Thomas Zipp Transforms Kunsthalle Fridericianum into a Psychiatric

Hospital
KASSEL.- The exhibition (White Reformation Co-Op) Mens Sana in Corpore Sano
combines a large part of Thomas Zipp's oeuvre with new works to an elaborate
installation. Zipp is dedicating his show in Kassel to the question of standard
and deviation, social exclusion and the exploration of the self, by turning the
spaces of the Kunsthalle Fridericianum into a "psychiatric hospital" depicted
with a gloomy aesthetic and satirical exaggeration.
The Kunsthalle Fridericianum has undergone a complete transformation: Thomas Zipp
replaced the large inscription on its portal with the words MENS SANA IN CORPORE
SANO, and the foyer has been turned into the lobby of an "institution." In the
spacious main wings of the Fridericianum, the artist is combining powerful
installation interventions with a large selection of his sculptural and painted
oeuvre. By lowering the overall lighting and employing garish neon lights, Zipp
creates the illusion of long corridors whose doors lead to accessible and
inaccessible rooms, in which the themes of the exhibition are taken up again and
again in paintings and sculptures. These corridors connect to the side wings,
which house the large installations of a padded cell, a gymnasium, and a hall of
mirrors with concave and convex forms.
Thomas Zipp (born in Heppenheim in 1966) is one of the most important German
artists of our time. The artist brings together individual works - paintings,
sculptures, prints, drawings and installations - to create an overall concept
that completely integrates the spaces of the exhibition venue. By working in this
way, Zipp lends his exhibition concepts a unique, unrepeatable existence. He
knows how to relate developments in history and the humanities to the present age
and to interpret them in a topical way. This total installation will interpret
and reformulate the first public museum building on the European continent and
the significance of the Fridericianum as an institution of enlightenment.
March, 2010