On January 25, 2025, Harry Kramer would have turned 100. The documenta participant and Kassel-based art professor is among the city’s most illustrious artistic figures. This evening delves into Kramer’s multifaceted oeuvre and biography, spanning film, jazz, dance, and kinetic sculpture. The program includes films by and about Harry Kramer, a keynote lecture by Anne Röhl (University of Siegen), and a panel discussion featuring Wolfgang Hahn (artist and former assistant in Kramer’s studio), Meike Behm (Kunsthalle Lingen), and Anne Röhl. Catherine Mundt will host the evening.

The event is a collaboration between the documenta archiv, the Museum für Sepulkralkultur, and the City of Kassel, marking the start of the anniversary year “70 Years of documenta.”

 

Harry Kramer 100
January 25, 2025, 5:00 PM
Auditorium, Fridericianum

 

Welcome Address:
Dr. Sven Schoeller, Mayor of the City of Kassel
Prof. Dr. Andreas Hoffmann, Managing Director, documenta und Museum Fridericianum gGmbH

 

Opening Remarks:
Dr. Birgitta Coers, Director, documenta archiv
Gerold Eppler, Deputy Director, Museum für Sepulkralkultur / Chair of the Artists’ Necropolis Foundation Kassel

 

Keynote Lecture:
Anne Röhl, University of Siegen '"Es ist nicht das Schlechteste im Kinderzimmer zu landen." – Zu den kinetischen Objekten von Harry Kramer und Jean Tinguely' [Engl. "Ending up in the nursery isn’t the worst fate." – On the Kinetic Objects of Harry Kramer and Jean Tinguely]

 

Panel Discussion:
Meike Behm, Director of Kunsthalle Lingen
Wolfgang Hahn, Artist and former assistant to Harry Kramer
Anne Röhl, University of Siegen

 

About the Panelists:

 

Meike Behm has been Director of Kunsthalle Lingen and Managing Director of the Lingen Art Society since 2009. A trained art historian, she has organized solo exhibitions featuring internationally renowned artists such as Marjetica Potrč, Thea Djordjadze, Judith Hopf, Christian Odzuck, Nel Aerts, Heidi Specker, and Bettina von Arnim. She has also curated group exhibitions on contemporary themes such as identity and role-play, homage and inspiration, and feminism. The artistic estate of Harry Kramer, born in Lingen, forms a core part of the Lingen Art Society’s collection.

 

Wolfgang Hahn, a sculptor and former assistant to Harry Kramer, studied under Joachim Bandau in Aachen (1973–1976) and in Kramer’s Kassel studio (1976–1981). A DAAD scholarship brought him to the Center for Advanced Studies in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where Otto Piene was then teaching. Between 1985 and 1988, he was an artistic associate at the University of Kassel. Since 1976, Hahn has worked across diverse media and is a member of the International Artists’ Committee (IKG) and the German Werkbund.

 

Anne Röhl teaches modern and contemporary art at the University of Siegen. She earned her doctorate from the University of Zurich on textile techniques in American art of the 1960s and 1970s. Her research focuses on materiality, gender, and production in contemporary art, with particular interest in the boundaries and dissolution of the artwork in conceptual and kinetic art. She is also an expert in art education and has worked extensively as an art mediator at institutions such as Art Basel and the Museum Tinguely in Basel.

 

[German press release here]

[Complete program in German here]