Spiegelensemble
Paradoxe Intentionen
Anders sein
Künstler sein – Über die Methode
Pathosgeste
Portrait Herr S.
Problemlösungsauftrag an Künstler

Ensembles in the exhibitions

Spiegelensemble, 1968–1989
Mirror Ensemble
Beginning with her first ensemble, Anna Oppermann dealt with the relationship between appearance and reality. The Spiegelensemble thematicizes this ambivalent relation, the split between Self and Other, as well as the inner split of the ego as far as schizophrenia.

Paradoxe Intentionen (Das Blaue vom Himmel herunterlügen), 1988–1992
Paradoxical Intentions (Coaxing the Blue from the Sky)
Shortly before her death, Oppermann developed Paradoxe Intentionen (Das Blaue vom Himmel herunterlügen), one of the lightest and most colorful ensembles of her artistic career. Here, the entanglement of reality and appearance, the game with “make-believe,” the rejection as well as the pleasure of this game become the subject of a kaleidoscopically fragmented pictorial field.

Anders sein („Irgendwie ist sie so anders…“), 1970–1986
Being Different (“Somehow She’s so Different...”)
In Anders sein (“Irgendwie ist sie so anders…”), Anna Oppermann isolates her own fears and insecurities as an outsider in society and in the art world. Assimilation and refusal, exclusion and belonging are analyzed in alternating contexts. Women who hide their faces behind hair, hands, or masks and in doing so evade the eyes of those they are exposed to symbolize the conflict between self-representation and masquerade.

Künstler sein –  Über die Methode (Zeichnen im Ensemble, Dilemma der Vermittlung, der ökonomische Aspekt), 1978–1985
Being an Artist - On the Method (Drawing in the Ensemble, Dilemma of Communication, the Economic Aspect)
In the ensemble cycle Künstler sein, Oppermann reflects on the general image of artists and what the art industry expects from them. In the part with the title Über die Methode (On the Method) she takes up the problem of communicating her own works: their complexity demands a high level of attention from the recipient; the reduction of the volume of information, however, leads to distortion and proves to be a deceptive solution.

Pathosgeste – MGSMO „MACH GROSZE, SCHLAGKRÄFTIGE, MACHTDEMONSTRIERENDE OBJEKTE!“, 1984 - 1992
Gesture of Pathos - "MAKE LARGE, COMPELLING OBJECTS THAT DEMONSTRATE POWER"
In her observation of the zeitgeist of the 1980s, Oppermann encountered a wide variety of different forms of empty, boundless gestures in politics, economics, and culture. Pathosgeste is a—pathetically monumental—enlarged still life in space in which viewers may wander around.

Portrait Herr S., 1969–1989
Portrait of Mr. S.
Portrait Herr S. represents a central thematic thread in Oppermann’s oeuvre which the artist treated in several ensembles: relationships with others, strangers, friends, between genders. In this ensemble she sounds out the unconscious constraints of desire and how they clash with ideal notions of love. She fuses them in her own erotic language of form that alternates between showing and concealing.

Problemlösungsauftrag an Künstler (Raumprobleme), 1978–1984

Commission for Artists to Solve Problems
This work owes its title, Problemlösungsauftrag an Künstler, to a 1979 appeal by the Bonn Kunstverein to young artists for the submission of concepts for a federal art and exhibition hall in Bonn. It prompted Oppermann to create a comprehensive ensemble dealing with divergent social spaces. Here, images of “social hotspots” collide with the ideal of the ivory tower into which artists and scientists retreat. Oppermann built her own “ivory tower” into the ensemble, climbing up into it during exhibitions to observe those viewing the exhibition.


Further element of the exhibition

Dilemma der Vermittlung, 1979
Dilemma of Communication
The nine pictorial narratives on the Dilemma der Vermittlung revolve around the difficulties associated with the development and communication of an interdisciplinary method in the area of art. The series was produced for a talk Oppermann gave at the Karl Hofer Symposium in 1979.

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