From November 22, 2014 through March 15, 2015, Villa Schöningen will present the exhibition Californian Rhapsody: California Art from the Falckenberg Collection, featuring works by John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Dennis Hopper, Mike Kelley, Mike Mandel / Larry Sultan, Paul McCarthy, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades, Thaddeus Strode, and Christopher Williams.

California is the dream factory of the American frontier movement. It is about freedom: political freedom, religious freedom, and economic freedom. This triad not only stands for the construction of a new homeland, but is at the same time an expression of rebellion against the New England elites with the hated Washington as their control center. “Go West” was the magic formula. But it was not only honorable settlers and religious zealots who established themselves on the endless plains of the Midwest, but also soldiers of fortune who set out across the deserts of the West to California in the gold rush in order to get rich quickly without regard for nature, wildlife and the livelihoods of the native Indian population. It was a system of exploitation that found its striking expression in the motto “Get In, Get Rich, Get Out.”

The solid economy of the U.S. was anchored with the commercial centers of Chicago and St. Louis and the automobile industry of Detroit in the Midwest and the financial center of New York in the East. California remained the land of dreams with Hollywood as a symbol of rudimentary yearning for freedom. Today, in the face of international competition, the Midwest has become run-down, with Detroit as a corpse in the true sense of the word. Commerce and industry no longer dominate the terrain. The service society, with its many ways to make a lot of money quickly, has taken over the regime. The financial center of New York still stands, but the essential impulses of the computer and Internet systems that have long since dominated the world – Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon and Facebook – were developed in California – as an idea of science fiction in the garage transformed in a flash into real economic power. The American legend of the rags to riches has had its day. And once again, it is a few super-rich people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Page and Jeff Bezos who are shaping California’s image as a location for pioneers of ideas and innovation. They are, if you will, the legitimate successors to the fortune seekers and profiteers of old.

All this has a lot to do with art as a mirror of society. It was and still is marketed, even internationally, centrally in New York. In California, it has resisted for decades as a subculture with leading representatives such as John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Mike Kelley, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Paul McCarthy, Raymond Pettibon, Jason Rhoades and Ed Ruscha, to name but a few. It deals with the real situation of people beyond glamour and wealth. That is precisely the theme of this exhibition.
The Villa Schöningen as an expression of past power is the ideal location for the exhibition. In the six rooms of the villa, it is structured according to the themes “Hollywood,” “American Tragedy,” “Artist’s Art Sale,” “Human Conditions,” “Beauty,” and “Conceptions.”

Text: Harald Falkenberg