BRANDHORST FLAG COMMISSION: PHILIPP GUFLER

 

9 September 2023 until 15 March 2024

9 September, 11 am, BREAKFAST AND COMMISSION VIEWING with PHILIPP GUFLER and a t-shirt sale for FORUM QUEERES ARCHIV MÜNCHEN

Starting in September 2023, Amsterdam and Munich-based artist Philipp Gufler will occupy the space with a new work. With his signature approach, he recontextualizes queer history in his often textile-based works. Rather than depicting complex overlays as in his silkscreen prints on fabrics and mirrors, for “Urning” he uses the visual impact of the medium of the flag.

 In his flags, Gufler places the lawyer Karl Heinrich Ulrichs at the center of his work, using Pop Art aesthetics. Ulrichs coined the term “Urning,” which, in reference to the Greek god Uranos, was the first to formulate queer identity through a positive self-designation. At the German Jurists’ Forum, held at the Odeon in Munich on August 29, 1867, he demanded impunity for same-sex love. Although the term “Urning” did not catch on, Ulrichs has become a central source of inspiration for queer theory. Gufler links this historical importance to a significant poster campaign by the initiative Act Up Munich, which gained notoriety in 1995 for its protest against local Bavarian politicians. He updates the AIDS awareness campaign and creates a link between the historical treatment of queer identity and its relevance to current debates.

Curated by Dr. Monika Bayer-Wermuth

More Information.

BRANDHORST MUSEUM
Theresienstraße 35A
80333 München

The T-shirts can be ordered S, M, L, XL in white, S, M, XL in gray and S, M, XL, XXL in light blue at Forum Queeres Archiv München or by email for 20 Euro plus shipping costs. With the purchase of a T-shirt you support our voluntary archive work.

Fotos: Haydar Koyupinar

On Listening

08 September – 12 November 2023

Thursday,  07 September 2023, 7 p.m.: Opening

Ashley Holmes, Forum Queeres Archiv München e.V. & Philipp Gufler, Helen Cammock, Hui Ye & Qu Chang, Jovana Reisinger, Maria Margolina 

From September, the art space Lothringer 13 Halle presents the project On Listening, which brings together international artists, researchers, activists, audio, archival material, theorists to question the dynamics of spoken and auditive narratives as well as listening. Together, the contributions and works explore the relevance and complexity of listening from multiple perspectives and open the exhibition space for conversation and exchange.    

Curated by Christina Maria Ruederer

Lothringer 13 Halle

Lothringer Straße 13

München

LOVE PLANETS

Philipp Gufler and Cosy Pièro

23 June - 28 July 2023 

Opening 22 June 2023, 6 - 8 pm
with a book presentation of A Shrine To Aphrodite by Philipp Gufler (Hammann Von Mier Verlag, 2023)

What planet do we live/love on? Is love timeless, infinite even? Who loves who or what? Philipp Gufler and Cosy Pièro’s work in the exhibition, Love Planets, at the Galerie Françoise Heitsch revolve around such questions of love in the broader sense of the word.

In Philipp Gufler’s Die Wirrwelt der Urninge (2023), brightly coloured undressed bodies unite in dance and desire against an idyllic mountain backdrop. Those potrayed in this paradise – the Uranians – owe their name to the planet Uranus and a mythological reference: the ancient Greek god Uranus, who has symbolized same-sex love since antiquity.¹ Without a woman’s involvement,, the goddess of love Aphrodite emerged from sea foam made up of Uranus’ fallen body parts. Based on this, Karl Heinrich Ulrichs (1825-1895) coined the term Uranian, even before words such as gay or homosexual dominated language (initially and predominantly with negative connotations). Uranian was completely different, as Ulrichs also described himself as a pioneer of the queer emancipation movement in 1867 in what was most likely the first outing in modern history. Gufler takes a similar, proud stance when he confidently lends his own face to some of the figures in the picture. In terms of form and motif, the screen prints on paper refer to the wall-filling panorama Die Klarwelt der Seligen, which Elisàr von Kupffer (1872−1960) painted in 1925/37 within the context of the religious movement Klarismus. For Philipp Gufler, the mural stands for a paradisical, non-binary imagination of love set apart from categories of difference.²

By referencing the works of certain people of past generations, Gufler pays homage to a Queer Futurity³, which, in addition to Ulrichs and von Kupffer, is also primarily aimed at the second artist in this exhibition: Cosy Pièro. However, her artistic works reflect less on utopian future scenarios, as they are literally
anchored in life: for example, the leather shoes on which she wrote GEHEN LASSEN (letting go) with adhesive letters (2014). In sculptural gestures and with reduced text, such as Potenzial, Pièro negotiates fundamental parameters of human existence: energy, death, love. Everything and everyone have potential, yet contradictions remain. They are abstract, poetic comments on the inadequacies of the present; the political rationalisation of being together, the insistence on gender binaries, the heteronormative understanding of love. Aptly drawn on a deep blue screenprint: Ich liebe nur die Illusion (2012).

The visual artist’s commitment to this present is anything but illusory. With the bar “Bei Cosy”, she created one of the few spaces for the queer community in Munich from 1962 to 1980. In this space as well as in her art the focus was on encounters between people, regardless of age, origin, gender, and sexuality; an attitude that is particularly impressive in times of identitarian demarcations. Attracted by this, Philipp Gufler realised a re-enactment of the “Bei Cosy” bar in Amsterdam and Munich in 2015 and 2017 respectively, with the Publik Universal Frxnd. Cosy and Gufler have elective affinities for each other and have met over the search for queer points of reference in the past and present. They have been friends for nearly 10 years, have collaborated several times in the past and are now exhibiting here for the first time in a duo exhibition.

The heterogeneous oeuvres of Cosy Pièro and Philipp Gufler come together in this intersectional queering. Just as Pièro's works are reflected in Gufler's screen-printed mirrors in the exhibition, her work reflects back to Gufler, an artist several generations younger. On the occasion of the publication Cosy bei Cosy (2023), published in collaboration with Ruine Munich,⁴ he dedicated a performance including a costume to her, which can be seen in the exhibition. Photographs of Pièro's Potenzial series are printed on the robe. The future moment of the exhibition manifests itself in this closeness across spatial and temporal distances: Queer Futurity overcomes the utopian mode. It is not a longing for a queer, intangible future reality, but a creation in the form of a transgenerational solidarity and reflection between two artists, through live/love.

Mareike Schwarz


¹ https://schwulengeschichte.ch/epochen/2-weg-zur-selbstbestimmung/vorkaem....
² Philipp Gufler, Zine for the exhibition Substitutes at W139 in Amsterdam, 2023, page 8.
³ José Esteban Muñoz, Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity, NYU Press, 2009.
⁴ Thanks go to the members of Ruine München: Leo Heinik, Jan Erbelding and Maria VMier.

Galerie Françoise Heitsch
Amalienstrasse 19
80333 München
Germany

Woonhuis

De Ateliers opens new project space Woonhuis with an exhibition and 9 commissions.

De Ateliers celebrates its 60th birthday with the opening of the new project space Woonhuis. The opening will be on 31 May 2023 from 5-7pm. Sudden Wealth with Roy Claire Potter, performance at 6pm

9 Balusters by Nina Canell, Chris Evans, Tild Greene, Philipp Gufler, Frieder Haller, Cecilia Bjartmar Hylta, Clémence de La Tour du Pin, Brianna Leatherbury, and Marina Pinsky.

The exhibition is on view June 1 – 11, Thu-Sun, 1-6pm. Free entrance. 

Access right side of De Ateliers building on Stadhouderskade 86, Amsterdam.

Save the date: SUBSTITUTES at W139

SUBSTITUTES

22 April - 18 June 2023
Exhibition opening: Friday, 21 April 2023 from 6 pm - 10 pm

Substitutes engages with queer history and discourses around the body, gender, and sexuality. It features artists across several generations working in a variety of mediums to contextualise and converse with these discourses. The exhibition is about the absence of bodies, the abstraction of the body, and the tools and language we use to maintain or describe our bodies—costuming, staging, masks, layering, clothing. It questions the normative frameworks that queer and functionally diverse people are subjected to. The human body is, paradoxically, both absent and present within the exhibition. 

Initiated by the artist Philipp Gufler, Substitutes brings together works of Lorenza Böttner, Johanna Gonschorek, Elisàr von Kupffer, Rabe perplexum, Louwrien Wijers, Johannes Büttner, and Bruno Zhu. Philipp Gufler will show a new work titled Body/Text: a large-scale silk screen printed textile piece that draws inspiration from Elisàr von Kupffer’s panorama painting Klarwelt der Seligen (Clear World of the Blissful). By connecting contemporary discussions to historical perspectives, the exhibition aims to create a ‘living archive’. Drawing together artistic positions from then and now, the exhibition traces queer lives and networks from the past to our present. 

public programme

Keeping up with the Virus
Thursday 11 May from 20:00 to 21:00

A performance by Szymon Adamczak with Billy Mullaney exploring interdependency, connection seeking, risk-taking, and solidarity through the embodied metaphor of the virus performing in the artist’s body in the era of undetectability. Situated in relation to the unique constellation of artists gathered at W139, the performance looks to activate genealogies and dramaturgies of living with HIV across time.

Tomorrow’s Language
Saturday 3 June from 16:00 to 17:30

A dialogue between the artists Louwrien Wijers, Rory Pilgrim, and Philipp Gufler. Together they will explore Louwrien’s artworks, the significance of food, intergenerational friendships among artists, and the importance of learning from one another. Expanding on the topic of food, chef, artist and longtime collaborator of Louwrien, Egon Hanfstingl, will be preparing a saffron honey yogurt for all attendees to enjoy at the end of the event.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Sunday 4 June from 15:00 to 16:00

by Philipp Gufler and Tomas Adolfs.

Guided Tour of the Exhibition
Friday 9 June from 18:30 to 19:30

by Philipp Gufler and Wilfred van Buuren in collaboration with IHLIA.

Rabe perplexum and the Eccentric 80s
Friday 9 June from 20:00 to 21:30

A film screening and book presentation with Angela Stiegler and Philipp Gufler in collaboration with the Goethe Institut Amsterdam. With their performative and collaborative works, Rabe perplexum was a subversive voice of queer subculture in the 1980s. In conversation with Fabian Reichle, the artists Gufler and Stiegler will discuss artistic practices of the ‘Eccentric 80s’, their exhibition and publication of the same name, from today’s perspective.

Visual identity by Jacob Hoving.

This exhibition is generously supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds21, Goethe Institut, Centro Elisarion, Pro Elisarion Association, Monacensia im Hildebrandhaus, Forum Queeres Archiv München and Grafisch Atelier Hilversum. 

W139
Warmoesstraat 139
1012JB Amsterdam, Nederland
Tue – Sun 12:00 – 18:00

Photos: Pieter Kiers

A Shrine To Aphrodite

A Shrine To Aphrodite

Philipp Gufler, 2023

The human body is a central focus in Philipp Gufler's mirror painting series. Looking at the work, the spectator is confronted with their own image. To make these works Gufler uses a silkscreen printing technique on mirrored glass in order to produce layers of translucent pigment.

"Gufler’s ‚mirrorical’ art passes through the looking glass; his spaces are traps for the gaze. The reflective surfaces and diaphanous scrims in his oeuvre function as projection screens and as obstacles in games of identification and disidentification; recognition and misrecognition; self-performance and self-alienation.“
Sven Lütticken

Concept/Editor: Philipp Gufler
Design: Sabo Day
Text contributions: Philipp Gufler, Sven Lütticken
Photos: Julika Rudelius
Silk screen print: Philipp Gufler at Grafisch Atelier Hilversum

78 p., 1c offset, softcover with linen spine and 16 silkscreen printed mirror papers, glued, 22.6 x 29.7 cm
ISBN: 978-3-947250-51-62023
numbered and signed Edition of 150
100 €

Eccentric 80s at Kunsthaus Hamburg

 

Eccentric 80s: Tabea Blumenschein, Hilka Nordhausen, Rabe perplexum, and Contemporary Accomplices

25 March – 21 May 2023
Kunsthaus Hamburg

An exhibition and publication project by Burcu Dogramaci, Ergül Cengiz, Philipp Gufler, Mareike Schwarz, Angela Stiegler.

Tabea Blumenschein, Hilka Nordhausen and Rabe perplexum were eccentric artists of the 1980s in a double sense – they deviated from norms and acted outside the centre in the subcultural milieu. Their structurally buried work will be artistically questioned and activated by the contemporary artists Ergül Cengiz (3 Hamburg Women), Philipp Gufler and Angela Stiegler. For the first time, Blumenschein, Nordhausen and perplexum will be shown in one exhibition and in the cities where they worked: Munich (Lothringer 13 Halle), Berlin (Galerie Nord | Kunstverein Tiergarten) and Hamburg (Kunsthaus Hamburg).

A German- and English-language publication has been published by b_books, Berlin, to accompany the exhibition. An extensive programme of events with films, readings, workshops and discussions with contemporary witnesses accompanies the exhibition.

24 March 2023

7 pm: Opening

25 March 2023

4 pm: Guided Tour

5 pm: Screening & Talk Nicht Mann, nicht Frau, nur Rabe by Rabe perplexum with Philipp Gufler

Kunsthaus Hamburg

Klosterwall 15

20095 Hamburg  

Opening Hours

Tuesday – Sunday: 11 am – 6 pm