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Film series „Meinungsbilder“Close Up is exactly that – a closer take on a core theme in the Städel’s collection of contemporary art, as an art and mediation space on site and as a digital application. The use of various analogue and digital media to explore a tight selection of original works of art, allows viewers to formulate their own response to a burning issue in contemporary art.
This offer is part of “Shifting Points of View. Seeing Differently. Understanding One Another,” an education initiative by the Städel Museum.
Discover the new thematic focus - on site and from now on also for home use.
How do artists process political events from the immediate present? The current CLOSE UP focuses on three works by Bettina Semmer, Armin Boehm and Dierk Schmidt from the Städel Museum’s Collection of Contemporary Art. They are representative of the artistic treatment of current events in the field of painting – contemporary history painting, so to speak. Despite their different approaches, the artists have one thing in common in regard to their approach: They change and expand the historical model with the means of painting. They confront the viewer, make the invisible visible, and point out various perspectives. The boundaries between objective reproduction and subjective influence or statement are fluid. Their painting leaves the realm of documentation and develops its own narrative. With the means of art, they – directly or indirectly – actively call upon us to take a stand ourselves.
Honoured with the DigAMus Award 2023.
In the innovative art and mediation space CLOSE UP, visitors are invited to conduct their own research in front of the original works: How do we deal with images of terror? What is the role of the media, and what role can a painting play? How do artists relate to their works: Are they activists, mediators, or neutral entities?
The focus is on topics related to the culture of memory and collective memory, as well as on the power and role of images as carriers of information or means of reproducing political and social events. To these ends, CLOSE UP relies on the interplay of original artworks, wall texts, and a digital application.
The broad spectrum of digital mediation – from exhibition films and interviews with artists from the collection to the Digital Collection – complements the encounter with the originals in the museum space. The activating digital application is available on site and as a mobile version for the user’s own device, now also for use at home. Furthermore, guided tours complement the offer in CLOSE UP. They include the various modules and encourage a joint discussion about the various artistic approaches.
Armin Boehm
Untitled (Zhwar Kili), 2007
Oil on canvas
195.0 x 250.0 x 5.0 cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
© Armin Boehm
Bettina Semmer
Olympia (German disasters series), 1985
Oil on canvas
200.0 x 155.0 cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
© Bettina Semmer
Dierk Schmidt
SIEV-X - To a case of intensified refugee policy, 2001-2003
Various measures
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
Property of Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2021
The relationship between photography and painting forms the subject of the first presentation: By taking Sigmar Polke, Wolfgang Tillmans, and Jörg Sasse as examples, we examine in detail the fertile cross-pollination between these two supposedly competing media. The three works in the room can be viewed under different ‘lenses’, bringing to light hidden threads between art and society, in the past and present.
Jörg Sasse
7127, 2003
C-Print
130,0 x 200,0 cm
DZ BANK Art Collection at the Städel Museum
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020
Sigmar Polke
Ohne Titel, 1975
Photograph and acrylic on canvas
40 x 50 cm
Deutsche Bank Collection at the Städel Museum
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main
© The Estate Sigmar Polke, Cologne / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2020
Wolfgang Tillmanns
paper drop (window), 2006
C-print in the artist's frame
145,0 x 200,0 cm
Städel Museum, Frankfurt am Main, Property of the Städelscher Museums-Verein e.V.
© Wolfgang Tillmans