Kemper Art Museum to host panel discussion on Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany Feb. 9

The Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum will host a roundtable discussion with three prominent German artists — Rudolf Herz, Christian Jankowski and Via Lewandowsky — at 4 p.m. Friday, Feb. 9.

All three artists are featured in the new exhibition, Reality Bites: Making Avant-garde Art in Post-Wall Germany, which opens that day. Also taking part will be three contemporary scholars and critics: Diedrich Diederichsen, a professor at both the Merz Akademie in Stuttgart and the Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles; Sabine Eckmann, director of the Kemper Art Museum as well as curator of Reality Bites; and Lutz Koepnick, professor of German, film and media studies in Arts & Sciences.

Both the discussion and the exhibition are free open to the public, though seating for the discussion is limited. A reception for Reality Bites will be held from 7 to 10 p.m. The show will remain on view through April 29.

The Kemper Art Museum is located at the intersection of Skinker and Forsyth boulevards. Regular museum hours are 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Fridays; and 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays. The museum is closed Tuesdays.

For more information, call (314) 935-4523 or visit kemperartmuseum.wustl.edu.

Herz employs photo installations and site-specific art to examine the language of political propaganda as well as the role of images in politics, history and public memory. His work has recently been exhibited at the Hamburger Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Kunstwerke Berlin and the Jewish Museum in New York.

Jankowski’s work — which spans installation, video, photography, performance and literature — has been exhibited at major venues such as the 2002 Whitney Biennial; the 48th Venice Biennale; the Swiss Institute, New York; and the Serpentine Gallery, London. His series Poster Sale (2005) was created at Washington University and is part of the Kemper Art Museum’s permanent collection. It is currently on display in the Saligman Family Atrium.

Lewandowsky works in the areas of film, painting and graphic arts. He studied at the Hoschshule für bildende Künste in his hometown of Dresden, and during the 1990s was artist-in-residence at New York’s PS 1 Contemporary Art Center as well as at the Banff Centre for the Arts in Canada. In addition to numerous solo shows, his work has been featured in Documenta IX in Kassel, Germany, and Art of the XXth Century: A Century of Art in Germany (1999) in Berlin.

Eckmann is chief curator for the Kemper Art Museum and also teaches in the Department of Art History & Archaeology in Arts & Sciences. Her research focuses on 20th- and 21st-century European art and visual culture, with a particular emphasis on the interrelation between aesthetic practices and social and political contexts. Recent publications include the catalog for Reality Bites as well as [Grid < > Matrix] and Caught by Politics: Hitler Exiles and American Visual Culture.

Diederichsen writes internationally on art, music, and pop culture. He is a regular contributor to, and editor of, Sound and Spex magazines. He also frequently writes for Texte zur Kunst, ArtForum and other publications.

Kopenick’s most recent book is Framing Attention: Windows on Modern German Culture. Other recent publications include [Grid < > Matrix]; Caught by Politics: Hitler Exiles and American Visual Culture; and The Cosmopolitan Screen: German Cinema and the Global Imaginary, 1945 to the Present.