Events at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz in November
Wednesday, 6 November, 1.30 pm
Colloquium: Karl-Marx-Stadt. Architecture and urban development in an international context
Kick-off event
Venue: University Library, IdeenReich event centre, Straße der Nationen 33,
Admission: free of charge, please register by 25 October 2024 at 488 4501 (Monday to Friday 9 am to 4 pm) or by email to: schlossbergmuseum(at)stadt-chemnitz.de
The conference from 6 to 8 November is open to the public and is aimed at both experts and anyone interested in history.
The Schloßbergmuseum, Museum of Chemnitz City History, will present an exhibition on the decades after 1945 in the Capital of Culture Year 2025. The end of the Second World War signalled a new beginning for the heavily destroyed industrial city in the south of East Germany in several respects: the GDR, a socialist state modelled on the Soviet Union, came into being in 1949; with the dissolution of the federal states and the administrative reform of 1952, Chemnitz became one of a total of twelve district capitals. In 1953, by decision of the state party SED, the newly crowned district capital was given the name of the founder of the scientific world view of the working class, Karl Marx, which - intentionally or not - gave it the status of a "model socialist city". The Schloßbergmuseum's exhibition project traces Chemnitz's new beginning as Karl Marx City from the perspective of the urban living space of the city, i.e. the developments in urban planning and architecture. The aim is to go beyond the internal perspective that has dominated the city's history to date and place the events in an international context of modern building.
The focus will be on both the "socialist brother countries" and the West, in particular the former FRG. What similarities and what differences were there in reconstruction in East and West? The roots of post-war modernism in the renewal movements of the pre-war period, such as Neues Bauen or the Bauhaus school of the Weimar Republic, are also included in the examination.
In preparation for the exhibition, the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz have organised an international historians' conference in cooperation with the Chemnitz University of Technology, University Library. Nationally and internationally renowned experts have accepted the invitation and will speak on aspects of the history of modernist architecture and urban planning in France, Italy, Poland, the Czech Republic, the Soviet Union and Germany.
New findings on developments in Karl-Marx Stadt will be presented by historians, museologists and monument conservators from Chemnitz. The conference and exhibition are intended as a contribution to the international debate on the legacy of 20th century modernism.
Museum Gunzenhauser
Friday, 1 November, 4 p.m.
Best of Part l: Curator's favourites
Public guided tour: with simultaneous Ukrainian translation
Location: Museum Gunzenhauser Chemnitz
Admission: free of charge on the first Friday of the month, also free of charge for children and young people up to the age of 18 and for students of Chemnitz University of Technology
With more than 3,000 works, the Gunzenhauser Foundation is one of the largest and most important private collections in Germany. To mark the start of the European Capital of Culture Year 2025, the Gunzenhauser Museum is presenting key works from this high-calibre collection. Icons of classical modernism, the most travelled and sought-after works and rarely exhibited treasures from the collection will be presented in changing contexts. The focus is not only on the presentation of individual works, but also on contextualisation with special thematic focuses.
Wednesday, 6 November, 6.30pm
Best of Part l: Curator's favourites
Curator's tour
Location: Museum Gunzenhauser Chemnitz
Admission: free of charge on the first Friday of the month, also free of charge for children and young people up to the age of 18 and for students of Chemnitz University of Technology
With more than 3,000 works, the Gunzenhauser Foundation is one of the largest and most important private collections in Germany. To mark the start of the European Capital of Culture Year 2025, the Gunzenhauser Museum is presenting key works from this high-calibre collection. Icons of classical modernism, the most travelled and sought-after works and rarely exhibited treasures from the collection will be presented in changing contexts. The focus is not only on the presentation of individual works, but also on contextualisation with special thematic focuses.
Wednesday, 13 November, 6.30 pm
In conversation: Gunzenhauser meets ... Art in prison
Location: Museum Gunzenhauser Chemnitz
Admission: day ticket according to tariff
Art takes place everywhere and at all times. That's why the Museum Gunzenhauser invites artists from a variety of contexts to engage in dialogue with them: What can art actually do? What inspires artists? And how do they position themselves in the field of tension between art and society? You can look forward to inspiring new perspectives and great dialogue partners!
For many years, art in prison has enabled creative encounters with a wide variety of art forms. Saxony plays a pioneering role here. What kind of artistic creativity does this generate and how can art help people who are unable to participate in everyday social life? Internal perspectives from everyday prison life meet an external art project that works in the prison from time to time.
Dialogue partners: Alfred Haberkorn, art therapist, Zeithain Prison, Susanne Koch, art therapist, Chemnitz Prison, Manu Washaus, FAIL Institute Leipzig
Friday, 22 November, 10 a.m.
Figurentheater zu Gast im Gunzenhauser - Punkt, Punkt, Komma, Strich
Piece development with images, materials and objects - world premiere
Venue: Museum Gunzenhauser
Admission: 12 euros or group tickets, suitable for children aged 4 and over, available at the museum box office or at www.theater-chemnitz.de/spielplan/detailseite/punkt-punkt-komma-strich
Arne van Dorsten and Anna Lehotská use materials, bodies and dance as well as tripods, colours and shapes to approach very different gestures and feelings, pictorial spaces and plays of colour. Together with the audience, they examine how faces are read, when and how a face is created or what happens when individual elements are removed again without further ado or dance out of line. And along the way, a lively story is created from shapes and arrangements!
In cooperation with Chemnitz Theatres.
Castle Hill Museum
Wednesday, 20 November, 3 p.m.
Opening: The photographer Paul Wolff
Location: Schloßbergmuseum Chemnitz
Florence Thurmes, General Director of the Chemnitz Art Collections, and Alf Furkert, Saxon State Conservator, will welcome you to the opening of the exhibition.
Maren May from the State Office for Monument Preservation will give an introduction to the exhibition.
The exhibition opening will be accompanied by music from Kolja Lessing, piano, Stuttgart, with the kind support of the Sächsische Mozart-Gesellschaft e. V. (Saxon Mozart Society).
Architectural photography is a focal point of Paul Wolff's work. In addition, Wolff documented the everyday life of the population in the cities and in the countryside. His estate of more than 6,000 glass plate negatives is now held by the State Office for the Preservation of Monuments in Saxony. A selection - including numerous views of Chemnitz - will be on display in the exhibition. The motifs, mainly from the period before and after the First World War, promise exciting and sometimes unusual insights into the historical cityscape.
A co-operation with the State Office for Monument Preservation Saxony.
Art collections on Theatre Square
Saturday, 30 November, from 11 a.m.
Christmas workshop and art market
Location: Art collections on Theatre Square
A colourful range of arts and crafts on offer: from jewellery, coloured paper and recycled products to photography.