Current exhibitions
Lee Kit</a> came to prominence in the first several years of this century with paintings that are not just art objects but also everyday items: He painted stripes and checkerboard patterns on materials like textiles to use them temporarily in a domestic environment as curtains and tablecloths or outdoors as picnic blankets or banners. Using materials, especially in this latter form, in the context of the protest movements in Hong Kong, injected a decidedly political aspect—one that is considered a key feature of his works still today. Another central characteristic is the suspension of genre-specific boundaries, something that already came to notable fruition in Lee’s early formulations and still today finds ever-stronger expression in his exhibitions. In his presentations, he melds his paintings, sculptures, films, photography, music, and language to form a single unit. The results are intense, immersive worlds of image, thought, and experience that are as imbued with a delicate poetry as they are with the desire to proclaim a social utopia. The <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Fridericianum/"/Organization/Fridericianum/813A05448B4D9AD1">Fridericianum presents Lee’s first solo exhibition in Germany—a walk-on synthesis of the arts.<p><br></p>" />
Auctions
Tetsumi Kudo</a> created a consistent body of work that serves as a model for contemporary conceptual approaches of Posthumanism and the New Materialism. The <a target="_blank" href=https://www.mutualart.com/Organization/Fridericianum/"/Organization/Fridericianum/813A05448B4D9AD1">Fridericianum presents the first comprehensive retrospective exhibition of the Japanese artist’s work in Germany.</p><p>Forms converge, melt or conglomerate in the microcosms cultivated by Tetsumi Kudo. Body parts become autonomous beings and categorical hierarchies are set aside. Eyes, noses, and light-emitting diodes proliferate, while plants, electrical circuits, and brains merge in cages, cubes, boxes, and aquariums. Kudo reflects upon the ideological boundaries between mankind, nature, and technology from the distanced perspective of an unsentimental observer. He aggressively criticizes the supposedly unique status of the human being: “In this new ecological system, it is not possible that human dignity alone should retain the hauteur of a king. But it is very difficult to remove the sentiment of privilege (human dignity) and the sentiment of colonialism of the head of humanity that calls itself ‘humanist.’” Tetsumi Kudo experienced the nostalgic devotion to a humanist image of mankind in Western society, which he found extremely specious. In Japan, the nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki produced a caesura; their devastating effects revealed the vulnerability of the human organism. Nuclear disaster is equivalent to a demonstration of both absolute power and loss of control, exposing the paradox inherent in Humanism. Consequently, it becomes necessary to transform the human being. Kudo demonstrates how body parts, plants, and electrical devices converge to form post-human structures. In Kudo’s view, these are by no means apocalyptic scenarios or nightmarish visions of the future. Instead, the renunciation of Humanism is an act of liberation. Space is created for a post-human transformation of the body that goes hand in hand with a reappraisal of traditional categories.</p>" />
Articles
The Fridericianum celebrates the institutional debut of the artist Lee Kit in Germany with a concentrated solo exhibition.
January 25, 2025
Under the title Some Bright Morning, the Fridericianum is presenting the first extensive solo exhibition by Melvin Edwards at a European institution.
