2 May 2023

Marcel Odenbach
Selbstverteidigung

Exhibition in Rheinsberg: 7 May – 9 July 2023
Exhibition Opening: 7 May 2023, 11 am

Each year the Akademie der Künste presents the work of a member of the Visual Arts Section at the Kurt Tucholsky Literaturmuseum at Schloss Rheinsberg (Rheinsberg Palace). This year, Marcel Odenbach is showing the exhibition Selbstverteidigung (Self-Defence), dedicated to the Jewish defence counsel and author Alfred Apfel (1882–1941). The artist provides unusual insights into his drawing and conceptual works since 1975 and introduces a selection of his early cinematic collages and performances. His new site-specific image collage, Jünglinge unter sich (2023), is also on view.

Marcel Odenbach’s multilayered oeuvre includes drawings, collages, texts, videos and performances. The artist works with found objects taken from the press and literature, from everyday life, archives, magazines and is inspired by pioneers in art, including John Heartfield and Daniel Buren, and the artists of Pop Art. In his image collages and video works, Odenbach consciously uses techniques such as editing and montage. He divides his projection surfaces, creating dialectical argumentation through image and texts superimposed with historical events and personal memories. The subjects of his works include political resistance and remembrance culture, National Socialism and antisemitism, the GDR, political extremism and violence, racism, the legacy of colonialism, and gender and identity issues. The artist’s early texts and conceptual drawings are especially focused on his living environment. With self-irony, criticism and melancholy, Odenbach creates works using everyday things that belong to him, such as coffee cups, a lemon, sausage, excrement, a scarf or cigarettes.

Marcel Odenbach (b. 1953 in Cologne) lives and works in Cologne and Manciano, Italy. From 1974 to 1979, he studied architecture, art history and semiotics at the Technische Hochschule in Aachen (RWTH). He taught media arts at diverse institutions in Germany, including the Staatliche Hochschule für Gestaltung Karlsruhe (HfG), the Kunsthochschule für Medien Köln (KHM), and from 2010 to 2021 at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf. Odenbach has been a member of the Akademie der Künste since 2016.

The exhibition series in Rheinsberg began in 2000, showcasing works by Jim Dine. Since 2002 it has continued annually, featuring artworks by Wieland Förster, Hans Vent, Lothar Böhme, Rolf Szymanski, Alfonso Hüppi, Karin Sander, Dorothee von Windheim, Hanns Schimansky, Dieter Appelt, Thomas Florschuetz, Richard Deacon, among others, and most recently Nanne Meyer.

Exhibition Information
Marcel Odenbach
Selbstverteidigung
Exhibition: 7 May – 9 July 2023
Kurt Tucholsky Literaturmuseum, Schloss Rheinsberg
16831 Rheinsberg, Tel. +49 (0)33931 39007, www.tucholsky-museum.de
Tue – Sun, 10 am – 12:30 pm and 1 pm – 5:30 pm, admission € 4/3

Opening: Sunday, 7 May 2023, 11 am
Speakers:
Peter Böthig, director of the Kurt Tucholsky Literaturmuseum, Schloss Rheinsberg
Anke Hervol, secretary of the Visual Arts Section, Akademie der Künste, Berlin
Sebastian Preuss, art historian, Weltkunst senior editor

In cooperation with the Kurt Tucholsky Literaturmuseum at Schloss Rheinsberg