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8/27/08 1:39 PM
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New Media Gets Its Due in New German Museum Reena Jana
10.17.97
The new site of Karlsruhe's Center for Art and Media, ZKM, represents one of Germany's most ambitious cultural projects in history - especially with its daring agenda to highlight new-media art in a permanent space alongside sculpture and painting. But there hasn't been much fanfare in the press before its public opening on 18 October. And why not? "We knew that once the center opened, its wealth of innovative features would provide the best promotion of all," states ZKM chairman Heinrich Klotz. The complex, which occupies 41,800 square meters in a former factory building and boasts a first-year operating budget of 14 million deutsche marks, links more traditional forms of contemporary art, such as painting, sculpture, and graphic design, with works in new media, such as photography, holography, and video, in two juxtaposed museum buildings, ZKM|Museum for Contemporary Art and ZKM|Media Museum. Accompanying these two centerpieces are the Municipal Gallery of the City of Karlsruhe and the Academy of Design; in two years, a "Collectors' Museum" is planned for unveiling. These figures identify ZKM as one of Europe's biggest contemporary art centers. The Hamburg-based architects Schweger and Partners maintained the industrial look of the original edifice that hosts the new complex, which was built in 1918 and survived World War II. The singular most striking alteration of the space is the blue, cube-shaped glass building that houses a music studio, which required technical features unavailable in the older buildings. The futuristic cube is a surprisingly harmonious presence alongside the historic building, illustrating the center's synergistic pairing of old and new forms. "It's the first time to my knowledge that traditional art and new-media art are shown side by side in a permanent location," states French-born artist Laurent Mignonneau, whose work is on display at ZKM. "Because they're shown side by side, a parallel value can be drawn in the audience's mind." Mignonneau feels that such a context for new-media art provides a deeper significance beyond the implied comparative validity of older and newer art forms. "The fact that there is an unchanging structure for art utilizing the new technologies signifies that a true field in art historical scholarship is being developed. New-media art isn't just a movement anymore - movements come and go - but something more tangible and lasting." The ZKM|Museum for Contemporary Art occupies 3,500 square meters and showcases a diverse collection of pieces that have been systematically amassed since 1989. On view are works considered to be "classic" art pieces in the stillblossoming genre of media art, including Nam June Paik's "Passage" and video art by Bruce Nauman. Also on display are photographs by the likes of Thomas Struth and Andreas Gursky, as well as sculptures by Ulrich Rueckriem and the currently in-demand Christian Boltanski. Its sister building, the ZKM|Media Museum, is based on a different concept: It is purely interactive. Hands-on, hightech installations provoke the museum visitor to investigate and draw their own conclusions about how new technologies affect everyday life. Most of these installations were commissioned exclusively for ZKM and address exact themes. "Media Bodies" conveys, in mainly representational images, how the human body is evolving thanks to technological manipulation. "The World of Games" is a working "laboratory" where visitors play with videogames while also learning about the controversial issues surrounding them (such as the level of violence present in the games). Also included in the Media Museum is an interactive art gallery, which exhibits seminal pieces determined as important in the development of new-media "interactive art," such as Lynn Hershman's "Lorna." Observes Peter Richards, the director of Arts Programs at San Francisco's Exploratorium, the world's first interactive museum of science, art, and perception, "The opening of the new ZKM represents a considerable commitment by the German government to the production and acquisition of new-media art. It is certainly recognition of the power that http://www.wired.com/print/culture/lifestyle/news/1997/10/7787
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