The Horst Janssen Archipelago – the journey continues

Exhibition from Sept. 17, 2016 – Jan. 15, 2017

The month of September will see the launch of “The Horst Janssen Archipelago” exhibition, the museum’s most personal and most comprehensive show to date on the life and work of Horst Janssen.

Starting out in the first half of this year in Hamburg’s Altona Museum, the route of discovery now takes us to Oldenburg, where numerous new and surprising exhibits await.

In their journey to the Horst Janssen Archipelago, visitors can navigate between six “topical” islands, where they will be able to discover the places Janssen worked, explore his somewhat unconventional communication strategies and forms, and encounter his “entourage”, his cohort of artists and other friends.

On display will be Janssen’s masterly line drawings from the 1960s, his professional drawings from his later years, along with poster designs, prints and many little-known and rarely seen works. Special attention is paid to personal objects, such as notes, photographs, letters or gifts for his life partners, and even objects that were part of the artist’s everyday life, such as his telephone and his studio mirror.

Three short works by Hamburg filmmaker Hinrich Lührs will shed light on the Janssen Archipelago – a collection of artwork, paraphernalia, and personal effects – thanks to previously unknown footage by Peter Voss-Andreae’s documentary “Horst Janssen: EGO “ (1989). The cinematic material that Lührs specially curated for this show stimulates a fascinating dialogue between the objects on display, making for a multifaceted and gripping journey.

Horst Janssen Museum Oldenburg 17.09.2016 – 15.01.2017

The Horst-Janssen-Archipelago – A Multimedia Visual Journey

This exhibition is a corporation project off the Altonaer Museum with the Horst Janssen-Museum Oldenburg and Hamburg Filmmaker Hinrich Lührs

Horst Janssen, a phenomenon

Horst Janssen, born in Hamburg-Wandsbek in 1929 and died in Hamburg in 1995, is regarded as one of the most important German draftsman and graphic artists of the 20th century. In their exhibitions „The Horst-Janssen-Archipelago“, the Altonaer Museum and the Horst Janssen-Museum Oldenburg present more than 240 works chosen from the broad œuvre of the exceptional artist. Places that served as sources of inspiration, his methods and techniques and, finally, people that were close to him: all this is presented in six thematic sections that can be perceived as „islands“ the „Horst-Janssen-Archipelago“.

Master drawings, prints and sketches are exhibited along with Polaroids, written notes and illustrated correspondence. This perspective on Horst Janssen is supplemented by audio-visual material which was only partly made accessible to the public to date. The artworks are thereby brought into a dialogue with the film recordings. The visitors can experience Janssen’s work in a new way.

editor’s note (hinrichluehrs.tv):

We present the artist in 3 projections based on a collage of original footage, outtakes, and original sound bites from Peter Voss-Andreae’s JANSSEN:EGO film production during the years 1980–1989. For this purpose, we also digitized the original 16/35mm footage in high-resolution HD 16:9 format.

Altonaer Museum 02.03. – 03.07.2016