06. January 2015 - 13. January 2015

KRAFTWERK. 3-D concert series “Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8”

Neue Nationalgalerie

  • Duration of the Exhibition06. January 2015 - 13. January 2015
  • VenueNeue Nationalgalerie

Kraftwerk: 3-D-Konzertreihe ``Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8`` | Foto: Peter Boettcher / Kraftwerk / Sprüth Magers

Kraftwerk: 3-D-Konzertreihe ``Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8`` | Foto: Peter Boettcher / Kraftwerk / Sprüth Magers

Kraftwerk: 3-D-Konzertreihe ``Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8`` | Foto: Peter Boettcher / Kraftwerk / Sprüth Magers

Kraftwerk: 3-D-Konzertreihe ``Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8`` | Foto: Peter Boettcher / Kraftwerk / Sprüth Magers

From January 6 – 13, 2015, electronic music pioneers KRAFTWERK will perform the 3-D concert series Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie. In these multimedia events surround sound and 3-D projections will blend perfectly with the architecture of the transparent universal space of Mies van der Rohe.
With KRAFTWERK’s performance, the Nationalgalerie takes temporary leave of this important building, which from 1968 to today has hosted numerous collection presentations and exhibitions and in January 2015 is closing for several years of renovations.

With the 3D concert series Der Katalog – 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8, KRAFTWERK presents eight performances from January 6 – 13, 2015, each evening focusing on one of their legendary albums. Each multimedia performance will be complemented with a selection of additional compositions from their back-catalogue. Following their own history, the albums will be presented in chronological order:
1 Autobahn (1974), 2 Radio-Aktivität (1975), 3 Trans Europa Express (1977), 4 Die Mensch-Maschine (1978), 5 Computerwelt (1981), 6 Techno Pop (1986), 7 The Mix (1991), and 8 Tour de France (2003).

The multimedia project KRAFTWERK was founded by Ralf Hütter and Florian Schneider in 1970 in Düsseldorf’s experimental art scene. At the same time, the group established the legendary Kling-Klang-Studio, where all KRAFTWERK albums were conceived, composed, and produced. Numerous live performances were held at art museums and galleries in the surrounding Rhine region.

KRAFTWERK then went on to write music history over more than four decades, celebrating success worldwide. They are considered a key influence on a wide range of musical styles, including electro, hip-hop, synthpop, minimal, and especially techno. Already since the early years in the early 1970s, KRAFTWERK engaged with the developments of modern technology and anticipated the soundtrack of our digital computer age, definitively shaping it. Very early on, they took up the issue of a world dominated by machines, computers, and data, with their electronic and synthetic sounds, automatic and machine-based rhythms, with their sound poetry, strongly reduced texts, and an appearance modeled on robotics in terms of both their music and language.

From the very start, KRAFTWERK designed their concerts as audiovisual performances, where sound and image, music and the projection of computer animations are interfused with one another. Their sound and visual worlds not only influenced the history of contemporary music, but also that of visual culture. The texts, their style, and media-reflexive strategies already very early on explored the most important issues of the age of information: the collaboration of man and machine.

In 2014 Ralf Hütter and his former partner were honored with the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award.

KRAFTWERK’s performance at Berlin’s Neue Nationalgalerie should be understood as a programmatic statement, a dialogue between serial-minimalist music and formally extremely reduced architecture, a wonderful encounter between pioneers of the electronic age with a great visionary of public space.

The concert series conclude a longer program marking the close of Neue Nationalgalerie for renovations. With Otto Piene. More Sky and the Sky Art Event, as well as with the slide projection The Proliferation of the Sun, in the summer of 2014 the Nationalgalerie recalled the time of artistic transformation around 1970, art’s expansion into public space, and concepts of artistic freedom. With the intervention Sticks and Stones by David Chipperfield, the Nationalgalerie directs attention to the special construction of the building, the freely floating hall, and to fundamental aspects of architecture in general. Numerous performance works animated this installation during the Festival of Future Nows, held at the end of October 2014 together with Olafur Eliasson and his Institut für Raumexperimente.

With the 3-D concert series KRAFTWERK – Ralf Hütter, Henning Schmitz, Fritz Hilpert, Falk Grieffenhagen – will emphasize the stage-like arrangement of the famous glass hall once again. The universal, clear visible space was designed by Mies van der Rohe as an open event location. The concerts reflect the vitality and complexity of a museum today.