Beschreibung
Ever since his studies with Joseph Beuys and Erwin Heerich, since his first exhibitions – for instance at ‘Kippenberger’s Office’ in 1979 – Meuser (b. Essen 1947, lives and works in Karlsruhe) has been a solitaire. His sculptures are unyielding and unruly, just as much as they are vulnerable and tender. They are witty and heart-touchingly charming.
Meuser finds his material in the scrapyard. Confidently and empathically, he reinstates form and dignity to the remnants and vestiges of industrial society. As a romantic, he grants things a life of their own and turns them into self-reliant protagonists, once more. Unwaveringly, he works to re-poetize a standardized and maltreated world.
The lavishly designed monograph is published on the occasion of Meuser’s 75th birthday, presenting works and exhibitions from the past ten years. Eight international authors and scholars create a dazzling mosaic and reveal how Meuser boldly holds his own in face of Duchamp, Minimalism, and Social Sculpture. An open-ended outlook.
Meuser studied 1968-1976 at Art Academy, Düsseldorf with Joseph Beuys and Erwin Heerich. 1991 he received the ars viva award. 1992-2015 professorship at Academy of Fine Art, Karlsruhe.
Since 1976, numerous institutional solo and group exhibitions and works in international collections: Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn; Deichtorhallen, Hamburg; documenta IX / Fridericianum, Kassel; Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona; Joanneum, Graz; Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Museum of Contemporary Art, Monterrey; Martin-Gropius-Bau, Berlin; Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach; Museum Folkwang, Essen; Museum moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Museum Morsbroich, Leverkusen; Rijksmuseum Twenthe, Enschede; Sakip Sabanci Museum, Istanbul; Städtische Galerie, Karlsruhe; Vanhaerents Art Collection, Brussels; ZKM | Museum für Neue Kunst, Karlsruhe.
Gregor Jansen (* 1965 in Nettetal) is a German art historian and exhibition organizer. He has been director of the Kunsthalle Dü sseldorf since January 2010. Ulrike Groos (* 1963 in Schlü chtern) is a German art historian and museum director. Peter Pakesch (born July 16, 1955 in Graz, Styria) is an Austrian exhibition curator, museum director and chairman of the Maria Lassnig Foundation. Noemi Smolik was born and grew up in Prague. She studied art history, history and philosophy in Cologne and New York and wrote her doctoral thesis on the emergence of abstract painting using the example of the painter Wassily Kandinsky. She was a professor or visiting professor of art history and art theory at the Academy of Fine Arts in Hamburg and Dresden and at the Alanus University in Bonn. She currently teaches theory and art criticism at the University of Cologne and Mü nster. Hannah Eckstein (born 1987 in Mö nchengladbach) has been Artistic Director of the Kunstverein Friedrichshafen since January 2019.