31: Women
(Exhibition Concept after Marcel Duchamp, 1943)
Works of the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection 1930–2020
31: Women, the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection’s new Berlin show, references two groundbreaking presentations held at Peggy Guggenheim’s New York gallery Art of This Century, the Exhibition by 31 Women, 1943, and The Women, 1945. Initiator and co-curator was Guggenheim’s friend and advisor, the artist Marcel Duchamp. These were the first exhibitions in the United States that focused, to this extent, exclusively on women artists. The women represented a young generation, from eleven different countries. In terms of content, representatives of Surrealism found themselves alongside abstract painters, Dada-influenced artists and previously unknown new trends.
Taking its lead from these important founding documents of feminist art history, the exhibition 31: Women, with some sixty works from the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection, brings two longstanding emphases of the collection into sharper focus. The concentration on leading female figures in twentieth- and twenty-first-century art and the research and projects conducted since 2016 on Duchamp, curatorial practice, and the readymade. Our 31: Women show begins, in historical terms, with works from the Bauhaus and concrete art traditions, moves on to European and American movements such as Zero and Minimalism, and then broadens the horizon with younger artists from India, South Africa, Nigeria, Chile, Israel, the United States, and other countries. The exhibition brings together early feminist trends and global perspectives of contemporary art in surprising constellations and thematic stagings. Two new publications, Marcel Duchamp: The curatorial work and Marcel Duchamp and the Women accompany the exhibition and can be acquired at the exhibition space Mercedes-Benz Contemporary at a discounted price.
In addition, as part of this exhibition, in a separate presentation, commissioned portraits of female artists by painter Marcus Neufanger will be on view.
Downloads
Artists
- Anni Albers
- Leonor Antunes
- Ilit Azoulay
- Anna Beothy Steiner
- Amit Berlowitz
- Madeleine Boschan
- Max Cole
- Mary Corse
- Dadamaino
- Ulrike Flaig
- Andrea Fraser
- Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
- Beate Günther
- Marcia Hafif
- Isabell Heimerdinger
- Tamara K.E.
- Sonia Khurana
- Annu Palakunnathu Matthew
- Kazuko Miyamoto
- Charlotte Moorman
- Zanele Muholi
- Nnenna Okore
- Silke Radenhausen
- Berni Searle
- Lerato Shadi
- Efrat Shvily
- Natalia Stachon
- Katja Strunz
- Adejoke Tugbiyele
- Amalia Valdés
- Andrea Zittel
Events
-
-
Exhibition tour: Minimalism and After: Political, Poetic, and Personal Reassessments
Marcia Hafif, Kazuko Miyamoto, Efrat Shvily, Natalia Stachon, Katja Strunz
This tour presents a constellation of artistic works that deal in different ways with the upheavals in the art of the 1960s. Minimalism with its perfect formal language is subjected to a critical revision in the works of the artists.
-
-
Exhibition Tour: Geometries, Proportions, Harmonies: Between Abstraction and Living Space
Anni Albers, Ilit Azoulay, Anne Beothy Steiner, Mary Corse, Andrea Fraser, Silke Radenhausen, Amalia Valdés, Andrea Zittel
Using abstract concepts such as geometries, proportions and harmonies, the tour focuses on significant content-related and socio-political settings─from the utopias of early modernism to current institutional critique and feminist issues.
Prior Registration via Email is required: art.collection@daimler.com. Maximum 12 participants and face-masks are mandatory. -
-
Exhibition Tour: Minimalism and After: Political, Poetic, and Personal Reassessments
Max Cole, Dadamaino, Marcia Hafif, Kazuko Miyamoto, Efrat Shvily, Natalia Stachon, Katja Strunz
This tour presents a constellation of artistic works that deal in different ways with the upheavals in the art of the 1960s. Minimalism with its perfect formal language is subjected to a critical revision in the works of the artists.
A second guided tour starts at 5pm.
Prior registration via Email is required: art.collection@daimler.com. and face masks are mandatory. -
-
Exhibition Tour: Geometries, Proportions, Harmonies: Between Abstraction and Living Space
Anni Albers, Ilit Azoulay, Anne Beothy Steiner, Mary Corse, Andrea Fraser, Silke Radenhausen, Amalia Valdés, Andrea Zittel
Using abstract concepts such as geometries, proportions and harmonies, the tour focuses on significant substantive and socio-political settings─from the utopias of early modernism to current institutional critique and feminist issues.
A second guided tour starts at 4pm.
Prior registration via Email is required: art.collection@daimler.com. and face masks are mandatory. -
-
Exhibition Tour: Hidden, Uncanny, Intuitive, Unconscious
Amit Berlowitz, Madeleine Boschan, Dadamaino, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster
Sigmund Freud's concept of the 'uncanny,' which he developed in an article in 1919, could be a unifying aspect of the work of this tour. As uncanny, Freud refers to things or situations that are familiar, but at the same time read out a feeling of ambiguity and uncertainty.
A second guided tour starts at 5pm.
Prior registration via Email is required: art.collection@daimler.com. and face masks are mandatory.
Publications
-
On the Subject of the Ready-Made or Using a Rembrandt as an Ironing Board
Mercedes-Benz Art Collection Artist Book (English Version)
Elanders Waiblingen, 2016 -
Duchamp as Curator
Marcel Duchamp’s Curatorial Practice: His Work, Contemporary Exhibitions, Museums, Private Collections and Publications
Snoeck Cologne, 2017 -
Marcel Duchamp
The Curatorial Work. Chronology of Curated Shows and Collections
Snoeck Cologne, 2019 -
Exhibitions
On the Subject of the Ready-Made
Works from the Mercedes-Benz Art Collection selected by Bethan Huws on the occasion of 100 years of the ready-made
The Duchamp-Effect. Readymade
Duchamp as Curator
Symposium at Mercedes-Benz Contemporary Berlin