Masha Goldin and Aïcha Revellat, both members of the eikones graduate school chat about their experiences while visiting the permanent collection of the Städel Museum and the Rosemarie Trockel exhibition at the MMK in Frankfurt.

Aïcha: Hi Masha! So, we originally planned to talk about the Relief exhibition at the Städel Museum we visited this morning together with Ruth Ezra, Jeremy Melius and Sarah Wiesendanger. After the relief exhibition, Sarah and I went on to see the Rosemarie Trockel show at the MMK and you visited the collection of the Städel. When we talked afterwards, we were both more inspired by the latter experiences. Can you tell me what you were most interested in the permanent collection? 

Masha: Absolutely, there is an incredible Old Masters collection! The painting that stayed in my thoughts for longer, however, is The Art being Introduced to Germany by Christianity with the personifications of Italia and Germania by Philipp Veit (1793-1877) from around 1834-36. This is a fresco that was transferred to canvas from the walls of the old Städelsches Kunstinstitut in Frankfurt. In its new installation it is comprised from three parts: the central piece depicts personifications of various arts around a central female personification of Religion. Personifications of Germania and Italia survive on two separate canvases. 

According to the museum’s website, in the artists view “the art of the future should be based entirely on the Christian Middle Ages,” which is evident by the building of a Gothic cathedral in the background of the central panel and the application of the medieval attributes of the Holy Roman Empire in the personification of Germania. Philipp Veit was not only an artist but also appointed as the director of the Städel in 1830. Therefore, I felt that the preservation and installation of the painting on the second floor of the galleries, in the staircase hall, in such a way that it is visible from various exhibition rooms, invited a reflection on the history of museums and the complex ties between art and art’s institutions with national identity. Sometimes we visit museums without thinking too much about their histories, mission and approach to the question of national heritage but here, with this installation, the connection between the current museum and its roots in nationalistic views seems to be very much on the surface. I think it is a welcome attitude that more museums should adopt: being more transparent about their past and the objectives that they were imagined to serve, and always re-examine their premises. Did the Trockel exhibition inspired thoughts on similar topics, such as art’s institutions and national identity?

Aïcha: Yes, it did, but in a different, less direct manner. The main objective of the exhibition, as far as I could tell, was to present the immensely vast oeuvre of Rosemarie Trockel. 

I would say the retrospective did not specifically address the MMK as an institution. Trockel is notoriously private, she rarely gives interviews… I can understand her reluctance to express herself publicly, because a few decades ago interviews with female artists often involved questions that were very different from the ones the male artist got asked. But through her art it was very clear that Trockel has some things to say about sexism in the art world, which of course includes museums as the institutions, which have historically been collecting and exhibiting art by male and female artists very disproportionately. Trockel was born in 1952 and is thus part of a generation of feminist artists who rebelled against the status quo. In light of that fact, it was especially interesting to see the works from the late 1970ies up until the 2020ies and to see where her focus has shifted and in which areas the themes remain unchanged. Early on, the gendered domestic space was of great interest to Trockel: The kitchen, laundry, mending clothes. Trockel’s weapon, I would say, is a combination of striking visuals, humor and excellent work titles. To give you an example, she made a series of works over the years using hotplates, either mounted on the wall in different patterns where they resemble minimal art works, or as parts of installations.

Inside a transparent case, a cooking plate acted as a vinyl record, complete with a knitting needle instead of the record needle. The same type of cooking plates were also mounted on a large white steel plate, making them appear like an abstract relief. It made me think of Sophie Taeuber-Arp’s paintings and wood reliefs from the 1930ies, displaying colorful circles in different rhythms. How museums and the art world have embraced a certain type of seriality in modern abstract art is not lost on her. One of her drafts for book covers alludes to this quite directly. It reads: "LERNEN über serielles Arbeiten".

Upstairs, the game with references from concrete art all of a sudden litterally becomes concrete: The hot plates are no longer stand ins for cercles, they are plugged in and hot. The "do not touch the art" phrase no longer solely serves as to protect the artworks from the visitors curious fingers. The real threat is the relief itself.

You were speaking about the visibility of the artwork before and how the way in which it was positioned in the space made you think about the space, the museum itself. The Trockel exhibition expanded throughout every room of the museum, it was on several floors, and the sheer number of works alone was impressive. It felt very impactful to experience how Trockel was taking up so much space with her art.

Did you have any similar thoughts about the art/space relationship during your visit of the Old Masters collection? 

Masha: In terms of artwork and space relationships, the object that was the most outstanding was the Frankfurt Dominican Altarpiece by Hans Holbein the Elder (1460/70-(?)1524) from 1501.

The museum website provides a helpful diagram to give a sense of the scale of the altarpiece’s wings: They are huge.

The only parts of this retable that have survived include (most of) the paintings on the altarpiece's wings, and one side of its predella. It probably also included sculptural parts and at least two more painted plaques; however, the various parts were separated and lost in the nineteenth century. In the Städel, the paintings from the inner side of the wings and their outer side are exhibited on two separate, parallel walls in the Old Masters gallery. It is hard to imagine how monumental this retable originally was, and what kind of impression it would have made in its former setting, which was a monastic, ecclesiastical space. I find it interesting that unlike the Trockel’s body of work you describe–which took over the galleries’ space–the museum space in the Städel, it seems, forces itself on the altarpiece. While its view, originally, was subjected to rituals and religious practices, in the museum space the parts of this huge ensemble were torn apart, perhaps in order to allow their installation as modern paintings whose purpose was always to be viewed as one-layered, one-sided paintings fixed to a flat surface. In the current display the visitors don’t really have the tools to grasp the work’s original structure, function and splendor.

I don’t know to which extant the original exhibition setting intended for some of Trockel’s works is relevant for their current installations. The historical framework, however, seems quite crucial for understanding her work; According to what you describe, the context of feminist art of the 1970’s is key for the development of her oeuvre and her means of expression. Do you feel that the curators at the MMK put effort into communicating this framework of Trockel’s body of work?

Aïcha: The situation is of course very different than with the altarpiece, which was site-specific and designed to serve a purpose beyond the visual. The building of the MMK is from 1991, which makes it around two decades younger than the earlier works by Trockel in the exhibition. The postmodern building with its large central hall and its 30 galleries was built to host works precisely like those of Trockel, which include video, drawings, collages, photography, textile-based works, sculptural objects and reliefs of different sizes. 

Another interesting aspect of Trockel’s practice that was mirrored in the exhibition concept is her play with expectations– on several levels. One was in reference to the canon, and what the artworld expects/expected of her. Look at this small sculpture with the title “Spiral Betty” resembling the female reproductive organs which directly references Robert Smithson’s iconic “Spiral Jetty”. in German “Spirale” is a common term for an IUD as well, as it mirrors the shape of the uterus, in which is being placed and where it usually remains for several years. In size, Spiral Betty is a far cry from the 460 meters long stone spiral by Smithson. The subject matter– contraception– has had far reaching effects in society, but remains a taboo subject, not only in art. The more recent version of Spiral Betty (2010) is 1.5 meters high and was realized with a neon tube, glass, acrystal, cord, cable, and a plug, making one think of other conceptual and post-conceptual male artists like Joseph Kosuth, Dan Flavin, Mario Merz and Bruce Nauman. The placing of the works in the galleries felt very nonchalant, but now that I think about it, one can also see it as a way of recontextualizing an object that hasn’t traditionally belonged in a museum.