Münster Now

For a few summer months once a decade, this small city becomes the epicenter of contemporary sculpture.

The idea of an art festival that only happens once every ten years seems a little pointless. But after you visit Münster, Germany and experience the ambitiousness of the Skulptur Projekte, you're amazed they can pull it off that often. The entire city and a few surrounding fields seem to be overrun with new sculptural works. Fortunately Münster is one of the most bikeable and walkable cities I've ever experienced.  Which means getting to the more than 30 locations is surprisingly easy and enjoyable. Münster is a perfectly lovely place to wander and see sculptures.  And there's more than new work to see.  Since this is the fifth installment of the storied festival, there's plenty of sculptural detritus left behind by some of the most notable artists of the last fifty years. You can't go very far without bumping into another interesting object.  I've covered off on those in another post.

For now, let's focus on all the new. A few general thoughts about the 2017 edition of Skulptur Projekt:

• "Sculpture" is a term used loosely in Münster.  The festival featured works that relied on everything from video to performance art to make their sculptural statements.  Sometimes that worked.  Other times it felt small compared to many of the more traditional public-sculpture efforts.
• For the past couple of years, I've felt like the art world is unsettled and warning us of coming doom.  Münster only furthered that feeling.  And yet, there were frequently glimmers of hope, moments of cautious optimism.  That helped quell my anxiety, even if only slightly.
• Sculpture wants desperately to feel less precious, more urgent, and more unfinished.  Scaffolding, rough edges, and the "ready-made" are all the rage. Sometimes it works. But often it made me long for the spectacular objects that constitute some of my favorite art. Only time will tell if this new messiness will inspire the future of humanity. Or maybe it already has and the current state of affairs is a reflection of the art world's disarray.

With those thoughts in mind, here are a few photos of some of my favorite works from the 2017 Skulptur Projekte Münster:

Nicole Eisenman: Sketch for a Fountain

The gender-neutral bronze and plaster figures lounging around a pond were a delightful discovery on my first day wandering Münster. This work is also featured as the main image for this post.

Nicole Eisenman: Sketch for a Fountain

Many of the figures seemed to have sprung leaks with mist or squirts of water spraying from them.

Nicole Eisenman: Sketch for a Fountain

As calm and relaxed as these figures are, they caused controversy.  During the festival the sculpture was vandalized twice.  One figure was decapitated and later the work was spray painted with a swastika, a phallus, and other negative graffiti. 

Nicole Eisenman: Sketch for a Fountain

The pensive, calm nature of the work was delightful and I've read some reports that suggest the city might consider purchasing the work so it would become a permanent resident. 

Lara Favaretto: Momentary Monument – The Stone

This granite monument's rough hewn form stays true to the messiness of much of what the art world seems to want now. But I was drawn to its monolithic presence. And it's conceptual nature made it more interesting.

Lara Favaretto: Momentary Monument – The Stone

The rock had been hollowed out with a few small slots where viewers were invited to insert coins. At the end of the festival, this giant bank was crushed and more that 26,000 euros were donated to HIlfe für Menschen Abschiebehaft Büren e.V. (Help for People in Deportation Custody).

Jeremy Deller: Speak to the Earth and It Will Tell You

This work was tucked away in a community-garden cottage. The idea started ten years earlier at the 2017 installment of the Skulptur Projekte.

Jeremy Deller: Speak to the Earth and It Will Tell You

In 2007, Deller asked community gardens around the world to keep garden journals for the following decade. In 2017, he showed about 30 of these journals that could be removed from a wooden shelve for browsing.

Jeremy Deller: Speak to the Earth and It Will Tell You

Part of the joy of Deller's work was the walk required to get there.  The path through one of Münster's community allotment gardens (participants in the work) made for a lovely afternoon.

Jeremy Deller: Speak to the Earth and It Will Tell You

The cottages along the path to Deller's work were charming.

Nairy Baghramian: Privileged Points

This work, placed in front of Münster's Baroque palace Erbdrostenhof, remains intentionally unfinished with clamps holding the brass castings together. Only when the piece is sold and finds its final home will the connections be permanently welded together.

Justin Matherly: Nietzsche's Rock

Based on an actual rock that inspired some of Nietzsche's philosophies, this work explores the human connection to a philosophical and aesthetic past.  I got none of that from seeing the sculpture but I loved it's strange, iceberg-like presence.

Justin Matherly: Nietzsche's Rock

Part of the fun of visiting Münster is seeing new works interacting with the permanent sculptural residents of the city.

Christian Odzuck: OFF OFD

This work is based on Münster's recently demolished revenue office. It's located on the building's previous site.  The work introduced a trend that I would see repeatedly over my entire trip: sculpture that simultaneously felt monolithic and temporary.

Christian Odzuck: OFF OFD

A detail from the concrete blocks that created the space.

Peles Empire: Sculpture

The tiled facade of this work features an image of the crumbling Romanian castle at Peles, the namesake of this artistic duo. I loved the way the sculpture interacted with Münster's historical buildings.

Peles Empire: Sculpture

The work wasn't just a facade. Viewers could enter the church-like space where they were confronted with a contemporary architectural environment.

Andreas Bunte: Laboratory Life

This work made me wonder what really qualified as sculpture.  Posters pasted directly onto architectural spaces in the city featured QR codes that retrieved video content of laboratory and scientific images. 

Thomas Schütte: Nuclear Temple

This was one of my favorite works mostly for the way the public reacted to it. Kids giggled, screamed in delight, and darted in and out of the sculpture with visible joy; a strange juxtaposition against an apocalyptic-looking work titled Nuclear Temple.

Thomas Schütte: Nuclear Temple

This detail shows sealed, window-like shapes that either provide protection from the outside, or entrapment from the inside.

Hito Steyerl: HellYeahWeFuckDie

According to the online magazine Billboard, the five words in the title of this work are the most commonly used in the English language music charts. This sculpture featured amazing video which was so cleverly utilized in the environment that it was the only time during Skulptur Projecte I felt video achieved a true sculptural quality. 

Hito Steyerl: HellYeahWeFuckDie

In addition to these monolithic sculptures, the featured videos were very engaging. They showed lab videos of robots being tortured by humans to improve their mobility and stability.  I left the installation feeling that when robots take over the world and destroy us all, they might very well point to these images as the reason for their actions.

Ayşe Erkmen: On Water

Experiencing this "walk on water" was a bit terrifying.  The effect on the day I was there wasn't as dramatic as I've seen in other photos where it looks like people are walking on water.  Here the water went up to your knees.

Installation view from Münster Skultur Projekte 2017

I'm not totally sure exactly what you're seeing here.  I believe the photo walls are part of Provisional Studies: Workshop #7 How to Live Together and Sharing the Unknown by Koki Tanaka. They are placed near a sculptural remnant from a past festival. What I love about the image is the way it expresses the strange vistas that occur when so much public art is found in such a small city.

Hervé Youmbi: Celestial Masks

This creepy installation was found in a disused cemetery.  Hidden high in the trees, the masks stared down at viewers and those buried below. 

Hervé Youmbi: Celestial Masks

Created with a combination of an American horror film icon and animistic tokens from traditional African cultures, the masks asked questions about capitalism, religion, and superstition.