Inside Other Spaces

Large-scale, walkable artworks – also known as “environments” – invite participation and interaction. They transform venues and produce immersive experiences at the interface of art, architecture and design. Since the 1950s, if not earlier, they have become an integral part of the international art world. The Western art canon, however, has mainly focused its attention on male artists of such works from the United States and Europe.

With “Inside Other Spaces”, the Haus der Kunst in Munich hopes to broaden our view and reinterpret the reception history of these environments at a global level and from the perspective of female artists. Featuring 14 female artists from three generations from Asia, Europe, North and South America, the exhibition aims to emphasise the fundamental contribution women have made to this genre. And there is good reason for why the exhibition focuses on the period between the mid-1950s and the 1970s. The year 1956 marked the debut of the environment “Red” by Tsuroka Yamakazi, the first female artist of this nascent genre, and in 1976, the exhibition “Ambiente / Arte dal Futursimo alla Body Art” was the first to historically recognise this artistic discipline at the 37^th Venice Biennale.

Most of the environments from this period were either disassembled or destroyed from their respective exhibition. The detailed reconstruction aims to make these long-lost works visible again, but this also requires an intensive amount of archival research and study of various sources – photos, building plans, reviews, lists of materials and even invoices. The Haus der Kunst is cooperating with numerous international partners to make the exhibition possible, e.g. the Museo de Arte Moderno de Buenos Aires, Galeria de Arte Nacional in Caracas, Fondation Luis Vuitton in Paris, Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the Hyōgo Prefectural Museum of Art in Kōbe.

Artistic directors: Andrea Lissoni, Marina Pugliese
Artists: Carla Accardi, Lygia Clark, Gego, Laura Grisi, Aleksandra Kasuba, Yayoi Kusama, Lea Lublin, Marta Minujin, ‚Tania Mouraud, Maria Nordmann and others

Exhibition: Haus der Kunst, Munich: 1 Sep. 2023 – 10 Mar. 2024