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ART COLOGNE
2012
46.
Internationaler Kunstmarkt
Cologne
April 18th –
22nd, 2012
Vernissage on
Tuesday,
April 17th, 5
pm
Axa Art
Professional Preview
on Tuesday,April 17th,
12 pm
ART
COLOGNE Prize 2012: Wide White Space
The Antwerp
gallery Wide White Space is the winner of the 2012 ART COLOGNE
Prize. The Prize is sponsored by the Bundesverband Deutscher
Galerien und Kunsthändler (BVDG) and Koelnmesse. It is awarded
annually in recognition of outstanding services in the
promotion and encouragement of modern
art.
The 10,000-euro
Prize will be presented to Anny De Decker on 19 April 2012 in
Cologne’s Historisches Rathaus. De Decker ran the legendary
gallery together with her husband Bernd Lohaus from 1966 to
1976. Lohaus died in 2010.
The ART COLOGNE
Prize is being awarded for the first time to a ‘historic’
gallery – one that has not been active for several decades.
But Wide White Space’s vigorous and innovative promotion of
avant-garde art continues to have a defining impact. The
artists it showed have all achieved wide recognition. For many
it was their exhibition debut. In choosing Wide White Space as
this year’s prizewinner ART COLOGNE adds another important
name to the list of prizewinners from the gallery world –
outstanding gallerists like Ileana Sonnabend, Denise René,
Rudolf Springer, Otto van de Loo, René Block and Michael
Werner.
When Anny De Decker
and Bernd Lohaus opened their gallery in Antwerp in 1966 they
were already members of the young avant-garde art scene. De
Decker was an art historian and Lohaus a pupil of Joseph Beuys
at the Düsseldorf Academy – ideal qualifications for
interacting and working with a new generation of ambitious
young artists. The list of exhibitions and performances, many
of them conceptual, spatial or site-specific, reads like a
roll call of what was an exciting period of artistic
innovation at the cutting-edge of modern art. Just some of the
names who exhibited at Wide White Space include Carl André,
Richard Artschwager, Marcel Broodthaers, Christo, Dan Flavin,
Gotthard Graubner, Edward Kienholz, Bruce Naumann, Richard
Long, Piero Manzoni, Panamarenko, Gerhard Richter, Dieter
Roth, Bernard Schultze, Niele Toroni, Günther Uecker, Victor
Vasarely and Andy Warhol. Wide White Space worked particularly
closely with Joseph Beuys, who was at the start of a
remarkable career. In 1968, the gallery staged one of his
first exhibitions outside Germany. This was his groundbreaking
‘action’ titled ‘Eurasienstab’ which was recorded on
film.
Wide White Space’s
unconditional support of its artists’ careers and interests
and its achievement in seeing them increasingly widely
represented at major exhibitions brought the gallery
international recognition. Thanks to its excellent network of
contacts, the Amsterdam/Antwerp/Cologne-Düsseldorf axis became
a hub of the avant-garde in the 1960s and 1970s – a hotbed of
artistic exchange. Artists, collectors and curators shuttled
frequently back and forth inside the triangle and strong
inter-gallery relationships emerged.
Many of the works
shown by Lohaus and De Decker are in leading museum
collections and the artists they represented are now
established names in the history of twentieth-century art.
Despite the gallery’s international pulling power, Lohaus and
De Decker decided to go new ways in 1976 – Bernd Lohaus to
resume work as an artist and Anny De Decker to work as an art
historian.
Klaus Gerrit
Friese, the chairman of the Bundesverband Deutscher Galerien
und Kunsthändler, commenting on this year’s ART COLOGNE Prize,
said: ‘The award gives Wide White Space the recognition it
deserves for an immense artistic contribution achieved in a
relatively small space. Even if the gallery no longer exists,
its artists do. Everyone knows them. It’s time to reward the
financial risk this avant-garde gallery took, and time to
reward its courage and effort in cultivating such intensive
personal working relationships with so many outstanding
artists. The ART COLOGNE Prize will revive the memory of Wide
White Space and the high standards Bernd Lohaus and Anny De
Decker set for future generations of gallerists.’
The Zentralarchiv
des Internationalen Kunsthandels (ZADIK) will be organizing a
small documentary exhibition at ART COLOGNE to mark the work
and achievements of the gallery. It will be staged at the BVDG
stand.
Marcel Broodthaers
- Departement des Aigles - 5 October 1969
Anny de Decker,
Stella Jonas and Bernd Lohhaus -
foto Maria
Gillesen
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