Opening Thursday, 22.03.2018, 7 pm
On July 20, 1964, when artists such as Joseph Beuys, Wolf Vostell and Robert Filliou – the leaders of the FLUXUS movement – appeared in the Audimax of the Technische Hochschule in Aachen, the performative avant-garde art had struck a bang. Āboliņš, the cultural representative of the student council, had invited to the scandalous action.
The Latvian Valdis Āboliņš (1939-1984) was not only the driving force behind numerous art events at Aachen’s university in the late 1960s. The Galerie Aachen, which he co-founded, showed legendary exhibitions and performances by artists such as Jörg Immendorff, Franz Erhard Walther, Günther Brus, Peter Roehr and Per Kirkeby. Although Āboliņš was one of the most central figures in the local avant-garde scene, his personality was largely concealed behind the art actions he initiated.
The exhibition presents the life and work of Valdis Āboliņš by means of photographs, films and original documents. Letters from his estate, which document the close contact with prominent artists of his time, are on public display for the first time. The presentation is the prelude to the exhibition Flashes of the Future. The Art of the 1968s or the Power of the Powerless (20.04.18–19.08.18) and emerged in cooperation with the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art (LCCA) in Riga.
Curators: Ieva Astahovska / Benjamin Dodenhoff
