Images & Texts

The Städel Museum will usher in the coming exhibition year with a high-calibre show: starting on 24 February 2016, the Frankfurt museum will present "Maniera. Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence". With the aid of some 120 prominent loans, the exhibition will acquaint the German public with a key chapter in the history of Italian art – Florentine Mannerism – in all its diversity for the first time. Works by Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino, Giorgio Vasari and others will be on view. Chronologically and topographically, the show will pick up where the successful Städel exhibition "Botticelli. Likeness, Myth, Devotion" of 2009/10 left off. Advance ticket sales have already begun. Flexible "Early-Bird-Tickets", redeemable at the holder’s convenience, can be booked online at a preferential price of 10 EUR starting immediately.

The exhibition is being realized with support from the Savings Banks Finance Group and the Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain.

Devoted to Florence as the first centre of European Mannerism, the large-scale special exhibition will cover the period from the return of the Medici to that city in 1512 and the early artistic forays by the new generation around Pontormo and Rosso to the 1568 publication of the second edition of Giorgio Vasari’s Lives of the Artists a work still influential today. More than fifty paintings, but also over fifty drawings and eight sculptures will offer an experience hitherto possible only in Florence – a broad survey of a stylistically formative epoch characterized by the art historiographer Giorgio Vasari with the colourful term "maniera". One of the most exquisite works in the Städel holdings – Bronzino’s famous Portrait of a Lady in Red (Francesca Salviati?) (ca. 1533) – formed the point of departure for this show. The project is being carried out with special support from the museums of Florence, above all the Uffizi, the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Galleria Palatina, which are all contributing exceptional selections of works. Further key loans will come from such prominent institutions as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Paris Louvre, the Prado and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest and the Brera in Milan.

Owing in great part to Leonardo, Michelangelo and Raphael, the High Renaissance of the early sixteenth century is generally considered a zenith in the development of art in Italy. In altogether eight chapters with differing temporal and thematic emphases, the Städel Museum exhibition will now impressively demonstrate that a number of especially outstanding artistic accomplishments can be attributed to the following two generations of artists. The art of Mannerism has many facets: it is elegant, cultivated and artificial, but also capricious, extravagant and sometimes even bizarre. Sophisticated elegance and creative eccentricity characterize the painting of the "maniera" as one of the most fascinating phenomena in Italian art. Building on the trailblazing Florentine presentations "L’officina della maniera" (1996/97), "Bronzino. Pittore e poeta alla corte dei Medici" (2010/11) and "Pontormo e Rosso Fiorentino. Divergenti vie della ‘maniera’" (2014), the Städel Museum’s comprehensive special exhibition will present a broad survey of Mannerist painting in Florence within the context of various genres and the city’s history.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue published by the Prestel Verlag and edited by Bastian Eclercy, with a foreword by Max Hollein and texts by Hans Aurenhammer, Nicholas Scott Baker, Katharina Bedenbender, Anne Bloemacher, Gerd Blum, Ralf Bormann, Matteo Burioni, Heiko Damm, Bastian Eclercy, Chris Fischer, David Franklin, Dennis Geronimus, Sefy Hendler, Theresa Holler, Heidi J. Hornik, Fabian Jonietz, Adela Kutschke, Johannes Myssok, Susanne Pollack, Susanne Thürigen and Linda Wolk-Simon. In German and English, 304 pages, 39.90 EUR (museum edition).

MANIERA. PONTORMO, BRONZINO AND MEDICI FLORENCE

Curator: Dr Bastian Eclercy, head of the collection of Italian, French and Spanish paintings before 1800, Städel Museum.
Exhibition dates: 24 February to 5 June 2016.
Press preview: Tuesday, 23 February 2016, 11 am.
Location: Städel Museum, Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt am Main.

Information: www.staedelmuseum.de, info@staedelmuseum.de, telephone +49(0)69-605098-0, fax +49(0)69-605098-111.
Visitor services: telephone +49(0)69-605098-232, besucherdienst@staedelmuseum.de.
Opening hours: Tue, Wed, Sat, Sun + holidays 10am ‒ 6 pm, Thu, Fri 10 am ‒ 9 pm.
Special opening hours: 25, 27 and 28 Mar. 10 am ‒ 6 pm, 1 May closed, 5, 15, 16 and 17 May 10 am ‒ 6 pm, 26 May 10 am ‒ 6 pm.

Admission: 14 EUR, reduced 12 EUR, family ticket 24 EUR; admission free for children to the age of 12; combi-price admission + guided tour 16 EUR (available online only); groups (minimum 10 persons): reduced admission fee per person. Groups are required to book in advance by contacting us at +49(0)69-605098-200 or info@staedelmuseum.de.
Early-Bird-Ticket: The first 1,000 online tickets are available at a preferential price of 10 EUR instead of the regular 14 EUR at tickets.staedelmuseum.de.
Advance ticket sales online at: tickets.staedelmuseum.de.

Catalogue: The exhibition will be accompanied by a comprehensive catalogue published by the Prestel Verlag and edited by Bastian Eclercy, with a foreword by Max Hollein and contributions by Hans Aurenhammer, Nicholas Scott Baker, Katharina Bedenbender, Anne Bloemacher, Gerd Blum, Ralf Bormann, Matteo Burioni, Heiko Damm, Bastian Eclercy, Chris Fischer, David Franklin, Dennis Geronimus, Sefy Hendler, Theresa Holler, Heidi J. Hornik, Fabian Jonietz, Adela Kutschke, Johannes Myssok, Susanne Pollack, Susanne Thürigen and Linda Wolk-Simon. In German and English, 304 pages, 39.90 Euro (museum edition).
Visitor’s guide: A visitor’s guide will be available in German, 40 pages, 7.50 EUR.

Digitorial: The digitorial is being made possible by the Aventis Foundation. Design and programming: Scholz & Volkmer. It will be available from February 2016 at maniera.staedelmuseum.de.
Städel App: The Städel App is sponsored by the FAZIT-STIFTUNG. The app is optimized for Android and iOS smartphone. Starting on the first day of the exhibition, it will offer the audio tour of the show in the form of a smartphone download.
Audio guide: The audio tour is narrated by Giovanni di Lorenzo, chief editor of the ZEIT. German and English, 4 EUR, two audio guides for 7 EUR.
Social Media: The Städel Museum is communicating the exhibition on the social media with the hashtags #maniera and #staedel.

General guided tours of the exhibition: Tue 3 pm, Wed 1 pm, Thu 6 pm, Fri 7 pm, Sat 4 pm, Sun 11 am, Fri. 25 Mar., Mon. 28 Mar., Thu 5 May, Mon. 16 May, Thu 26 May 4 pm. Tickets for the general guided tours are available for 4 EUR starting two hours before the tour begins (Sundays from 10 am) at the Städel cashier’s desk, or in advance at a preferential price of 16 EUR (admission + guided tour) online at tickets.staedelmuseum.de. The number of participants is limited; previous booking is not required.

Sponsored by: Savings Banks Finance Group, represented by Sparkassen-Kulturfonds of the German Savings Banks Association, Deutsche Leasing and Frankfurter Sparkasse;
Kulturfonds Frankfurt RheinMain gGmbH.

Media partner: Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main
Mobility partner: Deutsche Bahn AG
Cultural partner: hr2-kultur

Exhibition Program

Maniera: Pontormo, Bronzino and Medici Florence
24 February to 5 June 2016
Exhibition annex
Jacopo Pontormo, Agnolo Bronzino, Andrea del Sarto, Rosso Fiorentino, Giorgio Vasari – in 2016, the Städel Museum will stage a major exhibition of superb works presenting the distinguished painters of Florentine Mannerism for the first time in Germany. With the aid of prominent loans, the show will acquaint the public with a key chapter in the history of Italian art in all its diversity. Spanning the period from the return of the Medici to Florence in 1512 and the initial artistic endeavours of the new generation around Pontormo and Rosso to the 1568 publication of Vasari’s Lives – artist biographies that still bear an influence today –, “Maniera” will be devoted to Florence as the first centre of European Mannerism. More than 120 precious loans, including paintings as well as drawings and sculptures, will provide an unprecedented overview of a stylistically formative epoch for which the art historiographer Giorgio Vasari coined the colourful term “maniera”. Elegant, cultivated and artificial, but also capricious, extravagant and sometimes even bizarre: the art of Mannerism exhibits many facets. In 1967, the art historian John Shearman summed it up in a catchy formula – "the stylish style". Its sophisticated grace and creative tenacity make the “maniera” one of the most fascinating phenomena in the art of Italy.
One of the most exquisite works in the Städel holdings – Bronzino’s famous Portrait of a Lady in Red (Francesca Salviati?) (ca. 1533) – formed the point of departure for this ambitious show. The project is being carried out with special support from the museums of Florence, above all the Uffizi, the Galleria dell’Accademia and the Galleria Palatina. Further key loans will come from such prominent museums as the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Paris Louvre, the Prado and the Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza in Madrid, the Staatsgalerie Stuttgart, the Szépművészeti Múzeum in Budapest and the Brera in Milan.
The art-historical development of the decades from 1512 to 1568 will be presented in close relation to Florentine city history and Medici rule – themes to be investigated in both the exhibition and the accompanying catalogue.
Curator: Dr. Bastian Eclercy

Sigmar Polke: Early Prints
2 March to 22 May 2016
Exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings
The printed image, circulated by the mass media or photographically staged by the artist himself, represents a fundamental principle in the work of Sigmar Polke (1941–2010). As early as 1967, towards the end of his studies at the Düsseldorf art academy, Polke published his first print: Girlfriends. To this end he chose offset printing, a rather unsophisticated technique in terms of craftsmanship, and trivial from the artistic point of view. It would remain his favourite printmaking medium, which he would use to transport and disseminate seemingly incidental – but nonetheless disconcerting – commentaries on art and society.
The presentation in the exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings will feature a selection of Sigmar Polke’s early prints as precious as it is concentrated, and inquire into the special quality of his work with the medium. Thanks to the Deutsche Bank Collection at the Städel Museum, the exhibits can be chosen entirely from within the Städel’s own holdings.
Curator: Dr. Jutta Schütt

Heaven on Display: The Altenberg Altar and Its Imagery
22 June to 25 September 2016
Exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings
Owing to fortunate circumstances, a unique ensemble of late thirteenth and early fourteenth-century liturgical and paraliturgical objects has come down to us from a former convent at Altenberg an der Lahn. Every one of these objects alone can already be considered among the absolute gems of the period. For the first time since the convent’s secularization in the early nineteenth century, they will now be brought together again in the exhibition “Heaven on Display”, granting visitors the opportunity to experience one of the qualitatively most superb choir ensembles of the Middle Ages.
At its centre, the exhibition will feature a folding altarpiece measuring some 4.9 metres in width. Consisting of a shrine cabinet, a statue of the Madonna and wings, it unites works of painting, sculpture, textile art and goldsmithery in a complex inter-referential system of altar imagery. From about 1330 onward, this retable, which forms the core of the ensemble, decorated the main altar of the convent church built between 1260 and 1270. The altarpiece wings already entered the Städel collection and its superb holdings of Early German painting in 1925. The presentation in the exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings will allow visitors to experience first-hand the fascinating interplay between various pictorial media in an ensemble of early fourteenth-century choir furnishings. Within this context, particularly in view of the sophisticated iconography of the linen embroideries and the recently rediscovered original paintings on the sides and back of the shrine cabinet, questions arise as to the accessibility of the imagery on and around the high altar and its reception from close quarters.
In preparation for the exhibition, the Städel is hosting an international Passavant Colloquium on 13 and 14 November 2015. The latest research insights will be presented by altogether seventeen guest speakers, whose contributions will be further elaborated within the framework of the exhibition “Heaven on Display: The Altenberg Altar and Its Imagery”.
Curator: Prof. Dr. Jochen Sander

Georg Baselitz – The Heroes
30 June to 23 October 2016
Exhibition annex
Georg Baselitz (b. 1938) is without question one of the most influential painters and sculptors of our time. In 1965/66, in a virtually explosive spurt of productivity, he developed his dramatic and paradoxical Hero paintings. The forceful workgroup of the Heroes and New Types is today regarded worldwide as a key example of the German art of the 1960s. In the summer of 2016, in a monographic exhibition curated by Städel director Max Hollein, it will be comprehensively presented for the first time. Some seventy paintings and works on paper will be on view, distinguished by aggressively and defiantly painted monumental figures that have lost nothing of their ambiguous, portentous and vulnerable quality to this day.
In 1965, Georg Baselitz perceived the order of post-war Germany in its state of multifaceted destruction – ideologies and political systems, but also artistic styles were up for discussion. This lack of order was very much in keeping with the artist’s own nature: appropriation through artistic categorization was something that remained foreign to him all his life. From the perspective of his fundamentally sceptical attitude he therefore emphasized the equivocal aspects of his time. His monumental Heroes in their tattered battle dress, figures marked as much by failure as they are by resignation, possess an accordingly contradictory character. The fact that the artist – who was a mere twenty-seven years of age at the time – devoted himself to the subject of "heroes" or "types" at all was provocative per se. (Male) heroism and its onetime exponents had been called into question by the war and the post-war period. The fragile and paradoxical character of the Heroes with regard to content finds its equivalent in their form. The consistently frontal depiction and central placement of the clearly outlined figure contrast with the wildness of the palette and the vehemence of the painting style. Baselitz thus illustrated a reality unwelcome in the German Federal Republican success story of the economic miracle – and what is more, to do so he availed himself of figuration, a supposedly obsolete form.
Yet Baselitz was concerned here with far more than general social issues – he was also reflecting on his own position in relation to society. The result is a forceful assertion of the self and definition of identity that runs contrary to all of the currents of the period in question.
The travelling exhibition’s subsequent venues will be the Moderna Museet Stockholm, the Palazzo delle Esposizioni Rom and the Museo Guggenheim Bilbao.
Curator: Max Hollein
Co-curator: Dr. Eva Mongi-Vollmer

David Claerbout. Die reine Notwendigkeit
28 September to 23 October 2016
Städel Garden
From 28 September to 23 October 2016 – on the occasion of the Frankfurt Book Fair, whose guests of honour will be the Netherlands and Flanders – the Städel will present a new work by the Belgian artist David Claerbout (b. 1969) within the framework of the series “In the Städel Garden”. At first sight, the sixty-minute video Die reine Notwendigkeit developed especially for the Städel Museum looks like a direct appropriation of the popular animated film The Jungle Book by Wolfgang Reithermann from 1967. For his work, Claerbout had the drawings re-created in an elaborate process – the major difference being that he eliminated the humanized character of the familiar animals the Bear, the Panther, the Snake, the Tiger etc. and therefore all narrative thread. They now move through the jungle like members of their species in an animal documentary, undisturbed by humanity’s stories. Rather than telling the tale of a young boy, the video culminates every hour on the hour in the final scene of the 1967 original: the singing girl who has come to the jungle to fetch water. For Claerbout, this scene serves as the beginning and end of the loop dividing time into one-hour units on a large LED screen in the Städel Garden. In his photographic and filmic installations, David Claerbout employs visual material ranging from found historical photographs and reconstructed images to films shot according to his instructions. He processes this material digitally in such a way that the boundary between photography and film becomes fluid. Claerbout deconstructs linear courses of time, thus inquiring into how we tell stories with images.
Curator: Dr. Martin Engler

Antoine Watteau. The Draughtsman
19 October 2016 to 15 January 2017
Exhibition gallery of the Department of Prints and Drawings
The French painter Antoine Watteau (1684–1721) is among the great masters of draughtsmanship. His sensitive studies in red, black and white chalk capture female and male models, observations of details and spontaneous ideas, and develop that world of cheerful companies and mutually attentive conviviality that would come to be called “fêtes galantes” (“courtship parties”).
In cooperation with the Teylers Museum in Haarlem, the Städel Museum is planning an exhibition of drawings by Antoine Watteau for the autumn of 2016. Both institutions have in their possession substantial holdings of works by the artist, who can be considered one of the most outstanding draughtsmen in the history of French art. His innovative style – characterized by a combination of spontaneity, ease and intimacy on the one hand and observation of the utmost precision on the other – contrasts starkly with the formal tradition of the academically oriented artists of his time. With its psychological sensitivity, the new, virtuoso art reflects the spirit of the dawning Enlightenment.
Watteau is relatively little known in Germany, despite the fact that in the eighteenth century he was one of the Frederick the Great’s favourite artists. The last exhibition to be devoted here to Watteau took place in 1984. Among the works in the Städel Museum’s painting collection is the earliest version of the Embarkation for Cythera, which – owing in part to the two further versions in the Louvre and Charlottenburg Palace – represents what is presumably the artist’s most famous pictorial invention. Enhanced by a small selection of further paintings, the Städel Museum’s Embarkation for Cythera will form the core of the presentation of approximately fifty choice drawings from the holdings of the participating institutions as well as a number of other prominent German, Dutch and French collections. Approximately twenty drawings by such artists as François Boucher, Nicolas Lancret or Jean-Honoré Fragonard will supplement this selection, bearing testimony to Watteau’s impact on later generations of artists.
Following its presentation at the Städel Museum, the exhibition will be shown at the Teylers Museum in Haarlem from 2 February to 14 May 2017.
Curator: Dr. Martin Sonnabend

Battle of the Sexes: From Franz von Stuck to Frida Kahlo
24 November 2016 to 19 March 2017
Exhibition annex
The exhibition “Battle of the Sexes: From Franz von Stuck to Frida Kahlo” will shed light on the artistic investigation of gender roles from the mid-nineteenth century to the end of World War II. The traditional definition of male and female as active/passive, rational/emotional, culture/nature was heavily debated in modern art: many artists presented their viewers with overstated gender characteristics and cemented stereotypical role models in their works. Others challenged established clichés and endeavoured to subvert them with strategies such as irony, exaggeration, masquerade and blending. Featuring a selection of some 150 works of painting, sculpture, graphic art, photography and film, the large-scale exhibition project aims to single out the especially concise artistic positions and open up a dialogue between them.
The show will draw from the Städel Museum holdings which – with paintings by Max Liebermann, Edvard Munch and Franz von Stuck, sculptures by Auguste Rodin and photographs by Frank Eugene, Man Ray and others – include important works on the subject. With the additional aid of important loans, the presentation will place works by well-known names in art history – for example Hannah Höch, Édouard Manet, Gustav Klimt, Otto Dix or Frida Kahlo – side by side with discoveries that expand the canon with the strong outlooks of such artists as Leonor Fini, John Collier or Gustav Adolf Mossa. Against the background of the intense discussion on the topic and the constantly evolving roles of woman and man, the project will offer insights into the complexity of gender issues and shed light on the art historical dimension of a highly relevant socio-politic subject.
Curators: Felicity Korn, Dr. Felix Krämer

Subject to alterations.

“200 Years Städel”, the bicentennial celebrations of Frankfurt’s Städel Museum, are culminating with a solo exhibition of works by the internationally renowned American artist John Baldessari (b. 1931) taking place from 5 November 2015 to 24 January 2016. For “John Baldessari. The Städel Paintings”, the artist – one of the most influential alive today – executed a total of sixteen new pieces related explicitly to the Städel Museum collection, which spans seven hundred years of European art. A number of very different works from the Städel holdings – masterpieces, but also unusual finds in the storage depots, by Lucas Cranach the Elder, Agnolo Bronzino, Dirck van Baburen, Bartolomeo Veneto, Justus Juncker, Erró, Maria Lassnig and others – served him as visual material for his large-scale collages. Taking these selected works as his point of departure, the artist explores the relationship between painting and photography, but also that between image and language. In the process he not only isolates specific details of the Städel paintings but also partially overpaints those details and combines them with texts formally reminiscent of excerpts from Hollywood film scripts to create large horizontally or vertically divided diptychs. The result is a suspenseful and complex consonance/dissonance that queries old and new art alike and breaks with established patterns of perception. The catalogue being published in German and English to accompany the show broadens the spectrum further and places Baldessari’s most recent workgroup in the context of the extremely diverse œuvre of this prominent pioneer of American concept art.

“I couldn’t imagine a better way of bringing the Städel’s two-hundredth anniversary year to a close. The fact that John Baldessari – a true icon of the contemporary art world – has devoted himself to our collection on such a profound level underscores the international appeal of the Städel and its programme. We are extremely proud to have this opportunity to show Baldessari’s new works at the Städel Museum”, comments Städel director Max Hollein.

It was in the late 1960s that John Baldessari (born in National City, California in 1931) began addressing himself to the conflation of image and text so characteristic of his art. In 1970 he decided to burn a substantial proportion of his œuvre ‒ all of the paintings in his possession executed between 1953 and 1966 ‒ in a symbolically charged action he titled the “Cremation Project”. What followed this radical gesture, however, was not the end of his artistic activity, but on the contrary a fresh start in his intense pictorial production. For his art Baldessari draws on contemporary American mass culture but also on the canon of art history. In his works he responds to artistic strategies of the Classical Modern period such as montage or the integration of everyday elements, and combines them with themes introduced by the post-war avant-gardes, for example the discourses on consumption or the media. He uses found footage from films and other mass media, which he combines anew and in part subjects to painterly processing. In addition to image and language, Baldessari also already began at an early stage to link painting and photography by experimenting with photo emulsion on canvas. With his interdisciplinary approach as well as his merging of widely differing motifs, media and materials, he creates entirely new contexts of meaning. Among other distinctions, John Baldessari has been awarded the Golden Lion of the 53rd Venice Biennale and, in 2012, the Kaiserring, the art prize of the city of Goslar.

“Baldessari’s Städel Paintings bear witness to a sense of both respect and irony towards the history of painting, as well as to that different, better world promised us by painting over centuries – and at the same time they cannot but mistrust that promise”, observes Martin Engler, curator of the exhibition and head of the Städel Museum’s contemporary art collection.

With the workgroup of the sixteen diptychs to be shown at the Städel Museum in the framework of “John Baldessari: The Städel Paintings”, the artist negotiates fundamental issues related to the execution and reception, value and valuation of art. The collage Movie Scripts / Art: Hang in there (2014) shows a section of Agnolo Bronzino’s (1503–1572) Portrait of a Lady with a Lapdog (1537–1540), a key work of the Städel Museum’s Old Masters collection. Apart from the lady’s hands, all we see is part of the little dog sitting on her lap. Monochrome overpainting covers small areas, which thus represent an abstract counterpart to the illusionary space created by Bronzino’s composition. The brief text appearing underneath in screenplay style revolves around a fictional auction at Sotheby’s in New York. The two protagonists, Arthur and Hans, are sitting in the VIP lounge and competing for a work; Arthur has just bid 1.2 million dollars. Hans hesitates for a moment and asks the person accompanying him for advice. She reminds him that he already owns a yacht in which he could hang the painting.
For Movie Scripts / Art: I wouldn’t even try (2014) Baldessari used a fragment from Ideal Portrait of a Courtesan as Flora (ca. 1520) by Bartolomeo Veneto (1502–1531). The film script text in the left-hand half of the picture is about a couple travelling by car in the vicinity of Albuquerque, New Mexico. They drive towards a huge billboard. The short description of the image on the billboard seems to be directly related to a detail of the Veneto work. In the conversation, the woman in the car remarks that she wishes she could also paint like that, but she wouldn’t even dare to try. The man replies outright: “I’m thinking about it, baby!” Clichés about art, quality and craftsmanship here encounter a symbol of everyday American culture and the widespread assumption that art is based solely on expertise and artistic skill.

Like these two works, the entire series takes a critical and pointed look at the institutions and mechanisms of the ‘art operating system’. In the process, it reflects on the complex and often absurd excesses in the contemporary art world and its market.

Edited by Martin Engler and published by the Hirmer Verlag, the catalogue accompanying the exhibition ‒ “John Baldessari: The Städel Paintings” ‒ places the series on view in the Städel in the context of Baldessari’s overall multifaceted œuvre while at the same time shedding light on decisive art-historical and institutional references. The publication introduces this outstanding exponent of concept and media art as a key figure representing an important chapter in recent art history.

With this show of current works by John Baldessari based on the Städel collection, the Frankfurt museum is also inquiring into the present status of painting. At the end of its bicentennial year, the Städel – as a “painting museum” ‒ thus builds a bridge from the past to the immediate present and takes a suspenseful look ahead to the future.

John Baldessari. The Städel Paintings

Curator: Dr. Martin Engler (head of the collection of contemporary art, Städel Museum)
Exhibition dates: 5 November 2015 to 24 January 2016
Press preview: Wednesday, 4 November 2015, 11 am
Location: Städel Museum, Schaumainkai 63, 60596 Frankfurt

Information: www.staedelmuseum.de, info@staedelmuseum.de, telephone +49(0)69-605098-0, fax +49(0)69-605098-111
Visitor services: +49(0)69-605098-232, besucherdienst@staedelmuseum.de

Opening hours: Tue, Wed, Sat, Sun 10 am ‒ 6 pm, Thu, Fri 10 am ‒ 9 pm, closed Mondays
Special opening hours: 3 Oct. 2015, 10 am – 6 pm, 24 Dec. 2015 closed, 25, 26 and 28 Dec. 2015 10 am ‒ 6 pm, 31 Dec. 2015 closed, 1 Jan. 2016 11 am ‒ 6 pm, 4 Jan. 2016 10 am ‒ 6 pm

Admission: 14 EUR, reduced 12 EUR, family ticket 24 EUR; admission free for children to the age of 12; groups (minimum 10 persons): reduced admission fee per person. Groups are required to book in advance by contacting us at +49(0)69-605098-200 or info@staedelmuseum.de.
Advance ticket sales online at: tickets.staedelmuseum.de

Catalogue: The exhibition catalogue, published by Hirmer Verlag and edited by Martin Engler, contains contributions by Jana Baumann, Martin Engler, David Salle, Philipp Kaiser; German/English, 184 pp., approx. 35 EUR (museum edition).

Social media: The Städel Museum is communicating the exhibition on the social media with the hashtags #baldessari and #staedel.

General guided tours of the exhibition (included in admission fee): Thu 7 pm; Sun 2 pm
Special guided tours on request, please contact: +49(0)69-605098-200, info@staedelmuseum.de
Further events and activities: www.staedelmuseum.de

Media partners: Andy Warhol's INTERVIEW magazine, Verkehrsgesellschaft Frankfurt am Main

By seating works from its collection “on the couch”, Frankfurt’s Städel Museum has produced a completely new web film format. Starting immediately, “Talk im Rahmen” (“Talk in Framework”) is available on the Städel Museum’s YouTube channel (www.youtube.com/staedelmuseum). As entertaining as it is informative and innovative, the new film series avails itself of the classical TV talk show format. The well-known TV host Gert Scobel (3sat) discusses selected topics with guests at the Städel. What makes this talk show different is: the studio guests are artworks from all areas of the museum’s collection. In approximately ten-minute episodes, “Old Masters” engage in heated discussion with works of modern and contemporary art. Voice-over artists lend the works fictive personalities and distinctive voices. The series parodies talk show clichés such as the classical studio with the water glass for the host and conservative furniture for the guests, or the stereotypical point-of-view shots that follow the conversation. The “Talk in Rahmen” (“Talk in Framework”) guests are introduced in short film clips in which the audience makes their acquaintance and learns who created them when and under what circumstances. By way of this information, but also the guests’ pointedly formulated remarks, the viewer learns about key aspects of all the participating artworks in a completely unconventional, innovative and entertaining manner.

In every episode, three paintings from various eras have been invited to talk about a topic they share – and often disagree on. The subject of emancipation, for example, is discussed by Lucas Cranach’s Venus (1532) as a “femme fatale” who makes deliberate use of her charms to reach her goals, Ottilie W. Roederstein’s Self-Portrait with Folded Arms (1926) as a work by a self-confident artist who knew how to hold her ground in the male-dominated art world of her time, and Carl Spitzweg’s The Widower (1844), who doesn’t think much of Roederstein’s plea for strong women. In this episode, Sonja Deutsch – British actress Helen Mirren’s ‘German voice’ – speaks the part of Ottilie W. Roederstein’s self-portrait.

The new web film format was produced by the Städel Museum and Readymade-Films of Berlin within the context of the Frankfurt museum’s digital expansion. The idea behind “Talk im Rahmen” (“Talk in Framework”) is based on the fact that the Städel Museum is currently developing completely new formats for various target groups and channels.

“Our new web film series ‘Talk im Rahmen’ (‘Talk in Framework’) is a fascinating new and completely unprecedented educational, entertainment and mediation format. Artworks that talk about the major issues of our time – that makes for an innovative, surprising and playful approach to the works in the Städel collection. Even more importantly, though, in a whole new way it brings out the controversial themes addressed by the works, and their continued relevance for us today. ‘Talk im Rahmen’ (‘Talk in Framework’) is a further fundamental element of our comprehensive digital museum-education initiative and, offered as a YouTube format, will appeal to entirely new target groups in addition to our already existing public”, explains Städel Museum director Max Hollein.

Talking about his experience during the show’s shooting, host Gert Scobel comments: “The ‘Talk im Rahmen’ (‘Talk in Framework’) project presented me with completely new challenges in my role as talk show host. Imagine you had to conduct an animated, controversial discussion with someone who simply didn’t answer and just sat there mutely. What’s worse, that person is not a person at all but a painting. Together, the film series’ producers and I have embarked on an exciting filmic experiment. We’ll find out from the public response whether or not it’s a success, and I can hardly wait. My hope is that this innovative new art format will be able to convey to its audience something of the experience of spending a long time in a room with the original paintings and actually trying to converse with them, something of the inimitable aura of an original.”

The Städel’s digital expansion The production of the new web film format is embedded in the Städel Museum’s digital expansion programme. The Städel, Germany’s oldest museum foundation, is taking its 200th birthday this year as an occasion for a fundamental redefinition of its diverse educational programme as well as the museum visitor’s experience. Against the background of the increasing digitalization of everyday life, the expansion of its educational responsibility into the digital realm is a key concern for the Frankfurt museum. Within the context of this digital expansion, one component is the substantial development of the Städel’s web film programme. In addition to already established formats such as classical exhibition films on special exhibitions, films about artists represented in the Städel collection, and event documentations, the museum is presently also producing additional formats to be released on Städel communication channels.

The host
Gert Scobel (b. Aachen 1959) leads the way through the format in the role of host. From 1995 to 2007, Scobel hosted the 3sat programme “Kulturzeit”. Since April 2008 he has presented “scobel”, which is broadcast weekly on 3sat. Having already been nominated for the Adolf Grimme Prize in 1999 and 2001, in 2005 he was awarded that distinction for his performance as host of “Kulturzeit” and “delta” and elected “culture journalist of the year” by “Medium Magazin”.

The topics and guests of the episodes

Is emancipation still up to date? – featuring:
Lucas Cranach the Elder (1472–1553): Venus (1532)
Ottilie W. Roederstein (1859–1937): Self-Portrait with Folded Arms (1926)
Carl Spitzweg (1808–1885): The Widower (1844)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocSS_Km502U

I post, therefore I am – authenticity, selfies and the web – featuring:
Maria Lassnig (1919–2014): Self-Portrait with Monkey (2001)
Gerhard Hoehme (1920–1989): Zimbal (1966)
Hans Holbein the Younger (1497/98–1543): Portrait of Simon George of Cornwall (ca. 1535–1540)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xcrma-9OLdU

TALK IM RAHMEN (TALK IN FRAMEWORK)

URL: www.youtube.de/staedelmuseum.de

Playlist with all episodes: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2P7h0ecB-f_SxBUagvb1NmegMIXv2EY8

Edited by: Städel Museum, Readymade-Films
Host: Gert Scobel
Sound track: Wolfram Gruss
Set construction: set:art GmbH
Production: www.readymade-films.com
Post-production: www.goodguys.de
Sound mixing: www.hofkapellmeister.com

Social media: The Städel Museum is communicating the web film series with the hashtags #TalkImRahmen and #staedel.