Pinakothek Der Moderne
‘Sweeter than Honey'. A Panorama of Written Art’ is the most comprehensive presentation of works in the Written Art Collection held to date and, as such, marks the culmination of a ten-year cooperation with the Modern Art Collection in the Pinakothek der Moderne.
Curated by Madeleine Freund and Oliver Kase in cooperation with Thomas Kellein and Marie-Kathrin Krimphoff (Written Art Collection).
With works by Etel Adnan, Nasrollah Afjei, Maliheh Afnan, Khaled Al-Saai, Mounira Al Solh, Karel Appel, Siah Armajani, Younes Baba-Ali, Willi Baumeister, Alighiero Boetti, Peter Brüning, Sophie Calle, Chen Danqing, Claudia Comte, Thierry De Cordier, Christian Dotremont, Mohammed Ehsaei, Golnaz Fathi, Jilali Gharbaoui, Karl Otto Götz, Adolph Gottlieb, Katharina Grosse, Gu Wenda, Shilpa Gupta, Andreas Gursky, Hans Hartung, Susan Hefuna, Hans Hofmann, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, Dom Sylvester Houédard, Huang Rui, Yūichi Inoue, Alfredo Jaar, On Kawara, Franz Kline, Rachid Koraïchi, Glenn Ligon, Nja Mahdaoui, Mark Manders, Brice Marden, André Masson, Hassan Massoudy, Georges Mathieu, Henri Michaux, Joan Mitchell, Shiryū Morita, Farhad Moshiri, Ernst Wilhelm Nay, Adam Pendleton, Qiu Zhijie, Walid Raad, Ed Ruscha, Kazuo Shiraga, Pierre Soulages, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Fred Thieler, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Mark Tobey, Emilio Vedova, Lawrence Weiner, Fritz Winter.
The Written Art Collection is unique in its profile. For the first time, the Modern Art Collection (Sammlung Moderne Kunst) in the Pinakothek der Moderne is dedicating a major special exhibition focussing on its holdings of works of scriptural and text-based art. More than 60 artistic positions invite visitors to engage with a 1,200-square-meter exhibition parcours that reveals a panorama of written art and encourages reflection on the reciprocal relationship between text and image. The selection presents writing as both an artistic medium and material from the mid-20th century to the present day. ‘Sweeter than Honey. A Panorama of Written Art’ highlights a dynamic socio-political dialogue between artists from a pancultural, global perspective.
The phenomenon of writing in images is explored through handwriting, calligraphy and typography. Starting with Art Informel in the 1950s, through conceptual art since the 1960s, the more than 100 works exhibited reveal the continuous significance of written art across generations and cultures up to this day. Artists invent fantasy alphabets and abstract sign languages, write poems and calendar entries, quote from literature and political documents, and translate thoughts and conversations into sprayed, graphic, gestural or embroidered messages. The performativity of writing can be experienced in material and physical traces in painting and photography as well as in expansive, large-scale works.