THÜRINGEN — DIE GANZE WAHRHEIT / EXHIBITIONS

Dumplings and bratwurst aren’t the only exciting things about Thuringia — there is also its rumour mill. The state still feeds off its rich tradition of myths, fairy tales and anecdotes. Meanwhile, our world is becoming more complex by the day; its truths grow more numerous, yet constantly merging with half-truths and falsehoods. The attention economy feeds our deep-seated desire for the false, the trivial, and the sensational. Twelve talkative Thuringian artists are going out into their communities to search for street gossip among the locals or stories of hearsay on social media, collecting new legends or alternative facts. The artists work with these truth-chafing stories and pass them on, creating interact­ive installations to embellish upon the rumours at twelve locations all across Thuringia, making them into art rooms where visitors can experience them with their senses. KUNSTFEST visitors can also see this project’s central exhibition at ACC GALERIE WEIMAR, where they can find all twelve ‘lie rooms’ represented in their own way, presented together for fact-checking. A series of communicative exhibitions, whose
leitmotif draws on the spirit of our modern age.

Information on the corresponding performances can be found here.

GROUP EXHIBITION ACC GALERIE WEIMAR
TUE, 26 AUG — 5 PM (Vernissage) | FRI, 27 AUG - SUN, 28 NOV — Opening hours of the ACC GALERIE Weimar


12 individual exhibitions across Thuringia from 27 AUG – 11 SEP and beyond

ALTENBURG
SUN, 29 AUG — 10 AM (Vernissage)
Stefan Knechtel has mastered the technique of woodcutting. His work has been shaped by clusters of lines and surfaces torn open to reveal fig­ures in melancholy, floating dream landscapes.
ARTIST — Stefan Knechtel 


BAD LANGENSALZA, Culture and Congress Center Bad Langensalza / Foyer
FRI, 27 AUG — 2 PM (Vernissage)
Artist Judith Unfug-Henning, head of KUNSTWESTTHÜRINGER e. V., brings out the key aspects, curator Katja Schlenker ties in the artistic ménage à trois to the conceptual whole, while painter Jan Stieding interrogates, through art, the rumour that meanders between parks, gardens and healing springs. ARTISTS — Jan Stieding | Katja Schlenker | Judith Unfug-Henning 


BURGK, Burgk Castle Museum
SA, 28 AUG — 4 PM (Vernissage)
The story of new clothes — hardly anyone knows this, but some of the treasures kept at Burgk Castle are the source of international memorial days and buried traditions. Weimar artists Yvonne Andrä and Stefan Petermann have uncovered these stories and are telling them afresh.
ARTISTS — Yvonne Andrä | Stefan Petermann


ERFURT
SA, 28 AUG — 8.30 PM (Vernissage)
Before Erfurt-based Christoph Blankenburg ‘breaks up with Thuringia’, his showdown reveals the true situation in Erfurt. This video and performance artist with a penchant for the absurd uses hybrid forms to deal with concepts such as ‘reality experiments’ and ‘regional identity’.
ARTIST — Christoph Blankenburg

FRIEDRICHSRODE, Kunsthof Friedrichsrode
FRI, 27 AUG — 11 AM (Vernissage)
Friedrichsrode, a North Thuringian village with 70 inhabitants, is one of the last places where the village radio system from former East Germany has not yet been dismantled. Writer Mario Osterland and sound artist Kay Kalytta are working on a series of short radio plays in and with the village, which will be broadcast over the village radio.
ARTIST — Mario Osterland | Kay Kalytta


GERA, Kaiserwerke Event Gallery
SO, 29. AUG — 1 PM (Vernissage)
Despite his dazzling and somewhat cosmopolitan life, Kurt Grünlich is deeply attached to the small town of Gera and its small people. For him, rumours are high-maintenance, childish chatter, yet their meaning foreshad­ows deep future insights.
ARTIST — Kurt Grünlich


GOTHA 
SUN, 29 AUG — 8.30 PM (Vernissage)
Kristin Wenzel is interested in the morbid charm of urban spaces. Her idea of revitalising places that are increasingly disappearing (shop window displays, kiosks, etc.) through sculptural interventions in Thuringian towns and parishes earned her the Thuringian State Scholarship for Visual Arts 2020.
ARTIST — Kristin Wenzel


GREIZ, Shopping store Brückenstraße 22
SA, 28 AUG — 10 UHR 
In 2012, Tanja Pohl moved from Dresden to Greiz because the old urban essence, largely characterised by the Gründerzeit period and industry, is still relatively well represented. She is working on a walk-in installation in a former brewhouse and eatery.
ARTIST — Tanja Pohl


JENA
SUN, 29 AUG — 4 PM (Vernissage)
Sebastian Jung, a native of Jena, is launching interdisciplinary projects with representatives from politics, popular culture, literature and science. He uses drawings, paintings, sculptures, texts and publications to make observations that are often local in nature, yet encompass global, economic and emotional issues.
ARTIST — Sebastian Jung 


NEUSTADT AN DER ORLA, Luther House in Neustadt
SAT, 28 AUG — 1 PM
Tradition meets the present: Now, for the first time, the minstrels of the GRUPPE Eulenspiegel are reinventing themselves as Neustadt’s rumour mill. Using crumhorns, shawms, Ozarks, kink-neck lutes and hurdy-gurdies, they will produce a song that will conjure up many a devilish thought before your eyes.
ARTISTS — Gruppe Eulenspiegel 


SCHMALKALDEN
FRI, 27 AUG — 5.30 PM (Vernissage)
Schmalkalden — rich in tradition and history. Painter Harald Reiner Gratz patiently acts as foreman of the local rumour mill, adding, refining and tweaking with virtuosity until, after the initial excitement, the end prod­uct leaves guests with an upset stom­ach.
ARTIST — Harald Reiner Gratz


SUHL, Kulturvilla Sauer
FRI, 28 AUG - SUN, 12 SEP
MON - THU - SAT — 1 PM - 6 PM
The rifle manufacturer Franz Sauer had an imposing villa built for him in 1904. Here the sculptor Claudia Katrin Leyh targets the South Thuringian rumour-mill. Their urban cowboys, political clowns or skeptics made of bronze, plaster or paper are an impressive reflection of the human soul.
ARTIST — Claudia Katrin Leyh