Opening: Dieter Hacker

The availability of smartphones and social media platforms radically changed the world of images in the 2000s. The so-called »user generated content« has changed the public sphere of political and social action, as well as social relations and art. With the exhibition »Dieter Hacker. All Power to the Amateurs. 1971-1984«, the ZKM expands the view of this phenomenon by adding a historical perspective.

In 1971 the artist Dieter Hacker founded a producer gallery in Berlin where he presented – through exhibitions and publications – the possibility of a new »folk art«: the art of amateurs.

»Everybody Could be an Artist« was the title of the first exhibition by Dieter Hacker conceived for the producer gallery he had founded in April 1971 in Berlin-Wilmersdorf. The critical paraphrase of Josef Beuys' dictum »everyone is an artist« indicated the program for the next 13 years: The »7. Produzentengalerie«, which was at once a studio, a living and exhibition space, as well as a publishing house, served as a »medium« independent of the market and the state, both to analyze the working conditions of visual artists and to clarify the social function of art, as well as to present possible alternatives in form of a new »folk art«.

For the first time, the exhibition presents a selection of installations, publications and films that Dieter Hacker conceived –  alone or in collaboration with Andreas Seltzer – for the 7. Produzentengalerie. They show exclusively photographs, texts, drawings and objects by amateurs – from the newspaper carrier Ms. B. to the President of the United States Ronald Reagan.

We cordially invite you to the exhibition opening on June 8, 2018 at 7 pm in atrium 3 of the Karlsruhe University of Arts and Design!