Substitutes engages with queer history and discourses around the body, gender, and sexuality. It features artists across several generations working in a variety of mediums to contextualise and converse with these discourses. The exhibition is about the absence of bodies, the abstraction of the body, and the tools and language we use to maintain or describe our bodies—costuming, staging, masks, layering, clothing. It questions the normative frameworks that queer and functionally diverse people are subjected to. The human body is, paradoxically, both absent and present within the exhibition. 

Initiated by the artist Philipp Gufler, Substitutes brings together works of Lorenza Böttner, Johanna Gonschorek, Elisàr von Kupffer, Rabe perplexum, Louwrien Wijers, Johannes Büttner, and Bruno Zhu. Philipp Gufler will show a new work titled Body/Text: a large-scale silk screen printed textile piece that draws inspiration from Elisàr von Kupffer’s panorama painting Klarwelt der Seligen (Clear World of the Blissful). By connecting contemporary discussions to historical perspectives, the exhibition aims to create a ‘living archive’. Drawing together artistic positions from then and now, the exhibition traces queer lives and networks from the past to our present. 

Exhibition photography by Pieter Kers.

Find the PDF version of the exhibition handout here.

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Colophon

Visual Identity: Jacob Hoving

W139 team: Tomas Adolfs, Nadia Benchagra, Dana Claasen, Levi van Gelder, Dil Ghale, Kirsty McIntosh, Sam Geer van der Klugt, Margarita Osipian, Claudio Ritfeld, Annette Wolfsberger

Additional support: Nor Akelei, Andre Avelas, Charlotte Beeck, Martijn van der Blom, Franziska Müller Schmidt

Special thanks to the artists of the exhibition, Szymon Adamczak, Alex Anders/Geier, Johanna d’Armagnac, Claudio Berger, Jörn Bötnagel, Irene Böttner, Elfe Brandenburger, Wilfred van Buuren, Anke Büttner, Ergül Cengiz, Hans D. Christ, Adrian Djukic, Holger Dreissig, Iris Dressler, Burcu Dogramaci, Beat Frischknecht, Bert Gammenthaler, Egon Hanfstingl, Françoise Heitsch, IHLIA LGBTI Heritage, Albert Knoll, Karolina Kühn, Munich Documentation Center for the History of National Socialism, Viktor Neumann, Anton Paula, Kurt Petz, Rory Pilgrim, Yvonne Quirmbach, Thomas Schütte, Mareike Schwarz, Angela Stiegler and Württembergischer Kunstverein Stuttgart

This exhibition is generously supported by Mondriaan Fonds, Gieskes-Strijbis Fonds, Amsterdam Fonds voor de Kunst, Fonds21, Goethe Institut, Centro Elisarion, Pro Elisarion Association, Monacensia im Hildebrandhaus, Forum Queeres Archiv München and Grafisch Atelier Hilversum