Does art do something, or does art say something?
Can there be art without context?
How can art be judged: objectively or subjectively?
What does it mean to collect art, to exhibit it publicly, to curate it?
Should all art be exhibited?
How is meaning created through the arrangement of artworks?
Does art even need to have a meaning?
Does every artwork have just one meaning?
Or is what defines it its expression?
Is expression the meaning of the work?
Can an expression be good, bad or unacceptable?
If so, who decides that?
And whose problem does it become: that of the individual, the audience as
a whole, the artists or the institution?
This museum’s collection comprises works of art from around the world dating from
1960 onwards, with a focus on the USA, Europe, the former Soviet Union, China and
Cuba. It is largely based on the collection of Irene and Peter Ludwig.
This room is the answer to a question posed by the new director to all staff at the Ludwig Forum during her own first encounter with the collection: ‘Which works from our
collection particularly speak to you, and which do not speak to you at all?’
The works on display were selected by the staff of the Ludwig Forum and hung as part
of a collaborative effort. Contributing Staff comprise the Exhibition Set-up, Supervision, Exhibition Technology, Visitor Services, Library, Management, Cleaning Service,
Inventory, Communications, Art Education, Curation, Restoration, Joinery and Administration. The exhibition is still a work in progress and may continue to evolve.
Rather than adopting a ‘neutral’, white cube presentation, the exhibition, with its dense
‘Petersburg hanging’, follows a kind of overwhelming approach that neither focuses
the eye nor allows it to rest – and in doing so raises a variety of questions.