Manfred PerniceHaldesleben ∙ Bibette headland ∙ Hotel Hangelar

This many-layered book by Manfred Pernice, which can now at last be published, goes back to an exhibition at the Museum Ludwig in 2007. On that occasion he combined the early work “Bibette headland” of 1999 with “Haldensleben” of 2005, further developed especially for the exhibition, and with the sculpture “Hotel Hangelar” of 2007, shown there for the first time. These three large, partly walk-in sculptures refer to the architecture of bunkers, airport control towers or small-town housing estates. Today, at a remove of ten years, it is clear that these three sculptures occupy a central position in the artist’s oeuvre. Condensed within them is Pernice’s long-standing engagement with the historical and socio-political contexts of architecture and everyday aesthetics. At the same time, despite their references to reality and their historical charge, his sculptures assert themselves as autonomous objects, as objectivations that confront us in the productive interplay of the own and the other and thus allow aesthetic experience to become insight. The book now spreads out for the first time the diverse textual and visual material from Manfred Pernice’s research and presents it together with photographs of the works realised at the Museum Ludwig in Cologne.

Exhibition:
Museum Ludwig Köln, 20/4 – 30/7/2007