At the heart of the Lippold Gallery stands Jason Rhoades’s laboratory-like installation The Great See Battles of Wilhelm Schürmann (1994–95), inspired by photographs taken by the collector. Questions of social fragmentation, tension, and conflicting imagery—often within the framework of US (consumer) culture—set the conceptual backdrop for the sculptures and paintings gathered here.
Once again, Marta’s architecture as a site of spatial experience—and the ever-resonant Herford–Los Angeles axis—comes sharply into focus within the museum’s exhibition program.
Additional content and further information on the exhibited works and artists are available in the accompanying exhibition app: https://app.interkit.marta-herford.de/app/t8vBWctGdzteafL2q/.
A catalog in German and English, edited by Marta Herford, will be published to accompany the exhibition. Spanning 192 pages, the publication brings together essays by Hunter Drohojowska-Philp, Sylvia Lavin, and Ann Kristin Kreisel, as well as two interviews: one with Larry Bell by Marcus Herse and another with Wilhelm Schürmann by Kathleen Rahn. It includes a foreword by the director of Marta Herford, more than 200 illustrations, historical documents, and original quotations by Frank Gehry. The hardcover volume (ISBN 978-3-7533-1042-8) will be published in late July by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König. It will be priced at €37 in the Marta shop during the exhibition and €42 thereafter.
Artists
Edgar Arceneaux, Sam Durant, Sean Duffy, Richard Hawkins, Jason Rhoades, Aura Rosenberg
Accompanying program
Los Angeles, Hollywood, Pool Parties, and “Advanced Drug Research”—An artistic movement sparked by CalArts with ongoing impact—Lecture by Christina Végh
Los Angeles, the metropolis of the U.S. West Coast, was located in the second half of the 20th century far from the art centers of the time (New York, Paris, Cologne). The vast and untamed West, which had little prior artistic influence, fostered freedom of action and thought, leading to groundbreaking artistic expression. A prime example of this is CalArts (California Institute of the Arts), the art college founded by Walt Disney in 1970 near Los Angeles. CalArts developed a radical, pioneering educational model whose interdisciplinary approach drew on European and American institutions such as the Bauhaus and Black Mountain College. In addition to conceptual art, teaching programs by artists such as John Baldessari’s “Post Studio Program” and the “Feminist Art Program” by Miriam Schapiro and Judy Chicago were also groundbreaking. Driven by the spirit of the 1970s, legendary pool parties, and courses such as “Advanced Drug Research,” a unique cultural dynamic emerged: it transformed the West Coast and Los Angeles into a central hub for artistic production and contemporary discourse (a status that continues to this day).
In her lecture, Christina Végh (born in Zurich in 1970), director of the Kunsthalle Bielefeld, offers insights into the events of that time. She introduces individual protagonists and eyewitnesses through filmed oral history interviews. In 2019, Végh curated the exhibition *Where Art Can Happen: The Early Years of CalArts in 2019 (at the Kestner Gesellschaft in Hanover), together with Philip Kaiser (independent curator, Los Angeles), as part of a three-year research project in cooperation with Freie Universität Berlin (Prof. Dr. Annette Jael Lehmann) and metaLAB (at) Harvard, Boston (Prof. Dr. Jeffrey Schnapp, Kim Albrecht), and in collaboration with IMAGE and CONTENT, Zurich (Reto Caduff, documentary filmmaker).
Lecture as part of the exhibition’s accompanying program Mindset Los Angeles – Frank Gehry and the Cool School
Ticket:
Included with admission to the exhibition or 5 euros / reduced rate: 3 euros
Curatorial tour of “Mindset Los Angeles” with curator Ann-Kristin Kreisel
During the one-hour guided tour of the current exhibition Mindset Los Angeles led by Marta curator Ann-Kristin Kreisel, visitors will learn about the background of the exhibition, its development, and the works on display. The tour will cover interesting facts about Frank Gehry (1929–2025), the architect of the Marta Herford, as well as the artists of his time in Los Angeles who had a profound influence on his work. Building on this, the tour will also explore works by subsequent generations of artists in L.A.
(Exhibition at the Gehry Galleries and the Lippold Gallery, 1st floor)
Ticket:
3.50 euros plus admission to the exhibition; no registration required; limited number of participants
Thanks
We would like to express our sincere thanks to the Marta Herford Corporate Partners and Corporate Premium Partners, as well as the Marta Fund for New Art, for their long-term support of our program.
Sponsored by
In partnership with
Gaby and Wilhelm Schürmann Collection, Herzogenrath