROM BERLIN, featuring contemporary sculpture from Berlin in collaboration with Marc Wellmann, former director of exhibitions at the Georg Kolbe Museum and member of Sculpture Network. I will never forget how much joy it was to install the delicate figure of Further Gallant Scene (Inga) by artist Pia Stadtbäumer at the exhibition booth.

Yes, it is the hands-on approach that I like about sculpture.

This article was written by Ursula Karpowitsch in German.