The Fliegende Galerie in Hamm

Verein zur Förderung des Martin-Luther-Viertels e.V.

Nassauerstr. 28-32, D 59065 Hamm, Tel.: 02381 24089, Contact person: Werner Reumke

Hamm, 4 September 2019

Press release

Fliegende Galerie from Vienna impresses in Germany

**Hamm:**Construction machines become art, a cellar becomes an installation, an open-air gallery impresses with works by well-known and lesser-known artists from Vienna!

The site of the art construction site was the Martin-Luther-Viertel in Hamm, on the eastern edge of the Ruhr area in Germany. Last weekend the “Fliegende Galerie”, an artists’ collective from Vienna, not only significantly shaped the local art and culture festival “La Fête”, but shook it up.

Hamm’s city centre is undergoing a process of transformation. The art construction site of the “Fliegende Galerie” was intended, as a space for experiment and freedom, to encourage people to take part in this process of change. The Viennese artists keep looking for vacant shop premises, factory halls and public spaces for their exhibitions. In the Martin-Luther-Viertel they were given a platform outside Austria for the first time.

Jonathan Seiffert was also on board. He is currently studying art history at the University of Vienna and works as an artist alongside his studies. His main focuses are installations, objects and performances. He created the installation “Mutter, der Mann mit dem Koks ist da” in a completely black cellar. In reference to the song by Falco, he draws a connection from Vienna to Hamm and plays with the double meaning of Koks (coke) as a typical product of the Ruhr area and the drug, which he deliberately staged in fluorescent white. For many festival visitors, a visit to this cellar was both a surprise and a special highlight. To the delight of the hosts in Hamm, this installation will remain permanently.

Anja Hartmann, who goes by the artist name Jungfrau Johanna Artmann, is a career changer from classical singing to the visual arts, a painter and performer from Vienna. She created temporary works in Hamm by artistically designing excavators. She made the street both the stage and the star at the same time. The excavator wrapped in gold paper was a particularly popular photo motif. Many visitors used it for their selfies.

Other artists from Vienna had contributed works to an open-air gallery.

That the artists’ community also gets involved politically was shown impressively by the installation “Ibiza-Bus”, in which it re-enacted, with shop-window mannequins in a regular service bus, the affair of the former Vice-Chancellor Heinz-Christian Stache and his meeting on the Mediterranean island with the supposed niece of a Russian oligarch.

“For us this was an important experience! The concept of the art construction site not only attracted people interested in art, but appealed to a broad audience who experienced art more or less in passing,” says Rudolf Schramm, head of the Viennese troupe, who founded the Fliegende Galerie in 2017.

“The experiment worked,” says Werner Reumke, chairman of the support association of the Martin-Luther-Viertel. “The art construction site irritated, was fun and awakened curiosity about the transformation.”

The great success of the cooperation between Vienna and Hamm is now to be consolidated. The Fliegende Galerie and the Förderverein Martin-Luther-Viertel have agreed on close cooperation for the future. This means: there will be further activities in Germany, and German cultural practitioners are expected in Vienna. We can look forward to it!

The complete programme of the art and culture festival “La Fête” and further information can be found at www.martin-luther-viertel-hamm.de

Photos will follow shortly under “Past exhibitions”.