Select works from the HGN Collection, com­ple­mented by rep­re­sen­ta­tive loans from young art­ists, en­tered into an ex­cit­ing di­a­logue ques­tioning the way we ex­pe­ri­ence light and dark­ness. Sculp­tures, in­stal­la­tions, as well as films, pho­to­graphs, music, and per­for­mances of­fered a va­ri­e­ty of an­swers, some sen­su­ous, some as­so­cia­tive or poetic, in­vit­ing vis­i­tors to wit­ness a jour­ney through the night from dusk to dawn and to stroll through count­less shades be­tween dark­ness and light.

In­ter­na­tion­ally rec­og­nized art­ists and prom­ising young new­com­ers alike high­lighted this cen­tral aspect of human life. The works shown cover a time span from the 1920s to the pres­ent day. Yayoi Kusama’s light in­stal­la­tion “Infinity mirrored Room — The Souls of Millions of Light Years away” from 2013 quickly became the vis­i­tors’ fa­vor­ite ex­hib­it.

Curator Catherine Nichols has gained public rec­og­ni­tion for her ex­hi­bi­tions at the Hamburger Bahnhof Berlin, Dresden Hygiene-Museum, and the na­tion­al special ex­hi­bi­tion “Luther! 95 people — 95 treasures” cel­e­brat­ing the Luther anniversary year 2017 at the Wittenberg Museum Augusteum.

The Making of

Two months prior to the ex­hi­bi­tion’s open­ing, the Kunsthalle became a build­ing site. In September, Luis Terán and his con­struc­tion team flew in from Buenos Aires and used the fol­low­ing two weeks to set up his “Giro Triangular” in a factory hall at Westerode. Once the Duderstadt team had im­ple­mented the highly am­bi­tious scheme designed to pres­ent Yayoi Kusama’s work, the art­ist’s project su­per­vi­sor arrived from New York to over­see the Kunsthalle’s con­struc­tion team in­stall­ing Kusama’s work. The last two weeks before the open­ing saw seven art­ists setting up their in­stal­la­tions, con­tin­u­ally sup­ported by the museum’s staff. Time and again, the Ottobock trade fair con­struc­tion team was called in at short notice to assist the on­go­ing works.