The Art Newspaper

Ex-advisor to the Temporary Kunsthalle Berlin gives reasons for mass resignations

“It was never clear who spoke for the Kunsthalle or who was the artistic head of the institution," says Julian Heynen

By Gareth Harris. Web only
Published online: 08 July 2009

The temporary Kunsthalle

london. A member of the four-strong artistic advisory board of the Temporäre Kunsthalle contemporary exhibition space in Berlin, all of whom recently resigned, has revealed the reasons behind the mass walk out.

Julian Heynen, artistic director of K21 in Dusseldorf, said that “the artistic advisory board was particularly disappointed by the way the Kunsthalle was not able to create a balance between the artistic claims on one hand and organisation and marketing on the other. Kunsthalle failed to get the rationale of the original programme we had proposed across to the public.”

The three other board members who stepped down include Katja Blomberg (Haus am Waldsee in Berlin), Dirk Luckow (Kunsthalle zu Kiel) and Gerald Matt (Kunsthalle Wien). Thomas Eller, managing director of the Temporäre Kunsthalle, has also left the organisation. He will be replaced by Benjamin Anders, a freelance marketing consultant.

The Temporäre Kunsthalle was established following the critical success of the eleven-day exhibition “36x27x10” at the People’s Palace in late 2005, which included site-specific works by 36 artists on view in a white cube-esque space.

With E1m funding from the engineering magnate Dieter Rosenkrantz, the “36x27x10” organisers, artist duo Coco Kühn and Constanze Kleiner, established a non-permanent venue in October 2008. Their Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin (TKB), a blue and white cubic structure, is located at Schlossplatz. The artistic advisory board was initially set up over two years ago.

“It was never clear who spoke for Kunsthalle or who was the artistic head of the institution. A mounting credibility crisis ensued. Kunsthalle’s patron Dieter Rosenkrantz and [his foundation] Stiftung Zukunft Berlin seem to follow their own agenda which in our eyes is not suited to encourage the kind of art presentation and motivation needed in Berlin. It is far from the impetus which governed the original exhibition in the soon to be demolished Palast der Republik, the starting point of the whole enterprise,” added Heynen.

Thomas Eller agreed that “this Kunsthalle has way too many intellectual owners (initiators, donors, Stiftung, an ever changing array of advisors) pulling in different directions…I tried to pin down programming and operations two months ago. It was an ‘either or’ situation I had to set up. This programme had been discussed way ahead of times with the advisory board and Julian Heynen, who supported the plans. Unfortunately I could not come to an agreement with the majority stakeholder Stiftung Zukunft Berlin and its founder Dieter Rosenkrantz.”

He added: “Every institution has something of a founding moment or myth. In the case of TKB, it was the exhibition ‘36x27x10’...“everybody” (the stakeholders as well as the general public) wants that [exhibition to come] back. However such an event cannot become the underlying structure for an institution. The failure by many stakeholders in Kunsthalle to understand that prevented its development unfortunately. When I tried to clarify this fact two months ago I failed. The resignation of the advisory board is the appropriate consequence of that situation.”

The current free-entry show at the Temporäre Kunsthalle, the last in the series of four exhibitions curated by the former advisory board, features work by artist duo Allora and Calzadilla (until 6 September). The second year exhibition programme has yet to be confirmed.



A Stiftung Zukunft Berlin spokesman responded: “As the Kunsthalle is located in the middle of the city, the project is supposed to move art to the very heart of the society, to discover art as a mark of social creativity. For two years [the venue is due to close in September 2010], this offers the extraordinary opportunity to show contemporary fine arts in the centre of the city. Thus, it is also the mission to show this to a wide, not only to an art-interested, public. Still unchanged is also the fact that the Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin is an entirely privately financed project with major public significance. In this, it might be an example for similar projects.”

The need for a permanent Kunsthalle, meanwhile, has been a much-debated German art world topic since the closure of a previous Kunsthalle space in west Berlin in 1994.

Eller told The Art Newspaper earlier this year: “Why don’t we at the Temporäre Kunsthalle lobby for this permanent role [for a permanent building]? Because it is the very idea of temporality that we find fascinating…we have an official expiry date of September 2010 and after that we plan to move on.”

German press reports state that the Berlin Senate (the local government body) still hopes to build a permanent Kusthalle in the capital with the Humboldt Harbor, which is located beside the city’s central train station, a possible site.