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Just visited the Hamburger Kunsthalle to see the maginificent work of Germain painter Daniel Richter, but was struck by an imposing structure in front of the museum that appeared familiar to me. The International Herald Tribune offers an explanation:

“The towering black cube at the center of the Great Mosque in Mecca, known as the Kaaba, now has a politically charged twin standing in front of Hamburg’s premier museum. This fabric-clad cube made its way here in an odyssey that began in Venice, detoured through Berlin and overcame, en route, fears of offending Europe’s Muslims.

The idea for the installation came from the German artist Gregor Schneider, who “had been commissioned to build his cube of aluminum scaffolding draped in black muslin for the 2005 Venice Biennale. But his plan to install it in St. Mark’s Square was rejected by city officials, who suggested it might offend or provoke Muslims. He was then invited to construct it at a contemporary art museum in Berlin, only to have the work there halted by a city museum official.”

With a muslim population comprising no less than 12 percent of Hamburg’s total population of 1.8 milion the people at the Kunsthalle must have been well prepared for a massive outrage from fundamentalists. But on this sunny spring day everything seemed perfectly under control as the droves of art believers far outnumbered the representatives of other religions. But tomorrow we are heading for Denmark, and I’m anxious to learn how they reacted to Schneider’s mimicking act more than a year after the famous cartoon controversy. The black box probably would fit nicely in the garden of the Louisiana Museum of Modern, looking out over the Danish waters towards the east.

P.s. the Daniel Richter retrospective is definitely worth visiting, but after Hamburg it will travel to Gemeentemuseum Den Haag (September 29 till January 6, 2008) and to Malaga CAC (April 11 till July 14, 2008), so you might better wait till it comes your way.

Read full article (International Herald Tribune, April 16 2007)
Go to website Hamburger Kunsthalle

Related posts:  Temples for the tourists  //  Guggenheim exhibit explores the forms of space  //  Berlin replaces Palast der Republik with Stadtschloss  //

This entry was posted on zondag, mei 6th, 2007 at 10:31 pm and is filed under Art, Museum. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.