Collection Satellite #8

Shannon Bool meets Otto Eckmann. Everything Created Now is the Style of Our Times

Thu, Jun 9, 2022–Sun, Feb 5, 2023

Kaiser Wilhelm Museum

The encounter between Shannon Bool (b. 1972) and Otto Eckmann (1865 –1902) gives rise to an artistic dialogue spanning an entire century. Otto Eckmann, a graphic artist, painter, and typog-rapher, was one of the most important designers of Jugendstil, a German variant of Art Nouveau, and a key contributor to the reform movement in Germany. With his efforts to combine art and everyday design, Eckmann became an important protagonist in the founding period of the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum around 1900. After Eckmann’s untimely death in 1902, part of his estate—a total of roughly 250 works and documents—was handed over to the museum. For her works, the Canadian artist Shannon Bool collages motifs from everyday culture, fashion design, and architecture. Within the frameworks of Collection Satellite #8, she has embarked on a challenge to create new works inspired by her encounter with Eckmann. For the exhibition, Bool has developed an interior of sorts, consisting of three parts: a large-format jacquard tapestry, a marble bench, and two blown-glass floor lamps modeled after old gas lanterns. Bool’s approach to his work mixes playful and private aspects with political elements, and craft with digital production techniques. She transfers Eckmann's works into a contemporary visual language.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog in German and English (Grass Publishers, Pul-heim). Since 2018, within the frameworks of the Collection Satellite series, the Kunstmuseen Krefeld has invited artists from various disciplines to engage with the collection, history, and architecture, thus enabling ever more surprising perspectives on the museum and its history. Curator: Magdalena Holzhey

Since 2018 the Kunstmuseen Krefeld’s Collection Satellite series invites artists from various disciplines to engage in an innovative dialogue with the museum’s collections, its history, and the architecture of its three buildings: the Kaiser Wilhelm Museum, Haus Lange, and Haus Esters.