About the artists who came to West Germany with the "guest workers".
I don't like remembering my art history studies in Hamburg. The subtle messages that I didn't belong still resonate decades later. I thought that as a queer person, art history would be a place where I could feel safe. But I was read as a "foreigner" - as one of those foreigners that the country no longer wanted, even though I already had German citizenship. Many years later, I began to take an interest in the artists who had come to Germany as part of the recruitment agreement with the migrant workers (some of whom were migrant workers themselves). These artists found that the "guest workers", like my parents, were worthy of images without stereotyping them as foreigners. Artists about whom hardly anything can be found in the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte or in other specialist art history libraries. This research has resulted in three exhibitions: "There is no there there" at the Museum für Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt (2024), "Annem işçi - Wer näht die roten Fahnen?" at the Museum Marta Herford (2024) and "Gurbette Kalmak / Bleiben in der Fremde" at the Taxispalais Innsbruck (2023). In the lecture I will talk about this and the structural racism of the art world.
Date & location
29.10.2024, 18:15
Kunsthochschule Kassel
Lecture hall, Nordbau, Menzelstr. 13