February 26 to May 24, 2010
at the MKM Museum Küppersmühle for Modern Art, Duisburg

From February 26 to May 24, 2010, the MKM is showing works by Olaf Metzel, one of the most important and influential German sculptors of the present day. The artist is presenting eleven sculptures and room installations as well as a selection of his drawings. Five new works have been created especially for the exhibition, which takes place as part of “Mapping the Region”, the joint exhibition project of the RuhrKunstMuseen, as an official project of RUHR.2010.
Metzel approaches the mapping exhibition through the unspecific, the everyday obvious and draws on media reports for his sculptures, which he takes from a year’s worth of regional daily newspapers, for example. In his interpretation, the artistically surveyed terrain – everyday life, the public and published opinion – encompasses the thematic fields of sport, education, (involuntary) leisure, religion, integration, post-industrial renewal, everyday culture and taste. With the five new works (Schicht im Schacht, ichhasseschule, Hartz IV wird fünf, BILD Ruhrgebiet, 22.12.09, Und dann noch das Wetter) he deals specifically with the Ruhr area and takes up sensitivities that reflect the region, but at the same time have a universal character. The other works are thematically related. Visitors can thus expect a 1,000 m² insight into the work of Olaf Metzel, which is highly topical thanks to the presentation of the new production. Simple answers are just as unlikely from the artist as hymns of praise for the Capital of Culture.