Conzept of the Exhibition DEEP ACTION

Wolfgang Petrick and MFA-Students (1975 - 2005)

Georg-Kolbe-Museum (Berlin) 8.May – 5. June 2005
Choson University Art Museum (Gwangju, South Korea)

Twenty-five artists have been selected to take part in the exhibition DEEP ACTION.

Each of them represents a unique direction and development in their particular art pursuits. Though many live at least part time in Germany, they represent a widely divergent cross section of cultures and locals including, Mexico, USA, South Africa and South Korea.

All of these participants have studied with Prof. Wolfgang Petrick at Berlin's Hochschule der Kuenste, now Universitaet der Kuenste from 1975 – 2004. From alumni of hundreds, a group of dedicated students curated the artists who will appear in this exhibition. This group was chosen on the basis of the quality and professional execution of their current work. This process of collaboration has developed among these artists over the last thirty years and is characteristic of a tradition that has helped promote individual as well as this community of artists as a whole. The wide spectrum of interests and the dynamic amount of energy generated through these interchanges have brought forth a contemporary constellation of an explosive nature.

Berlin , that besieged outpost, is the common context within which all the participants have developed. From 1962 till 1989, Bonn generously subsidized much of West Berlin's cultural programs. East Berlin made its own contributions with its dissident strongholds and radical philosophies. This environment through its competitions and contrasts is unusually conducive to advancements especially in the visual arts. After the reunification, Berlin assumes its rightful place as an international metropolis, and magnetically attracts artists and the cultural cognoscenti from all over the world. The place Berlin is pregnant with symbols, symbols which link the participants of DEEP ACTION in a complex network which connects the past with the present, the East with the West, and leads from the present into the future. This show represents all aspects of contemporary art practices.

DEEP ACTION will open at the Georg Kolbe Museum in Berlin, running from May 8 - 29, 2005. Afterwards it will travel to Seoul, South Korea. South Korea is the homeland of two participating artists. Yusob Kim lives and teaches in South Korea and Jinaun Kim lives in Berlin. Korea, as a divided country, has an historic situation that is analogous to Berlin's.

The bilingual publication will include texts by the art writer James Kalm ( New York), art historian Karlheinz Luedeking ( Berlin). Lothar Romain (the president of the Universitaet der Kuenste in Berlin) and Ursel Berger (the director of the Kolbe Museum in Berlin) will write the introduction for the catalog.