Prounenraum: A Room as Manifesto

The Prounenraum is considered a milestone in the history of modern art of the 20th century: the first artistic installation, which, moreover, had a manifestative character. The year in which the spatial artwork was created is considered a key year in the work of the Russian Constructivist: recently arrived in Germany, after having to assess his situation in revolutionary Russia as having no no chance, he sought to connect with the progressive art scene. It was necessary to draw public attention to his own art work: aesthetics, concept, and self-image as a modern artist had to be staged effectively in order to keep up in the competition of modern art. This is the structural dimension of Lissitzky's art, another is the conceptual one. Together with the first solo exhibition at the Kestner Gesellschaft of the same year and the publication of the Kestnermappen, the Prounenraum is another building block also in the artistic self-discovery of the Constructivist. The lecture will address this multifaceted perspective of the Prounenraum: Impulses for idea and concept, execution and statement, relevance of the space for the art development of the subsequent period.

Prof. Dr. Kai-Uwe Hemken is a university lecturer at the Kunsthochschule Kassel and focuses his research and teaching on the art of the classical avant-garde, contemporary art and the theory and practice of curating, as well as on the introduction of new media into art studies. Previously, he was curator of the art collections of the Ruhr University in Bochum and has held various curatorial positions at the following institutions to date: Sprengel Museum Hannover, Kunstsammlung NRW (K20), Kunsthalle Erfurt, Klassik Stiftung Weimar/Neues Museum, Guggenheim Museum NY. Kai-Uwe Hemken has continuously contributed to the theory and practice of curation on the one hand and digitalization in art studies on the other, both in terms of publications and projects: 2012: International Summer School/Conference (on the occasion of d13) "Critical Scenography. The Art Exhibition in the 21st Century." Since 2017: Virtual partial reconstruction of the first documenta (1955) by a project team of the Kunstwissenschaft Kassel, and of the exhibition "Film und Foto" 1929 as well as virtual reconstruction of the International Art Exhibition Dresden 1926. 2016-2018: Research project “The Bioscopic Space. The influence of the Psychology of Perception and the Medium 'Film' on the Space for Constructive Art at the International Art Exhibition 1926 in Dresden.” (Cooperation with the Dresden State Art Collections). 2018-2021: Research project "From Object to Exhibit". Nomination: Multimedia Arts Prize of the European Commission, 1999, in the category "Art and Mediation". 2019: Hessian University Prize for Excellence in Teaching together with Simon Lennert Raesch; 2020: Nomination for the Prize of the German Institute for Virtual Reality.