On a road trip through Germany, Austria, Slovenia, and Croatia, Tobias Hantmann drove from Düsseldorf to Zagreb and back—with a trailer and a framed, lit painting. Mounting it on one side of the car turned a means of transportation into an independent outdoor display. Teased or drawn directly into the pile of the painting’s velour surface is a snapshot of a plaza, a fragment made up of houses, people, and fountains.

For several years Tobias Hantmann (*1976 Kempten, lives in Düsseldorf) has been developing various groups of artworks that pose fundamental questions about painting and pictures, while investigating their prerequisites. Hantmann is fascinated by the power of attraction emanating from paintings and their motifs, as well as what’s behind their assertiveness. The installation/action “Tradition des Zeigens – Der Marktplatz von Freudenstadt” (Tradition of display – Freudenstadt’s market square) “is a combination of different and unusual devices and strategies.” The approach to this presentation reveals “the ritual of exhibition.” The blend of various materials and statements, along with their presentation, comprise an attempt to experience the special qualities of an immobile, material image in a new way.
At the mysterious center of this complex attempt, as well as its starting point, are the visual motif and its literal setting: the market square in Freudenstadt.

The journey begins at the Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien in Graz and takes Tobias Hantmann to Düsseldorf via Ljubljana, MSU Zagreb, the Galerie Bernd Kugler in Innsbruck, Munich, the Kunstverein Reutlingen, and the Neuer Aachener Kunstverein.

The destinations:

Künstlerhaus, Halle für Kunst & Medien, Graz (March 02)
ROG Ljubljana (March 03)
MSU Zagreb (March 06)
Aldrans (March 07)
Hall in Tirol (March 08)
Kunstverein Reutlingen (March 09)
Kempten (March 10)
Umberg (March 11)
München (March 12)
Frankfurt (March 15)
Neuer Aachener Kunstverein (March 16)
Düsseldorf (March 18)