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It goes on.

While the country's museums have been closed for months, the German contribution to the 59th Venice Art Biennale has finally been determined.

Maria Eichhorn is the name of the artist who will exhibit in the stern building in the Giardini in 2022.

The biennale should actually have taken place this year, but had to be postponed due to Corona.

What exactly you get to see in the presentation, curated by the director of the Cologne Museum Ludwig, Yilmaz Dziewior, will of course not be revealed for a long time.

But, to stir up the anticipation, there is already a homepage.

Here you can learn something about Eichhorn's biography and earlier works.

And so it quickly becomes clear: The artist, who lives in Berlin and teaches at the Zurich University of the Arts, does not want to visually overwhelm her audience, but rather to provide enlightenment.

Representing Germany in Venice: Maria Eichhorn

Source: Photo: Jens Ziehe

Eichhorn's

Rose Valland Institute,

founded in 2017 for the Kassel Documenta

, even has a scientific purpose.

It serves "to research the expropriation of the Jewish population of Europe and its aftermath up to the present day".

In Kassel at that time you saw books from the Berlin city library that had once been stolen from Jewish citizens and whose rightful owners have not yet been identified.

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At that time it was already the second documenta for Eichhorn, whose work had been on view in a large number of international exhibitions since the late 1980s.

Or not to be seen.

She did not contribute any plastic for the Skulptur Projekte Münster 1997, but purchased a piece of land in the city, which she then sold on for a profit.

The proceeds went to an association critical of gentrification.

Since the question of property and land (just think of the discussion about the ban on single-family homes) has tended to tighten rather than relaxed since 1997, the artist can be said to be on the trail of the zeitgeist in her work.

In 2003, only a few art historians knew what provenance is and how widespread looted art is in German collections. For Eichhorn, provenance research was part of artistic practice and led to a show at the Lenbachhaus in Munich.

Some of the work of the 58-year-olds can even be considered prophetic during the Corona break: "5 weeks, 25 days, 175 hours" was the name of the campaign in the non-profit Chisenhale Gallery in London.

There the employees continued to be paid in 2016 for taking time off during the exhibition, including the director.

Nothing was on display, the doors stayed closed.

The "Guardian"

described it like this at the time: “The show opened and then it closed.

Or closed and then opened. "

Could it be, then, that in April 2022 we will flock to the German Pavilion full of hope (the Venedian jostling will hopefully work again) and find nothing there?

At least it cannot be ruled out.

There is little that can be ruled out when Eichhorn puts on an exhibition.

In 2011 she had the art gallery renovated in Bern instead of spending the budget on her show;

the visitors found themselves in the midst of hard-working craftsmen (“The money of the Kunsthalle Bern”).

Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig, has chosen Maria Eichhorn

Source: picture alliance / Horst Galuschka / dpa / Horst Galuschka dpa

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Eichhorn's conceptual approach can be attributed to the critique of institutions and is reminiscent of the interventions of Gregor Schneider, Santiago Sierra or Hans Haacke, all of whom realized important and long canonized works in Venice.

The exhibition site itself, rather than the artifacts brought there, become the topic, the conditions for making and displaying art are revealed.

The result of such (self) interviews is sometimes to be expected, but in the case of Maria Eichhorn it is usually quite relevant.

We hope for the latter.

Because Venice is one thing too: tough competition.

The last German contribution, the pretentious “anchor center” of the fantasy figure Natascha Süder Happelmann, has almost been forgotten.

Just the motto of this so far last art biennial in 2019, somehow you can't get it out of your head: “May you live in interesting times.” At the time, the curator said it should be a Chinese curse.