ALL AT ONCE. THE POSTMODERN, 1967-1992
September 29, 2023 - January 28, 2024

"Everything goes" - under this heading, the Bundeskunsthalle Bonn is presenting a retrospective on the era of postmodernism. In addition to art and design, the exhibition focuses on architecture, fashion, contemporary history and politics from the period between 1967 and 1992. We visited the exhibition opening, met the architect Niguel Coates, who is responsible for staging the exhibition, and give you a foretaste of "Everything at once. Postmodernism", from September 29, 2023 to January 28, 2024 at the Bundeskunsthalle in Bonn.

Everything at once

Almost 120 artists and over twice as many exhibits describe the extraordinary scope of the exhibition "Everything goes - Alles auf Einmal. Postmodernism", which, like a belated anniversary show to mark the 30th anniversary of the Bundeskunsthalle, pays tribute to the very art and design epoch whose stylistic elements have also been incorporated into the architecture of the Bundeskunsthalle itself. And what's more: at the opening of the exhibition on September 28, 2023, curator Eva Kraus states: "Our present begins with postmodernism." Because postmodernism is the basis for what makes up our society today: Individuality, diversity, pluralism.

The whole story

In his opening speech for the exhibition, co-curator Kolja Reichert quotes the statement on the exhibition by architect and artist James Wines: "Finally someone is telling the whole story!", because although the Victoria & Albert Museum in London already showed an exhibition on postmodernism in 2011 / 2012, "Everything goes - Alles auf Einmal. Postmodernism" is the most comprehensive journey through postmodernism to date, as Nigel Coates states. As he once did in London, Coates has also staged this exhibition and should know. In addition to art and design, this time it is also about architecture, fashion, contemporary history and politics in the period between 1967 and 1992.

Protest, party and subculture

In fact, the exhibition tells of the beginning of the information society with its technical achievements, the unleashing of the financial markets as we know them and a frenetic era full of self-realization, protest, partying and subculture. The musical disco and punk era spills over into fashion, while non-conformism blossoms in architecture and interior design. Conventional ideas of living give way to multifunctional spatial experiences and make way for anti-design, such as Radical Design, an Italian design movement. To this day, the socially critical designs of designers such as Archizoom Associati, Studio DDL, Ettore SOTTSASS, Studio 65, Tobia Scarpa, Superstudio, Alessandro Mendini, Gae Aulenti, Joe Colombo, Achille and Pier Giacomo Castiglioni continue to influence contemporary design. This is precisely what makes this exhibition so worth seeing and so topical.

Walk-in books

The exhibition owes its largest exhibit to the boom in cultural temples: the Bundeskunsthalle itself. When it opened in 1992, the Cold War was over and Francis Fukuyama declared in his famous book "The End of History". A separate room in the exhibition is dedicated to this central manifesto. You enter the walk-in work in the séparée by stepping through an opening in the title of the book. Other works such as "Gravity's Rainbow" by Thomas Pynchon or "The Language of Post-Modern Architecture" by Charles Jencks are staged as interactive audio books: Three-meter-high book covers offer visitors a bench inside to sit down and listen to them being read aloud. The exhibits on display here have been collected from all over the world: from other museums such as MoMA, from collections, from manufacturers such as Gufram and Centro Studi Poltronova. The Mies armchair with footrest next to the Sanremo floor lamp. Six Ultrafragola mirrors stand freely and are arranged in the style of a hexagon. In this way, they reflect themselves and, of course, everyone in their midst, as the arrangement can even be entered.

Pictures, Stage, Bonn

Postmodernism marks the beginning of our present day and overtakes modernism, which believed it could sort everything out with equal houses, furniture and rights for all. Designers are freeing themselves from good taste and the bourgeoisie. New media synchronize the globe and give images a stage - postmodernism is present and can still be seen in Bonn until the end of January 2024.

Pedro Almodóvar, Archizoom, Azzedine Alaïa, Ant Farm, J. G. Ballard, Dieter Bankert, Donald Barthelme, Roland Barthes, Martine Bedin, Heinz Bienefeld, Ricardo Bofill, Neville, Brody, Trisha Brown, Judith Butler, David Byrne, Cesare Casati, Citroën, Lucinda Childs, Nigel Coates, Combahee River Collective, Comme des Garçons, Coop Himmelb(l)au, Michele De Lucchi, Gilles Deleuze, Jacques Derrida, Devo, Peter Eisenman, Bret Easton Ellis, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Achim Felz, Paul Feyerabend, Michel Foucault, Francis Fukuyama, Jean Paul Gaultier, Frank Gehry, General Idea, Jean-Paul Goude, Michael Graves, Félix Guattari, Donna Haraway, David Harvey, Hipgnosis, David Hockney, Hans Hollein, Jenny Holzer, Haruomi Hosono, Haus-Rucker-Co, Arata Isozaki, Fredric Jameson, Charles Jencks, Alejandro Jodorowsky, Philip Johnson, Grace Jones, Bodys Isek Kingelez, Rem Koolhaas, Leonard Koren, Kraftwerk, Kengo Kuma, Karl Lagerfeld, Louise Lawler, David Lynch, Michael Mann, Martin Margiela, Javier Mariscal, Gordon Matta-Clark, Marshall McLuhan, Richard Meier, Alessandro Mendini, Memphis, Issey Miyake, Claude Montana, Charles Moore, Franco Moschino, Makoto Nakamura, Brian O'Doherty, Nam June Paik, Van Dyke Parks, Nathalie Du Pasquier, Gustav Peichl, D. A. Pennebaker, Gaetano Pesce, Renzo Piano, Walter Pichler, Emanuele Ponzio, Paolo Portoghesi, Sally Potter, Paco Rabanne, Yvonne Rainer, Godfrey Reggio, Kevin Roche, Werner Rösler, Aldo Rossi, Ed Ruscha, Edward Said, Ridley Scott, Denise Scott Brown, Cindy Sherman, Peter Shire, Borek Šípek, Thomas Gordon Smith, Ettore Sottsass, Gayatri Spivak, Linder Sterling, James Stirling, Studio 65, Sturtevant, Shin Takamatsu, Matteo Thun, Stanley Tigerman, Masanori Umeda Oswald, Mathias Ungers, Roger Vadim, Robert Venturi, Gianni Versace, Madelon Vriesendorp, Andy Warhol, Vivienne Westwood, James Wines, Robert Wyatt, Kansai Yamamoto, Harumi Yamaguchi, Yellow Magic Orchestra