Home Stories

Locating Artistic Practice in Today’s Global Reality

Exhibition catalogue, edited by KfW Stiftung
texts (German/English) by Nikolaus Hirsch, Raj Kamal Jha, Nicola Müllerschön, Peter J. Schneemann, Christoph Tannert, Marc Zierlewagen and with an interview from Yvette Mutumba with Thabiso Sekgala
184 p with 100 coloured illustrations
300 x 235 mm, clothbound with coloured printing

ISBN 978-3-86442-078-8

(out of print)

What’s about the Home Story?

This German neologism for the ­magazine report from the domestic world of celebrities encapsulates the feeling of participation in their ­private lives. It is an extremely apt title for the project initiated in Spring 2013 in the former Literaturhaus at No. 102 ­Bockenheimer Landstraße  – here, too, there is a focus upon tales from a domestic milieu and participation in a global cultural exchange under the auspices of constants such as origin, homeland and home. The former Literaturhaus – at one time the home and villa of the Sondheimer family who fled from the Nazis – was purchased by the KfW banking group in 2012 and used by the KfW Foundation before its conversion into a multi-purpose amenity.  Students from the Städelschule in Frankfurt and stipend-holders from the Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin started the ball rolling with works partially ­developed on site, culminating in the opening on 13 March as an ­exhibition with a reading by Raj Kamal Jha from his novel »The Blue Bedspread«. This was followed up on 28 March by a symposium entitled »In Transit. Artists ­Travelling in the Globalised ­Present«. This book provides a rounded account of these many activities ahead of the building’s refurbishment and inauguration as the official seat of the KfW ­Foundation. Alongside photographs of the installations and essays from the symposium on the individual development of artists and institu­tions in the wake of globalisation, the book also contains a fourteen-part photographic series by ­Laurenz Berges who captures the condition of the villa in a number of strictly documentary images, ­taking stock of the building in ­minute detail.