Alexander Kluge – The Power of Music

Opera houses are some of the most prominent buildings in European cities even today. Their architecture symbolises a strong and self-confident civil society. At the same time, the opera house is a place where the “strong emotions” that people normally “tone down” or suppress in daily life are expressed on stage. The writer and filmmaker Alexander Kluge is planning three major exhibitions in Ulm, Stuttgart and Halberstadt which make the opera and the “power of music” visible and offer new ways to appreciate this art form and the “strong emotions” the genre evokes. He does this by confronting the opera with other art forms in the exhibition venue. In cinematic mash-ups, he creates links between works of opera and science, literature and, most importantly, the visual arts. Based on the “Wunderkammer principle”, he ties visual art motifs to the world of opera. Works by Georg Baselitz (Parsifal), Sarah Morris (Under Water Opera Films) and Thomas Demand (Heroes’ Organ) will be presented alongside passages of music. Other artists like Katharina Grosse, Leslie Adelson and Jonathan Meese will develop new works (e.g. minute operas) for the exhibition.

In addition to the extensive presentation at the Museum Ulm and the Ulm Kunsthalle Weisshaupt, further exhibitions with unique content will be shown at the Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart and several venues in Kluge’s birthplace of Halberstadt.

Artists: Alexander Kluge, Kerstin Brätsch, Thomas Demand, Katharina Grosse, Ben Lerner, Sarah Morris, Richard Sennett, Thomas Thiede