Mukenge/SchellhammerPerformance "Stretching the Notion of Painting"15.08. - 15.08.2025
Kunstmuseum Ravensburg

The lecture-performance presented on 15 August 2025 at Kunstmuseum Ravensburg is part of the series ‘Stretching the Notion of Paintings‘. This specific performance refers to the current exhibition ‘Under Pressure – Expressionist Prints’ and ‘John Akomfrah – The Unfinished Conversation.’

After declaring the duo as independent entity in 2024, Mukenge/Schellhammer is currently researching the duo’s ancestors, references, and initiation. The duo’s transnational aesthetic is related to a series of historical culture clashes in the history of painting. These include the encounter between art from former german colonies and the german Expressionists. In ethnographic museums, in human zoos, in the circus, and on trips to the colonies, artists such as Kirchner, Nolde and Gauguin encountered artists and artworks, particularly from the South Pacific and Africa. In doing so, they found themselves caught between inspiration and appropriation. Anonymous art from the colonies became a projection screen for escapist dreams, a supposedly counter-image to bourgeois German society. At the same time, stylistic elements were adopted without questioning colonial power relations and racist contexts.