17 February 2010
Interim Space »The Ephemeral«
Ash Wednesday for the Artists

This year’s evening program event of the Ash Wednesday for the Artists is seeking out its very beginnings once again. When it was organized in Cologne for the first time in 1950, it stood wholly under the auspices of a new cultural beginning, placing the encounter of the various forms of art in the center. After the quiet start last year, Kolumba would like to provide a forum as open space enabling a dialogue between the arts that deal with the given architectural room situations in different ways. This year the ephemeral (which comes from the Greek ephemeros “lasting one day”), the fleeting quality of aesthetic sensitivity, is on the agenda, since all art is bound to a subject, only perfecting itself at the moment of viewing and of listening. We wish you an inspiring evening, during which you will also have ample time to discuss with others over bread and wine in the foyer. “To the moment, I might say: Linger yet, you are so beautiful.”

(view film)

Program:

Foyer: Ongoing Welcome

(5:20 p.m. to ca. 6 p.m.)
Manos Tsangaris / Thomas Meixner/ Curators at Kolumba
During an “ongoing welcoming” ceremony, musicians and curators will be greeting the guests with sounds and thoughts concerning phenomena of the Ephemeral. The curators will be reading an excerpt fragment, exactly 65 years old to the day, from the diary of the Dean of the City of Cologne, Robert Grosche, who organized the first Ash Wednesday for the Artists in Cologne in 1950.

Stairwell / Elevators
Poetry for Ash Wednesday
(beginning at 5:20 p.m.)
Lina Beckmann/ Jennifer Frank
Persian poetry by Omar Khayyam (†1122/1131) and Dschalal ad-Din Rumi (†1273) as well as Baroque poetry by Andreas Gryphius (†1664), Daniel Casper von Lohenstein (†1683), Daniel Czepko von Reigersfeld (†1660) and Angelus Silesius (†1677)

Armarium:
Language Installation
(ongoing)
Steffen Krebber »Weissagungen« (Prophecies), language installations to be entered individually, for a room, an usher, a loudspeaker, and a beamer (2008), ca. 3 Min.

Room 12:
Concert
(6 p.m./ 7:30 p.m./ 9 p.m.)
Mark Andre “iv2” (2007), 10 Min.
Michael M. Kasper, Cello solo

Reading Room:
Reading by Authors

(7 p.m./ 8:30 p.m./ 9:30 p.m.)
Barbara Köhler “The most beautiful” (2010), 10 Min.

Room 19:
Architectural-acoustic Installation
(ongoing)
Bernhard Leitner “RoomReflection” (2010)

Room 21:
Concert Installation
(ca. 6:20 p.m. to 9 p.m.)
Morton Feldman, Works for piano
Pi-hsien Chen, Piano

Foyer:
(7p.m. to 9:30 p.m.)
Wine and Bread
Kolumba Team

Participating Artists / Performers:

Mark Andre was born in Paris in 1964. He studied composition, counterpoint, harmony, and music theory and analysis at the Conservatoire National Supérieure de Musique de Paris. Among others, his teachers included: Claude Ballif, Gérard Grisey und Helmut Lachenmann. In January the premiere of his music theater Passion …22,13… performed at RadialsystemV in Berlin received high acclaim; lives in Berlin (www.edition-petersn.de)

Lina Beckmann, born in Hagen in 1981 / Jennifer Frank, born in Nürtingen in 1979; in March both have roles, among other things, in “Die Schmutzigen, die Hässlichen und die Gemeinen”. Our thanks go to Schauspiel Köln, Götz Leineweber, for the kind cooperation. (www.schauspielkoeln.de)

Michael M. Kasper, Member of the Ensemble Modern from 1980 to 1985 and since 1997. Until 2001 he taught at the Musikhochschule Aachen (Academy of Music); lives in Offenbach (ensemble-modern.com)

Barbara Köhler was born in Burgstädt in 1959; she grew up in the Saxonian town of Penig, attending high school in Plauen. After graduating with her Abitur exam, she first worked caring for the elderly in a home and then in various functions at the theater in Karl-Marx-Stadt (today’s Chemnitz). From 1985 to 1988 she studied at the Institute for Literature Johannes R.Becher in Leipzig. After reunification she worked for various newspapers. Since 1990 she has received numerous literary awards, for example, in 2009 the Poetry Prize of the Kulturkreis der Deutschen Wirtschaft; in 2007 she published “Niemands Frau. Gesänge zur Odyssee”; lives in Duisburg. (www.surkamp.de)

Steffen Krebber was born in Stuttgart 1976 and studied composition with Marco Stroppa and Caspar Johannes Walter at der Musikhochschule Stuttgart (Music Academy), as well as with Rebecca Saunders at the Musikhochschule Köln. In 2009 he was a fellowship recipient of the Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, contract for a composition for the Thürmchen-ensemble, and the ensemble]h[iatus supported by the Kunststiftung NRW and the Deutscher Musikrat; lives in Cologne. (www.steffenkrebber.de)

Bernhard Leitner, born in 1938, graduated in architecture in Vienna, and subsequently lived in Paris from 1963 to 1966, in New York from 1968 to 1982, and in Berlin from 1982 to 1986. From 1987 to 2005 he was professor for cross-media art at the University of Applied Arts in Vienna. Exhibitions of his Sound-Space-Sculptures, among other places at: P.S.1 (New York), documenta (Kassel), Biennale (Venice). Permanent sound-space-installations among other places, in Berlin, Paris, Vienna and St. Pölten. In 2008 a list of his works from the last ten years was published as P.U.L.S.E. (www.bernhardleitner.com)

Thomas Meixner, born in Mettmann in 1964, also studied with Christoph Caskel. He is the founder of the internationally acclaimed Schlagquartett (Percussion Quartet) Köln. (www.schlagquartett.de)

Manos Tsangaris, born in Düsseldorf in 1956, studied with Mauricio Kagel and Christoph Caskel at the Musikhochschule Köln (Cologne Music Academy). Since 2009 he has been a professor for composition at the Hochschule für Musik (Academy of Music) in Dresden. (www.tsangaris.de)

Organizer: Künstler-Union-Köln/ Pastor to the Artists: Prelate Josef Sauerborn,
in Cooperation with Kolumba; Concept and Realization: Kolumba Team; Guest Curator: Manos Tsangaris

Art museum of the
Archdiocese of Cologne