Rundgänge

It is the event of the year for art scholars and all those who are interested in art from all over Germany: the walkabout exhibitions at the academies and universities of art. The students must reflect on their own work and exhibit everything – directly competing with fellow art students from all years and in front of an audience that grows from year to year. This can be a little stressful sometimes. Particularly in Düsseldorf, Cologne, Essen and Münster these walkabout exhibitions are performance shows which are visited by artists, students and journalists from all over the country. Master students of Andreas Gursky, Hubert Kiecol, Katharina Grosse, Aernout Mik or Mischa Kuball show their artworks next to the ones of freshmen – without an expected outcome. Art lovers never depart from these exhibitions without being impressed: the wide range of styles, methods and motifs reminds them of the wide world out there, with all its complexity, crudeness, sometimes simplicity, a little delicate here, kind of impenetrable there. Funny, superficial, grim or beautiful – Just like art itself. When visiting these exhibitions, one encounters the works of young artists trying to seize this world by means of film, painting, sculpture, drawing, and installation or just by mixing them all together. They can be of political, self-reflecting, bulky or decorative nature. Sometimes complicated and cryptic, sometimes revolving around a single, funny, smart or lovely idea. Here, visitors can encounter art away from the utilisation logic of the art market, art, which strength often originates from not being finished – in a way that can come across as self-confident and sometimes more of a seeking movement, but always interesting.


The courses of study for design and graphic design show their works during their own exhibitions, for example at the Münster School of Design, the FH Dortmund or the FH Aachen. The transitions to and between art are often fluent. These so-called "applied arts" in communication design, photography, movies, video or digital design is not less complex, conceptionally elaborate or nice to look at than works by the colleagues from the field of fine arts.
Autor: Christian Caravante
Foto: 33pt