25

• Exhibition

Exhibition program:

9/13 7:00 PM Opening I

10/11 7:00 PM Opening II

11/15 6:00 PM Opening III with welcoming address by Dr. Carsten Brosda, Minister for Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg

11/15 10:00 PM The Bash: “We Were Teenage Flashdancers” with Cordula & Regina Peper

In 1999, the artists Udo Dettmann and René Havekost founded the Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, which has used the former first and second class waiting room in the historic train station Hamburg-Harburg as an exhibition space ever since. Under its various curators the program soon evolved into a representation of developments in contemporary art across a wide range of media and a conveyance of topical issues of artistic production. Over time the Kunstverein developed into a place where not only up-and-coming artists could realize their first major exhibition, but also curators – often with their first directorial responsibility – used the institution as a field for experimentation.

In the past 25 years, 18 different curators have shaped the Kunstverein’s artistic program and many of them are still closely connected to the art world as curators, teachers, researchers or writers. To mark the anniversary, we would like to view the Kunstverein’s exhibition space as a three-dimensional guestbook in to order take a look at its varied and many-voiced past and reassess its status quo. All former artistic directors are invited to curate a guest contribution for the Kunstverein, to take another look at this exhibition space from their current perspective. The almost uncontrollable end result is conceptually closely interwoven with the Kunstverein’s agenda, which has always revolved around experimentation on both the artistic and curatorial side.

The program of the Kunstverein is made possible by the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Free and Hanseatic City of Hamburg, and the Liebelt-Stiftung, Hamburg.