The best way to get to know a place, a city or a country is to go to a swimming pool. Swimming pools work differently in every country. In Holland, for example, it was thought at some point that swimming laps was uncreative. That’s why today everyone there is allowed to swim however they want. In China, things are very different: you see a lot of parents in swimming pools teaching their children to swim according to a set of rules. You can see a combination of discipline and fun, but never such creativity that makes swimming impossible. Swimming lessons in Germany follow the instructor’s rules and teach the basics of physical movement in the water. Achieving a swimming badge is particularly motivating for swimming students. Swimming pools subtly convey how a nation moves physically in the water.
The exhibition ‘We all swim in the same water’ attempts to convey how a class at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich moves and develops artistically. This is how Professor Gregor Hildebrandt and his students
The best way to get to know a place, a city or a country is to go to a swimming pool. Swimming pools work differently in every country. In Holland, for example, people once thought that swimming laps was uncreative. That’s why today everyone there is allowed to swim however they want. In China it’s completely different: in the swimming pools you see a lot of parents telling their children to swim according to a rule.
You can observe a combination of discipline and fun, but never such creativity that makes swimming impossible. Swimming lessons in Germany follow the instructor’s rules and teach the basics of physical movement in the water. Achieving a swimming badge is particularly motivating for swimming students. Swimming pools subtly convey how a nation moves physically in the water.
The exhibition ‘We all swim in the same water’ attempts to convey how a class at the Academy of Fine Arts Munich moves and develops artistically. Professor Gregor Hildebrandt and his students metaphorically swim artistic lanes in the gallery rooms of the Pasinger Fabrik.
The first part of the exhibition shows multiple works from the entire class in a dense and tight hanging. This presentation attempts to evoke the association of the queue in front of public swimming pool ticket offices. The positions on display, which focus on painting, graphics, drawing, objects, sculpture, photography and installation, are linked by narratives and subjective iconographies on the one hand, and perspectives focussing on everyday life and society on the other. After the encounter with these visual fields, it is straight into the changing rooms. However, a decision has to be made here: Individual cubicle or collective changing room. The subsequent visit to the shower rooms allows the first glimpses of the bodies getting ready before jumping into the cold water. Once at the edge of the pool, there is no stopping them.
In the third room of the exhibition, the indoor swimming pool, a selection of works is concentrated and condensed, explicitly recognising questions and problems that also determine the daily discussions in a contemporary art academy. Here, highly committed and specifically artistic works come together to form a complex field of contemplation. However, access to all of the exhibited works is always dependent on association and ultimately on the cultural background of the viewer.
(Text: Stefan-Maria Mittendorf)