With Saâdane Afif, Donald Baechler, John Baldessari, Fiona Banner, Rosa Barba, Thomas Bayrle, Olivia Berckemeyer, Tim Berresheim, Beni Bischof, Norbert Bisky, Pierre Bismuth, John Bock, Michaël Borremans, Marc Brandenburg, Ulla von Brandenburg, Sergey Bratkov, André Butzer, Janet Cardiff, Michael Craig-Martin, Keren Cytter, Tacita Dean, Tatjana Doll, Sven Drühl, Marcel Dzama, Marcel van Eeden, Haris Epaminonda, Elger Esser, Matias Faldbakken, Valérie Favre, Simon Fujiwara, Barnaby Furnas, Ryan Gander, gelitin, Andrew Gilbert, Mathew Hale, Lothar Hempel, Uwe Henneken, Anton Henning, Arturo Herrera, Gregor Hildebrandt, Andy Hope 1930, Matthew Day Jackson, Christian Jankowski, Annette Kelm, Ragnar Kjartansson, Terence Koh, Jakob Kolding, Friedrich Kunath, Alicja Kwade, Jim Lambie, Tim Lee, Via Lewandowsky, Atelier van Lieshout, Erik van Lieshout, Robert Longo, Kris Martin, Jonathan Meese, Julie Mehretu, Bjarne Melgaard, Bjørn Melhus, Gerold Miller, Ingo Mittelstaedt, Jonathan Monk, Olivier Mosset, Mariele Neudecker, Frank Nitsche, Roman Ondák, David Ostrowski, Seb Patane, William Pope.L, Tal R, Tobias Rehberger, Daniel Richter, Julian Rosefeldt, Ed Ruscha, Karin Sander, Tomás Saraceno, Matt Saunders, Thomas Scheibitz, Ariel Schlesinger, Thomas Schütte, Norbert Schwontkowski, Sean Scully, David Shrigley, Ann-Sofi Sidén, Sara Sizer, Andreas Slominski, Nedko Solakov, Thaddeus Strode, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Fred Tomaselli, Ignacio Uriarte, Markus Vater, Mark Wallinger, Rebecca Warren, Lawrence Weiner, Rachel Whiteread, Johannes Wohnseifer, Erwin Wurm, Ralf Ziervogel, Thomas Zipp
“A man walks into a bar. . . .”—the unmistakable prelude to a joke. This remarkable collection of artist’s postcards of the same name could not have a more fitting title. Drawn, written, or stuck together, postcards featuring the contributing artists’ favorite jokes make up the unique content of this amusing exhibition at me Collectors Room Berlin.
The postcards are addressed to the fictitious figure Pepe Nietnagel—a pseudonym that prompts us to pick up our ears: is it the rascal from the popular series of German “Pauker” films from the late sixties and early seventies? As it happens, there is indeed something mischievous about this undertaking. The two curators and editors, Franziska and Johannes Sperling, wrote to selected artists, and about one hundred of them responded to their request and mailed them small works of art. Besides word- and joke-savvy contemporaries such as Erwin Wurm, Lawrence Weiner, Nedko Solakov, or Ragnar Kjartansson, to our great delight, protagonists such as John Baldessari, Jonathan Meese, Daniel Richter, and Karin Sander also participated in the playful game.
The collection of artist’s postcards is published in the small volume A Man Walks Into a Bar… by Hatje Cantz (€ 14,80, ISBN 978-3-7757-3914-6).