More than movement for its own sake
With the exhibition "Emilio Vedova – More Than Movement for Its Own Sake," the Kunsthaus Dahlem dedicates a show to the Venetian artist, focusing on his Berlin years from 1963 to 1965. This period marks an important phase in Vedova's work, during which he explored new artistic avenues.
Emilio Vedova (1919–2006) came to Berlin in November 1963 as part of an artist residency program of the American Ford Foundation—a city that, at the time, embodied contradictions like few others: traumatized by its Nazi past, torn apart by the Cold War, and yet brimming with cultural energy. This "island city," as Vedova called it, became the stage for a highly productive artistic and socio-political assessment.
Vedova moved into Arno Breker's former state studio in Dahlem, a historically charged site of National Socialist propaganda art, to which his work now stood in diametrical opposition. In the building's vast central hall, he created a multitude of works that testify to his great experimental spirit. The Plurimi, movable picture panels with which Vedova opened up painting to the surrounding space, are particularly characteristic of this Berlin creative period.
The exhibition at the Kunsthaus Dahlem features several of the Plurimi created on site—both as models and as finished works. These works are based not only on a formal engagement with panel painting, but also on an engagement with the history and present of the city.
