{"id":7062,"date":"2026-06-22T11:12:42","date_gmt":"2026-06-22T09:12:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.marta-herford.de\/?post_type=pressemitteilung&p=7062"},"modified":"2026-06-26T17:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-26T15:29:19","slug":"mindset-los-angeles","status":"publish","type":"pressemitteilung","link":"https:\/\/staging.marta-herford.de\/en\/pressemitteilung\/mindset-los-angeles\/","title":{"rendered":"Mindset Los Angeles"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Frank Gehry and the Cool School (27. 6. 2026 – 10. 1. 2027)<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Works from the Sch\u00fcrmann Collection (27. 6. – 8. 11. 2026)<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Herford Meets Los Angeles: With its expansive project Mindset Los Angeles<\/em>, Marta Herford turns its attention to the dialogue between art and architecture, taking Frank Gehry\u2019s early work as its point of departure and presenting it in the Marta museum building he designed. For the first time, the exhibition highlights Frank Gehry\u2019s close connections with artists\u2014including members of the Cool School. More than 150 works bring together now-renowned figures of the American postwar avant-garde and open up a fresh perspective on the interplay between art and Gehry\u2019s early architectural projects. Works from the Sch\u00fcrmann Collection<\/em> complement this overview of historical artistic approaches from the U.S. West Coast and extend it into the present.
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With Mindset Los Angeles<\/em>, Marta Herford presents, for the first time, an exhibition project that understands art and architecture as shared spaces of thought and experience. The point of departure is Frank Gehry\u2019s close relationship with the art scene of the American West Coast and its influence on his architectural thinking. Marta Herford\u2019s entire exhibition space is devoted to the wide-ranging project Mindset Los Angeles<\/em>: while Frank Gehry and the Cool School illuminates the shared origins and networks in L.A., as well as the architect\u2019s ties to artists of his time, selected works from the Sch\u00fcrmann Collection broaden the perspective to include later artistic developments and contemporary concerns.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Frank Gehry and the Cool School<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the late 1950s, the legendary Ferus Gallery laid the groundwork for a vibrant new avant-garde scene in Los Angeles. A loose circle of artists\u2014primarily from L.A. and San Francisco\u2014formed around the gallery run by Walter Hopps and Ed Kienholz. Inspired by the rebellious Beat Generation, this network became a hotbed of artistic experimentation. Many of the artists involved are now prominent names in recent art history, including key figures in American postwar art such as Larry Bell, Wallace Berman, Craig Kauffman, Edward Kienholz, and Ed Ruscha. In the 1960s, the art critic and Artforum<\/em> editor Philip Leider grouped this loose artistic community under the term Cool School. The name refers not only to their artistic independence, but also to a mode of self-presentation marked by considerable self-confidence and a macho brand of cool.[1]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gehry, who described the connection between art and architecture as part of his DNA from his student days onward, became part of this dynamic art scene. His exchanges with the artists had a lasting impact on his understanding of architecture. Looking back, he described the openness of the scene as crucial to his own development: \u201cThe thinking, the stuff people were talking about and doing (in the Californian art scene) \u2026 led to my own language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gehry shared with these artists a spirit of experimentation, an openness to everyday materials, an engagement with new technologies, and an interest in surface, space, light, and perception. While the established and commercially successful art scene of Abstract Expressionism on the East Coast set out clear rules, Los Angeles was becoming a creative melting pot. Here, in the shadow of Hollywood\u2014shaped by bustling boulevards, the urban infrastructure of multilane freeways, the booming automotive and aviation industries, an omnipresent advertising industry, and, not least, the extraordinary light of the Pacific Coast\u2014artistic processes were able to unfold with a remarkable sense of freedom. The studios and workspaces that were still affordable at the time also contributed to this atmosphere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Material, Light, and Perception<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Out of this atmosphere, the artists began experimenting with technical processes and industrial materials. The object itself was no longer the sole focus; instead, attention shifted to the experience of space, light, and perception. This gave rise to the Light and Space and Finish Fetish movements, which\u2014because of the West Coast\u2019s distinctive cultural and technological conditions\u2014would later be grouped together under the term L.A. Look.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the same time, Los Angeles was also a magnet for artists from the East Coast. The Gemini printmaking, paper, and editions workshop, built by Gehry, attracted numerous artists. Gehry was fascinated by the artistic developments emerging from New York: the approaches of Minimal Art and Robert Rauschenberg\u2019s assemblages, which were taking shape in parallel with his own cardboard furniture. \u201cThis was the time when Rauschenberg and Johns were making art with junk. Donald Judd was making art with galvanized steel, and Carl Andre was putting bricks along the floor. Intellectually I connected with them, and not only because the minimalism fit my liberal tendencies. Despite its matter-of-factness, accessibility, and unpretentiousness, it was high art. It was obvious beautiful, and people were responding to it.\u201d[2]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Architecture and Exhibition<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This creative environment forms the starting point for the exhibition. With Mindset Los Angeles \u2013 Frank Gehry and the Cool School <\/em>(June 27, 2026 \u2013 January 10, 2027), Marta Herford\u2014Germany\u2019s most recent architectural sculpture designed by Frank Gehry\u2014also presents an exhibition about friendships. On view are approximately 150 works of the American postwar avant-garde, brought together for the exhibition from numerous European museums, estates, and galleries, along with selected early design drawings and models by Frank Gehry from the Getty Research Institute and the Gehry Partners archive in Los Angeles. The exhibits reveal formal parallels and thematic affinities between architecture and the visual arts in a direct and compelling way, bringing shared lines of thought and development to light.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A total of seven of Gehry\u2019s projects are represented in the exhibition, including his own home. The Gehry Residence<\/em>, itself a sculptural structure and a vivid demonstration of Gehry\u2019s experimental approach to design, functions as a radical application of assemblage. An existing, simple building in the Dutch Colonial style was expanded and reorganized with structures made of wood, metal, and glass. In this way, the building evolved into an open system rather than a self-contained object. \u201cMy own house couldn\u2019t be built anywhere but California. It was experimenting with wood and glass and materials that were used here.\u201d[3]<\/a> \u201cThere was an amazing energy in the city, an openness and a sense that new things were happening.\u201d[4]<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marta Herford, which opened in 2005, is also presented as part of this series. Closely related to the Gehry Residence<\/em> and following the principles of assemblage, this museum of contemporary art, with its focus on design and architecture, wraps around an older building that Frank Gehry extensively expanded. Marta Herford is one of the few museum buildings Gehry realized and stands alongside internationally significant architectural projects in his oeuvre, such as the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao. With its organic forms, tilted and curving walls, brick cladding, undulating stainless-steel roof, and wood paneling, Marta Herford takes up key elements of Gehry\u2019s approach and itself becomes an expression of his artistic vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Important loans from the collection of Gaby and Wilhelm Sch\u00fcrmann, who have been collecting West Coast art since the 1980s, have allowed the exhibition to be expanded with key figures from 1970s Los Angeles. In the Lippold Gallery, in the context of Mindset Los Angeles<\/em>, the exhibition presents exclusively works from the Sch\u00fcrmann Collection that build on the artistic approaches developed in Los Angeles and demonstrate their influence on later generations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At the center is Jason Rhoades\u2019s expansive installation The Great Se<\/em>e<\/em> Battles of Wilhelm Sch\u00fcrmann<\/em> (1994\u201395). Themes such as social fractures, tensions, and contradictory images\u2014often in the context of U.S. (consumer) culture\u2014define the conceptual framework for works by artists including Edgar Arceneaux, Sam Durant, and Aura Rosenberg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The exhibition project is accompanied by a wide-ranging public program that brings the atmosphere of Los Angeles in the 1960s and 1970s to life beyond the exhibition spaces. Every Sunday, a free, curated film program invites visitors to immerse themselves in the cultural and social atmosphere of that era. Interviews with eyewitnesses and experts offer firsthand insights. As part of the popular City and Vision <\/em>series, organized in collaboration with the Association of German Architects, Ostwestfalen-Lippe Region, exclusive talks on the themes of the exhibitions will be held for the first time. Lectures, curator-led tours, and a wide range of educational programs for all age groups round out the program and offer further opportunities to deepen visitors\u2019 engagement with the exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Sch\u00fcrmann 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 K\u00f6nig. It will be priced at \u20ac37 in the Marta shop during the exhibition and \u20ac42 thereafter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Additional content and further information on the exhibited works and themes are available in the accompanying exhibition app: https:\/\/app.interkit.marta-herford.de\/app\/t8vBWctGdzteafL2q<\/a>\/.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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[1]<\/a> Ken D. Allen, Lucy Bradnock, and Lisa Turvey, \u201cFor People Who Know the Difference: Pop Art and the 1960s: A Definition,\u201d in Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles 1945\u20131980<\/em>, exhibition catalog, Martin Gropius Bau, Berlin, 2011, 125.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[2]<\/a> Barbara Isenberg, \u201cFrank Gehry,\u201d in State of the Arts: California Artists Talk about Their Work<\/em> (New York: William Morrow\/HarperCollins, 2000), 49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[3]<\/a> Isenberg, \u201cFrank Gehry,\u201d 51.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[4]<\/a> Isenberg, \u201cFrank Gehry,\u201d 49.<\/p>\n\n\n\n


Artists<\/strong>
John Altoon, Carl Andre, Edgar Arceneaux, John Baldessari, Larry Bell, Billy Al Bengston, Wallace Berman, John Chamberlain, Judy Chicago, Meg Cranston \/ John Baldessari, Ronald Davis, Sean Duffy, Sam Durant, Frank Gehry, Richard Hawkins, David Hockney, Robert Irwin, Donald Judd, Craig Kauffman, Corita Kent, Edward Kienholz, Ed Moses, Claes Oldenburg \/ Coosje van Bruggen, Ken Price, Robert Rauschenberg, Deborah Remington, Jason Rhoades, Aura Rosenberg, Ed Ruscha, Richard Serra, Pae White<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sponsored by<\/strong>
Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In partnership with<\/strong>
Gehry Partners
Getty, Los Angeles
Gaby and Wilhelm Sch\u00fcrmann Collection, Herzogenrath<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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