Past exhibitions at the Klingspor Museum 3/22 - 4/24

Offenbach was home to Gebr. Klingspor, an internationally renowned type foundry that set standards with its artistic standards. Today, their legacy forms one of the core holdings of the museum's archive. The preserved objects provide a unique insight into the working processes of type design in the early 20th century.
But what is the view today, 100 years later, of this archive and the material stored in it? How can it be re-examined? And what can we still learn from it today?
The exhibition is being created in collaboration with the Klingspor Institute for Type Design and is being conceived and realized by HfG students. At the same time, the Klingspor Type Archive, a digital archive platform, is being developed.

Illustrations are pictures. Their character is shaped by language. But also by what cannot be spoken. They relate to words and feelings - felt as well as told, thought as well as experienced, written as well as experienced. The illustrative illustrates and enchants. It conveys what perhaps cannot be conveyed at all.
When feathers become wings, when the tongue learns to taste, when memory takes shape - that is when illustrations are at work. Where do you encounter them?
This often happens through drawings. But collages, photographs, letters - and new texts created from them - sounds or movements can also be illustrations and thus leave the genre of paper - the book - and become animations, computer games or films. We are therefore surrounded by illustrations every day: on packaging, labels, instructions for use and in advertising.
Many different types of illustration can be discovered in the Klingspor Museum. Most of them are on paper and are considered artistic artifacts. The collection contains individual works that served as the basis for a book project or books in which the image is already combined with the accompanying text. Every year, the museum's International Children's Book Exhibition, which forms the focus of the collection and reflects contemporary trends in illustration, stands out in particular. However, our permanent exhibition "Illustration Reloaded 2022" also picks up on trends and variations in which pictorial representations are used to expand the narrative level.
The permanent exhibition "Illustration Reloaded 2022" invites visitors to explore a broad spectrum of illustration - from crochet and embroidery to the tufting gun. The interplay of image and text, originating from the most diverse communication systems: Hand in hand with the literary original, via music and pop, from diaries as if from a tattoo studio, to meme culture in social media. What the soul writes and initially seems hidden to us should not be missing. Words that can only be reached through images - there are those too. With or without a smartphone. In this way, different works come together, creating contrasts and connections and symbolizing completely individual approaches. Synergie offers a personal exploration of what illustration might mean. Yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Text by Monika Jäger and Sören Gohle

Participating artists:
Rosanna von Angerer, Rebecca Arnold, Fern Liberty Kallenbach Campbell, Maike Dorn, Nikolaus Jungwirth, Calvin Koku Kudufia, Dafi Kühne, Burgi Kühnemann, Tat'jana Alekseevna Mavrina, Joe McHugh, Helga Michie, Marius Müller, Pakel, Sonja Prochorow, Arthur Rackham, Janos Schäfer, Christina Schreiner, Jona Sliwka, Talia Melda Temucin, Walter Tiemann, Michelle Tophinke, Leonie Waidelich.

Offenbach is a key location in the history of printing, it is considered the cradle of lithography and the type foundry of the Klingspor brothers is responsible for huge innovations in the field of type design. However, Offenbach is still a lively place for printing today. Not only as the headquarters of one of the world's leading printing press companies, but also as a place of innovative printing art created in small workshops. The exhibition brings together young and experimental printers as well as "old masters" and shows the diversity of an agile scene. Experimental prints by Picasso, H.N. Werkman and Antoni Tàpies from the museum collection complete the show.

The exhibition presents works made of paper, cut, torn, punched or laser-cut. The spectrum ranges from silhouettes to books, graphics and objects. The damage to the paper lends the book a third dimension. It creates vistas, three-dimensional views that unfold when the book is opened.
Illustration: Water under the bridge. Mark Wagner, Christopher K. Wilde. Photo: Klingspor Museum

This year's children's book exhibition at the Klingspor Museum will be extremely colorful. Colors play a major role for us humans. We assign them to the objects in our lives, surround ourselves with the colors we like and associate feelings and moods with them. At the same time, color perceptions are also very individual and can even differ culturally. This year, the exhibition of current children's books traces the colors and we dare to experiment with simply sorting the books by color. Let's see what that tells us. And you can also write or draw something about your favorite colors and your thoughts in many places in the exhibition. The exhibition is supported by the Friends of the Klingspor Museum. Thank you very much!

Travel opens up new worlds and creates new impressions. While it used to be a privilege of a few people, today people are more mobile than ever before. The exhibition aims to show the various aspects of travel, the joy of the new, the gain in knowledge, the journey as a path to oneself. The themes of colonization, flight and migration are also highlighted: whether in Burgi Kühnemann's opulent painter's book "Der Rabbi von Bacherach" or in Nicolò Degiorgis' artist's book "Blue as gold", which shows boat refugees using minimalist means. The artist's book, graphic novel and children's book span a multifaceted arc that shows travel as both a dream and a nightmare. Posters, drawings and watercolors complement the exhibition.

Exhibition at the Klingspor Museum Offenbach in cooperation with nuuna by brandbook.
Notebooks, bullet journals and diaries: as containers of ephemera, they accompany our lives. They are filled piece by piece with experiences, remarkable things and memos and play an important role as a structuring medium in many people's lives. This often results in individual works of art, especially when artists keep a diary. The museum has impressive examples in its collection. They range from works by conceptual artist Dieter Roth, to Barbara Fahrner's recordings from New York during the Islamist terrorist attack in September 2001, to the contemporary zine "Lockdown Diary" by Malte Spindler. A special treasure are the "Sketchbooks" by Paul Stein, a mixture of diary, sketchbook and literary notes.
Bullet journals are also lovingly designed orientation aids that sort and prioritize everyday activities. The exhibition explores motives and approaches to filling an initially empty book. Numerous people have responded to the museum's call and made their own work available: the most diverse notebooks, bullet journals and diaries have thus found their way into the exhibition. Interviews with diarists provide information about individual motivations and working methods. There will also be a virtual exhibition space on Instagram.
In cooperation with the Frankfurt notebook maker nuuna by brandbook, the design of the blank book, which also has an influence on the writing process, will also be addressed.
An extensive accompanying program offers a look behind the scenes and invites visitors to get creative.
The exhibition was created in collaboration with students from Justus Liebig University Giessen.

Artist and curator Setareh Alipour's installation "Diary" made of Persian fruit leather Lavashak evokes bright memories of her earliest childhood. The sweet and sour taste and gummy bear-like consistency as well as the scent and anticipation of the fruit leather from Iran have reawakened long-lost memories and prompted her to create this arrangement. Held up to the light, the snack looks like a church window illuminated by the sun.
"Diary" can be read like a diary. Each piece stands for an experience or a trace of it that is reflected on the skin: some are more present and some have already faded, some carry scars with them and others are completely smooth.
The "Diary" installation was first exhibited in the former bell tower in Kirchgasse, mounted on an acrylic glass pane; it is now on display at the Klingspor Museum as part of the exhibition Achtung: enthält Leben. Notebook, Bullet Journal, Diary.
The aspect of eating the material is significant for the work, as the boundaries of the installation are dissolved: where does the artwork begin and where does it end? By eating the culturally and historically connoted material and thus assimilating it, it becomes part of a metabolic process and the body, it is thus decentralized.
The reduction to the highly symbolic apple - think of the apple of discord or the fall of man, the apple that fell on Newton's head or the Apple tech brand - leaves room for interpretation and the colors are similarly evocative: Amber, gold and brown tones have something nostalgic, noble, but also down-to-earth and close to nature.
To make it, you take apples, a little water and salt. Chopped and cored, they are cooked once with water and pureed. The puree is dried and can then be kept for months.
The installation can be seen in two museum windows from 29.09. to 29.10. There will be a lavashak tasting at the vernissage at 5 pm.

Children's books often use text to tell a story, but the pictures play a key role. Sometimes the illustration tells its own story, adds something to the text or interprets it differently. Reading pictures also needs to be learned and children's books offer a first opportunity to become familiar with artistic concepts. But how do the illustrations actually end up in the book? What is the process behind it and how do illustrators work today? Can an illustration influence the perception of a story? For the 68th time, the children's book exhibition supported by the Friends of the Klingspor Museum is showing current children's books from all over the world and taking a closer look at the creation and effect of pictures in books. Colorful reading landscapes invite you to look, read and discover!