SCHIRN NEWSROOM: THE CULTURE

THE CULTURE: HIP HOP AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY

FEBRUARY, 29 – MAY 26, 2024

Coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the birth Hip Hop, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating a major interdisciplinary exhibition to Hip Hop’s profound influence on our current art and cultural landscape. Hip Hop first emerged in the Bronx, New York in the 1970s as a cultural movement among Black and Latinx youth who expressed themselves through MCing, DJing, graffiti writing, and breakdancing. From its inception, Hip Hop critiqued dominant structures and cultural narratives and offered new avenues for expressing diasporic experiences and creating alternate systems of power, leading to social and political consciousness and knowledge-building.

The exhibition at the Schirn continues at the Kunstverein Familie Montez with the video installation "ISDN" by Stan Douglas, and is supplemented by an exhibition on the milestones of hip hop at MOMEM, a film series on the fifty-year history of hip hop at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum and an event organised by the Diamant Offenbach: Museum of Urban Culture.

The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century, exhibition view, © Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 2024, Photo: Emily Piwowar / NÓI Crew

The Schirn is dedicating a major interdisciplinary exhibition to Hip Hop’s profound influence on our current art and cultural landscape

Hip Hop has now evolved into a global phenomenon that has driven numerous innovations in music, fashion, technology, as well as visual and performing arts. Grounded on the origins of Hip Hop in the U.S., yet with a focus on art and music from the last twenty years, the exhibition features over 100 paintings, photographs, sculptures, and videos, as well as fashion and vinyl, by internationally renowned contemporary artists including Lauren Halsey, Julie Mehretu, Tschabalala Self, Arthur Jafa, Khalil Joseph, Virgil Abloh, and Gordon Parks. THE CULTURE illuminates Hip Hop’s unprecedented economic, social, and cultural resources and furthermore addresses contemporary issues and debates – from identity, racism, and appropriation to sexuality, feminism, and empowerment.

The exhibition is co-organized by the Baltimore Museum of Art and the Saint Louis Art Museum and is presented in collaboration with Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

CO-CURATORS

Baltimore Art Museum: Asma Naeem (Dorothy Wagner Wallis Director) and Gamynne Guillotte (former Chief Education Officer). Saint Louis Art Museum: Hannah Klemm (Associate Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art) and Andréa Purnell (Audience Development Manager)

SCHIRN PROJECT MANAGMENT

Matthias Ulrich (Curator Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt)

KATALOG

THE CULTURE is accompanied by a comprehensive catalog organized into themes of self-presentation and adornment, representation, technology, and language.

THE CULTURE: HIP HOP AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY, edited by Diana Murphy and Virginia Gresham, English edition, 306 pages, approx. 235 illustrations, 23.5 x 30 cm, hardcover, Gregory R. Miller & Co., ISBN 978-1-941366-54-7, €45 (Schirn), €52.25 / $55 (bookstores)

BROCHURE

THE CULTURE: HIP HOP AND CONTEMPORARY ART IN THE 21ST CENTURY, edited by Matthias Ulrich, with contributions by Charlotte Furtwängler and Oliver Kautny (both Cologne Hip Hop Institute), German and English editions, each 40 pages, 11 x 16.5 cm

Press Texts

Press information of the exhibition "THE CULTURE"

28.02.2024 | From February 29 to May 26, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating a major interdisciplinary exhibition to Hip-Hop’s profound influence on our current art and cultural landscape.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "THE CULTURE"

28.02.2024 | Here you can find the wall panels and labels of the exhibition "THE CULTURE".

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Press information of the additional locations of the exhibition "THE CULTURE" in Frankfurt

28.02.2024 | The exhibition at the Schirn continues at the Kunstverein Familie Montez with Stan Douglas’s video installation ISDN. “THE CULTURE” is also supplemented by an exhibition on the milestones of hip hop at MOMEM – Museum Of Modern Electronic Music, an event organized by the Diamant Offenbach: Museum of Urban Culture, and a film series on the fifty-year history of hip hop at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum.

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Press Images

The press images that have been made available in the SCHIRN’s newsroom may be used at no charge exclusively by the media (print, online, television, radio) for current coverage on the respective exhibition/project according to Section 50 of the German Copyright Act. They may not be used for any other purpose without the express permission of the respective copyright holder. When using the press images, the accompanying proof of copyright must be observed and likewise cited unchanged in direct relationship with the respective image. The press images may not be cropped or changed. If reproduced on the internet the images must be imbedded and not downloadable with a maximal resolution of 72 dpi and a maximal size of 20 x 20 cm.