Wolfgang Ellenrieder

The project MyPrivateParadise and the accompanying exhibition at Pfaffenhofener Kunstverein in the Kunsthalle Pfaffenhofen and in the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen is a survey of the previous teaching activities of Thomas Rentmeister and Wolfgang Ellenrieder at the Braunschweig University of Fine Arts. Ten artists have been selected from a broad number of artistic positions of previous graduates to show their work in 2018 at the Pfaffenhofener Kunstverein and in 2019 at the Kunstverein Ludwigshafen. The exhibition deals with a perceptible division of the art business, on the one hand into celebrity culture, market and visual entertainment, and on the other hand into an idea of art as politics and commitment, often not entirely free of an excess of moralism and contradictions. Is there already a schism in art? How do you still teach art in this field of tension today? Will art schools in the future be divergent from one another to address these issues? Where are our graduates heading? What is their view regarding this problem?

This question is the central thematic framework for the positions selected for the exhibition. The participating artists Marlene Bart, Sebastian Bartel, Serena Ferrario, Stella Förster, Fabian Lehnert, Paloma Riewe, André Sassenroth, Lisa Seebach, Daniel Wolff and Rui Zhang focus in their works on the foundation of independent systems and thus assert themselves against the divergent segments of the art business.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication with texts by Steffen Kopetzky, Wolfgang Ullrich and Annette Tietenberg, published by Kettler Verlag, Dortmund.