Exiting large group performances & most painterly paintings: 2024 as seen and heard by Markus Müller
Markus Müller (Photo: Patrick Essex)
Unfortunately, 2024 will go down in our kaput history as the year in which the cultural conditions in Germany meant that we really no longer have to explain our magazine subtitle “Insolvency & Pop” to anyone. At that time of choosing it, life expectancy and retirement pension were initially primarily on the agenda (see our interviews with Gudrun Gut & Hans-Joachim Irmler) and Frank Spilker) for doing so, i.e. the “longitudinal consequences” of a life with (pop)music – now it is all about survival in everyday life as a worker (also fits for artists these days) in culture.
We would like to thank our authors and photographers all the more in 2024 for their collaboration on the kaput experiment. And for sharing again their highlights of the year with us. ❤️
1. 3 DAYS OF MUSIC DEDICATED TO PETER BRÖTZMANN, Cafe Oto, London.
& 3 Nights In Tribute To Peter Brötzmann at Pardon, To Tu, Warsaw, 27.-29-05.2024,
Two celebrations of Peter Brötzmann’s incredible influence and lasting aura. Both very different in character and especially memorable for the contributions by Mette Rasmussen, Farida Amadou, and Camille Emaille.
2. Maria Bertel und Lao Dan, OCT Loft Jazz Festival, Shenzhen 26. Oktober 2024
Incredible duo full of energy and beauty, absolutely stunning.
3. “Sea and Fog”, Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden, 08.11.2024–26.01.2025
Based and informed by Etel Adnan’s wonderful book of the same title, this exhibition is the most timely and contemporary comment on the madness that we witness today. The amazing thing here is that it also offers hope and comfort.
4. Heiner Goebbels in duo with Brìghde Chaimbeul, Muqata’a, and Ganavya Doraiswamy at Monheim Triennale II, The Prequel, Monheim am Rhein, July 4 – 6
Incredible proof that one of the important composers of the 21st century comes from improvisational practices and can enable musical experiences that are far more than simply the sum of two parts.
5. Marilyn Crispell, Jazzfest Berlin, 31. Oktober 2024
Marilyn does not play solo that often. This was a mind-blowing example of the beauty of absolute mastery, a concert for the ages.
6. Anna Högberg Extended Attack, Jazzfest Berlin 2. November 2024
Maybe the best most balanced and exiting large group performance I have heard in the last ten years.
7. Frans Hals, Meister des Augenblicks, 12.07.2024 bis 03.11.2024 Gemäldegalerie Berlin
Maybe the most painterly painting exhibition of the last 25 years. Absolutely contemporary, there never was a 17. Century painter that looked more modern.
8. Phillip Guston, Tate Modern, London 5 OCTOBER 2023 – 25 FEBRUARY 2024
Maybe the most painterly painting exhibition of the last 25 years. Absolutely contemporary, there never was a 20. Century painter that looked more modern.
9. “There is no there there”, MMK, Frankfurt, 13. April — 29. September 2024
Exuberant exhibition of artistic practices in the FRG and GDR that should have changed our historical knowledges 50 years ago. A firework of marginalized positions, deeply moving and enlightening.
10. John Butcher Berlin Residency 12. bis 14. September, KM 28, Berlin
The full magic of the horns.
11. Adrian Piper, Who, Me?, 23.11.2024–09.02.2025, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main,
Ice-cold heart-wrenching hyper-precise diagnosis of our present times. Two rooms, two installations: “I am the tree” and “I am the screen” the self and our environment in the most total way of understanding both and the self and a mirror cabinet of projections, one in white light.
