Two years ago, the KW Institute for Contemporary Art in Berlin began preparing an exhibition whose aim is to research and, for the first time, to present together the media echo of the Red Army Faction and artistic positions directly or indirectly addressing the history of the RAF. More than 100 works by more than 50 international artists from three generations will be exhibited.

In two ways, the curatorial principle of the exhibition takes account of the perception of the RAF formed in and through the media. On the one hand, by citing and displaying examples of this media presence in the form of 29 dates tied to the history of the RAF's terrorism in the 1970s. Here one can see what one could see at that time and what, in this "being seen", decisively molded the "imagining of terror and the imagining of the RAF" in West German society. Magazine title pages and selected articles from the print media Bild Zeitung, Spiegel, Stern, Süddeutsche Zeitung, and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, as well as excerpts from television coverage by the broadcasters ARD, ZDF, and Aktueller Kamera document the period.

On the other hand and at the same time, it is made clear to the viewer that the artistic grappling with this perception of a reality created by the media is multi-dimensionally differentiated and makes it more directly and differently experiencable. This is especially visible in a work like Gerhard Richter's "Atlas". Plates 470-479, which deal with the theme of the RAF, are not "preparatory works" for the famous serial "October 18, 1977", but an autonomous work revealing the tension between media reality and artistic perception, in both the objective and the subjective sense. The exhibition will thus show that it is precisely artistic works that, through their whole relationship to history and the present, make decisive contributions to illuminating from various perspectives the abstract "reality-sign RAF", as Klaus Theweleit has termed it.

The aim of the exhibition is to reveal these public spheres as diversely as possible by exhibiting what was and, through the selection of sources and artistic works, to document the possibilities of perception that are structured by the media.

Exhibition by:
Klaus Biesenbach
Ellen Blumenstein
Felix Ensslin

List of Artists
Franz Ackermann, Dennis Adams , Bettina Allamoda, Eleanor Antin, Thomas Bayrle, Sue de Beer, Ulrich Bernhardt, Joseph Beuys, Dara Birnbaum, Klaus vom Bruch, Erin Cosgrove , Lutz Dammbeck, Christoph Draeger, Felix Droese, Heinz Emigholz, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Peter Friedl, Johan Grimonprez, Rudolf Herz, Jörg Immendorff, Johannes Kahrs
Scott King, Scott King/Matt Worley, Martin Kippenberger, Rainer Kirberg, Astrid Klein, Andree Korpys/Markus Löffler, Bruce LaBruce, Claude Lévêque, Theo Ligthart, Jonathan Meese, Michaela Meise, Michaela Melián, Klaus Mettig, Olaf Metzel, Rob Moonen/Olaf Arndt, Hans Niehus, Marcel Odenbach, Sigmar Polke, Yvonne Rainer, Gerhard Richter, Thomas Ruff, Thomas Schütte, Katharina Sieverding, K.R.H. Sonderborg, Klaus Staeck, Stih & Schnock, Frank Thiel, Wolf Vostell, Peter Weibel, Willem (Bernhard Holtrop), Johannes Wohnseifer

Exhibition sites
KW Institute for Contemporary Art
Auguststraße 69
10117 Berlin

Duration of the exhibition: January 30 - May 16, 2005
Hours: Tu - Su noon - 7 p.m., Th noon - 9 p.m.

St. Johannes-Evangelist-Kirche
Auguststraße 90
10117 Berlin

Duration of the exhibition: January 30 - April 03, 2005
Hours: Tu - Su noon - 7 p.m., Th noon - 9 p.m

January 10 - February 20, 2005, Tu - Su noon - 6 pm

Admission
6 Euro, discount 4 Euro

Visitor service I guided Tours
Group tours 1h German/English (min. 10 pers.)
8,50 Euro per pers. incl. admission

Group tours 1h for pupils and students (min. 10 pers.)
5 Euro per pers., free admission

Guided tours 1h in German:
Thu 7 p.m., Sat 3 p.m., Sun 3 p.m. and 5 p.m
8,50 Euro per pers. incl. admission, 6,50 Euro concessions

Contact:
Arthur Berlin
tel. 030 24345998
fax 030 24345999
visit@kw-berlin.de

Publications
Two publications are available:

Regarding Terror: The RAF-Exhibition Volume 1
Black and White, German, 712 pages

Regarding Terror: The RAF-Exhibition Volume 2
Color, German, 280 pages

Editor: Klaus Biesenbach
Steidl Verlag
Price of both publications:
45 Euro KW / 65 Euro booktrade
ISBN 3-86521-102-X

Next site of the exhibition
June 24 - August 28, 2005
Neue Galerie am Landesmuseum Joanneum, Graz, Austria

Mondriaan Foundation - Netherlands Culture Fund of the Dutch Ministries for Foreign Affairs and Education, Culture and Science

Pro Helvetia, Schweizer Kulturstiftung

Further information:

Markus Müller I Maike Cruse
t: ++49 30 24 34 59 41 / 42
press@kw-berlin.de