Charlotte Posenenske

Biography

°1930, Wiesbaden, DE
+1985 Frankfurt am Main, DE
Lived and worked in Germany.

The German artist Charlotte Posenenske belongs to the group of conceptual and minimal artists, but her work is more radical. She made raw and elementary sculptures. Her work is a fundamental investigation into the position of the artist in relation to the work of art. She is the architect of a new kind of system, closely intertwined with her own reflections. Posenenske's work lays a finger on the open nerves of our modern age.

Her works have been collected by institutions such as Middelheim Museum (Antwerp), Dia: Beacon (New York), MoMA (New York), Tate Gallery (London), Krüller Muller Museum (Otterlo), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp).

Charlotte Posenenske is represented by Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin), Peter Freeman Inc. (New York City), Take Ninagawa (Tokyo), Gallery Sofie Van de Velde (Antwerp), Konrad Fischer Gallery (Düsseldorf).

°1930, Wiesbaden, DE
+1985 Frankfurt am Main, DE
Lived and worked in Germany.

The German artist Charlotte Posenenske belongs to the group of conceptual and minimal artists, but her work is more radical. She made raw and elementary sculptures. Her work is a fundamental investigation into the position of the artist in relation to the work of art. She is the architect of a new kind of system, closely intertwined with her own reflections. Posenenske's work lays a finger on the open nerves of our modern age.

Her works have been collected by institutions such as Middelheim Museum (Antwerp), Dia: Beacon (New York), MoMA (New York), Tate Gallery (London), Krüller Muller Museum (Otterlo), Centre Pompidou (Paris), Museum Ludwig (Cologne), Museum of Contemporary Art (Chicago) and M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art (Antwerp).

Charlotte Posenenske is represented by Mehdi Chouakri (Berlin), Peter Freeman Inc. (New York City), Take Ninagawa (Tokyo), Gallery Sofie Van de Velde (Antwerp), Konrad Fischer Gallery (Düsseldorf).

Selected Solo Exhibitions
2025

Installation Views, Haugar Art Museum in Tønsberg, Norway
2023

'Archiv Charlotte Posenenske: Charlotte Posenenske orchestrated by Konstantin Grcic', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
2022

'B/C/D/DW/E - SCHÖNE NEUE PLASTIK TEIL I' Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'2022 Vierkantrohre Serie D', Center for Contemporary Arts, Berlin, DE
2021

'Charlotte Posenenske' DIA:BEACON, New York, US
2020

'Charlotte Posenenske Work in Progress', Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen-K20, Düsseldorf, DE
2019

'Lexicon of Infinite Movement', Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, NL
'Work in Progress - Charlotte Posenenske', DIA:BEACON, NY, US
'CONDO 2019 - Charlotte Posenenske', Modern Art, London, UK
'Work in Progress - Charlotte Posenenske', MACBA, ES
2018

'1968 - The times they are a-changin', Mehdi Chouakri - Fasanenplatz, Berlin, DE
2017

'Charlotte Posenenske 1957', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'Dasselbe anders': Charlotte Poseneske and Hanne Darboven', Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin, DE
2016

'Charlotte Posenenske', Take Ninagawa, Tokyo, JP
2015

'Charlotte Posenenske X Saâdane Afif, Charlotte Posenenske X Gerold Miller, Charlotte Posenenske X Gerwald Rockenschaub, Charlotte Posenenske X Luca Trevisani', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske and Peter Roehr', The Chinati Foundation, Marfa, US
'Reciprocal Score: Tauba Auerbach and Charlotte Posenenske', Indipendenza, Rome, IT
'Charlotte Posenenske', MuHKA Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, BE
2014

'Aufhören ; Weitermachen | Charlotte Posenenske', Deutscher Künstlerbund e.V., Berlin, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske: Early works', Peter Freeman Inc., New York, US
2013

'Line and Space', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
2012

'Dasselbe anders/Immer dasselbe', Düsseldorf, K21, Düsseldorf, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske und Peter Roehr', Kunsthaus Wiesbaden, Wiesbaden, DE
2011

'Charlotte Posenenske: Dasselbe Anders', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'Le même autrement-The same, but different', Galerie Nelson-Freeman, Paris, FR
'Vierkantrohre Serie DW',Galerie Schmela, Schmela-Haus, Düsseldorf, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske: Vierkantrohre, Reliefs, Faltungen und Arbeiten auf Papier', Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske', John Hansard Gallery, Southampton, UK
'Charlotte Posenenske', Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske', Metropol Kunstraum, Munich, DE
2010

'Charlotte Posenenske', Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
'Charlotte Posenenske / Peter Roehr', Haus Konstruktiv, Zürich, CH
'Charlotte Posenenske', Artists Space, New York, US
2009

'Charlotte Posenenske', Corrugated Series, Art Basel, Basel, CH
2008

'Prototypes for Mass Production (1965 - 1967)', Peter Freeman Inc., New York, US
'Charlotte Posenenske - Werke unter freiem Himmel', Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
2007

'Charlotte Posenenske', Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske', Between Bridges, London, UK
1988

Central Market, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2005

Galerie im Taxispalais, Innsbruck, AU
'Charlotte Posenenske - Retrospektive', Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Siegen, DE
2003

Galerie Konstantin Adamopoulos, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1999

Galerie ak, Programm Konstantin Adamopoulos, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1990

Museum für Moderne Kunst (at the Jahrhunderthalle Hoechst), Frankfurt am Main, DE
1989

Garage of the City Hall, Rotunda of the Neue Staatsgalerie, curated by Werner Esser, Stuttgart, DE
Headquarter of the Deutsche Bank, Central Station, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1986

Galerie Paul Maenz, Cologne, DE
Main airplane hangar, Lufthansa Airlines, Frankfurt am Main, DE
Galerie Grässlin-Ehrhardt, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1968

Galerie Art & Project, Amsterdam, NL
Galerie Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1967

Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, DE
Kleine Galerie, Schwenningen, DE
Galerie Sous-Sol, Giessen, DE
Galerie h, Hanover, DE
1966

Galerie Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1961

Galerie Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt am Main, DE

Selected Group Exhibitions
2024

'It's all right, don't think twice', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE

Archiv Charlotte Posenenske: Wahlverwandtschaften, Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin

Kunstmuseum Basel, Art After the 1950, as part of the museum collection

Deep Distance Tender Touch, Öpelvillen, Rüsselheim

Bodies in Motion – Form in the Making, Kunsthalla Mainz, Mainz

Wir werden bis zu Sonne gehen – Pioneers of the Geometric Abstraction, Wilhelm-Hack-Museum, Ludwigshafen am Rheim

Museum Morsbroich, Leverkussen, as part of the museum collection

Your Museum! Your Collection!, K20, Kunstsammlung Nordrhein-Westfalen, Düsseldorf, as part of the museum collection

The Sixties Experiment, Harvard Art Museum, Cambridge, as part of the museum collection

Under the Spell of Duchamp, Fondazione Antonio Dalle Nogare, Bolzano, group exhibition

Zerreißprobe. Kunst zwischen Politik und Gesellschaft, Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin, as part of the museum collection

Art after the 1950, Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel
2023

'Brilliant Cut', Gallery Baton, Seoul, KR
2022

'SERIELLE FORMATIONEN',Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
2021

'Who’s Afraid of Red…' Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin, DE
'Over ritme, motief en ruimte', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
2020

'L'heure bleue', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
'In situ, a Changing Installation', Peter Freeman, Inc., NY, US
'Implicit Movement', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
2019

'Immortality', 5th Ural Industrial Biennial of Contemporary Art, Ekaterinburg, RUS
'Five Artists: Sites Encountered' M+ Pavilion, Hong Kong
'The Bare Necessity', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
2018

'Sculptors. From Kollwitz to Genzken', Museum Heilbronn, DE
'Space light and Object, Minimal Art and it’s Legacies', National Gallery, Singapore
'Space Shifters', Hayward Gallery, London, VK
'Shahzrad Kamel, Fernanda Fragraterio, Charlotte Posenenske’, Josee Bienvenu Gallery, New York, US
'Charlotte Posenenske: Unfinished Installation', Parra & Romera, Madrid, E
'The Mechanics of Fluids', Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York, US
'Germany is not an island', Bundeskunsthalle, Bonn, DE
2017

'Backstage, die Rückseite, the rearside', Gallery Sofie Van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
'Mechanisms', Wattis Institute, San Fransico, US
'Serielle Formatuon, Frankfurt 1967 - Re-enactment of the First German Exhibition of International Minimalists', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE
'Die Revolution ist tot. Lang lebe die Revolution! Von Malewitsch bis Judd, von Deineka bis Bartana', Zentrum Paul Klee, Bern, CH
Jan van Eyck Academie, Maastricht, NL
'Dimensões Variáveis', MAAT Museu Arte Arquitetura Tecnologia, Lisboa, PT
'Hanne Darboven, Charlotte Posenenske', Konrad Fischer Galerie, Berlin, DE
2016

'Interiors', Front Desk Apparatus, New York, US
'From Nature to Abstraction', Gallery Sofie van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
'Kunst in Europa 1945 - 1968', ZKM Center for Art and Media, Karlsruhe, DE
'Illumination', Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk, DK
2015

'Reduzieren, curated by Burkhard Brunn', Daniel Marzona, Berlin, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske x Saadane Afif, Gerold Miller, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Luca Trevisani', Mehdi Chouakri, Berlin DE
'Dimensions Variables: Artists and Architecture', Pavillon de L’Arsenal, Paris, FR
'Flat World', David Kordansky Gallery, New York, US
'Ladies and Gentleman, We are Floating in Space', Karma, New York, US
'Vierkante Buizen Reeks DW', MuHKA Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst Antwerpen, Antwerp, BE
'That‘s All', G262 Sofie van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
'Geometric Abstractions', G262 Sofie van de Velde, Antwerp, BE
2014

'Play Objects - The Art of Possibilities', Museum Tinguely, Basel, CH
'Schwarz', Thomas Rehbein Galerie, Köln, DE
'Pliage/Fold', Galerie Gagosian, Paris, FR
2013

'D'Hollander, Posenenske, Warboys, paintings', Konrad Fischer Galerie, Düsseldorf, DE
'The Other Space: Miriam Böhm, Charlotte Posenenske, James Turrell', Wentrup Gallery, Berlin, DE
'Conspiciuos Unuseable', Miguel Abrueu gallery, New York, US
'A Stone left unturned', Galerie Yvon Lambert, Paris, FR
2012

'Minimalism in Germany. The Sixties II', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE Art and the City, Zürich, CH
'Sylvie Fleury et Charlotte Posenenske', Mehdi Chouakri, Paris, FR
Sao Paulo Biennial, Sao Paulo, BR
2011

12th Istanbul Biennial, Istanbul, TR
'Twenty Years of Presence', MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2010

Pergola, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
'Minimalism and Applied II', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE
'Radical Conceptual', MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, DE
'Charlotte Posenenske', White Columns, New York, US
2009

'In & Out of Amsterdam: Travels in Conceptual Art', 1960–1976, Museum of Modern Art, New York, US
'Just what is it ...', ZKM, Karlsruhe, DE
'Chasing Napoleon', Palais de Tokyo, Paris, FR
'The Knight’s Tour / Lunar Distance', De Hallen, Haarlem, NL
'1968. Die Große Unschuld', Kunsthalle Bielefeld, DE
'Yellow and Green', MMK Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt am Main, DE
2008

'Zuordnungsprobleme', Johann König, Berlin, DE
'Classical: Modern II', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE
Art Forum Berlin 2008, DE
'Revolutions 1968', Zacheta National Gallery, Warschau, PL
'Peripherer Blick und kollektiver Körper', Museion, Bozen, CH
2007

Documenta 12, Kassel, DE
2006

'Conversation with Art, on Art', Tokyo Opera City Art Gallery, Tokyo, JP
2005

'25 Jahre Sammlung Deutsche Bank', Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin, DE
2004

'Kurze Karrieren', Museum Moderner Kunst, Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna, AUT
'DaimlerChrysler Collection', South African National Gallery, Kapstadt, ZA
'DaimlerChrysler Collection for South Africa', Pretoria Art Museum, ZA
'DaimlerChrysler Collection for South Africa Museum Africa', Johannesburg, ZA
'Dependent Objects', Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard, Boston, US
2003

'On the Edge', Detroit Institute of Arts, Detroit, US The DaimlerChrysler Collection, ZKM, Karlsruhe, DE
'Minimalism and After II', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE
2002

'Minimalism and After II', Daimler Contemporary, Berlin, DE
'Die Gewalt ist der Rand aller Dinge. Subjektverhältnisse, politische Militanz und künstlerische Vorgehensweisen', Generali Foundation, Vienna, AT
2001

'Frankfurter Kreuz. Transformationen des Alltäglichen in der zeitgenössischen Kunst', Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1972

Galerie Art & Project, Amsterdam, NL
1969

Galerie plus-kern, Ghent, BE
1968

Galerie Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt am Main, DE
Public eye, Kunsthaus Hamburg, DE
Galerie Rene Block, Berlin, DE
'Deutscher Künstlerbund ‘68', Kunsthalle Nürnberg, Nuremberg, DE
1967

Galerie Jülicher, Mönchengladbach, DE
Galerie Hauptstrasse 1, Gelsenkirchen, DE
'Dies Alles, Herzchen, wird einmal dir gehören', Galerie Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt am Main, DE 'Serielle Formationen', Studiogalerie, Johann Wolfgang Goethe Universität, Frankfurt am Main, DE
Landesmuseum Wiesbaden, DE
1966

'Marielies-Hess-Stiftung', Hessischer Rundfunk, Frankfurt am Main, DE
1961

'Junger Westen', Städtische Kunsthalle Recklinghausen, DE
1959

'Vibration', Galerie Weiss, Kassel, DE

Bibliography

2013

Manifesto

Published by Distanz
2008

Charlotte Posenenske: 1930 - 1985

Published by Distanz,

Artworks

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, convexly curved & concavely canted, sprayed standard RAL matt black
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, concavely curved and convexly angled with a short and long side, sprayed standard RAL matt red
2 x (100 x 50 x 14 cm)

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, concavely canted, sprayed standard RAL matt blue
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, convexly and concavely curved, sprayed standard RAL matt blue
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d., Aluminium, convexly angled, sprayed standard RAL matt yellow,
40 x 40 x 125 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series DW, n.d., corrugated cardboard, dimensions variable

Charlotte Posenenske
Series D, n.d., Hot-dip galvanised sheet steel, dimensions variable

Charlotte Posenenske
Palette-knife work (Taununs Landscape), ca. 1961
Acrylic on paper
42 x 56 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
palette knife work, n.d.
casein print on paper
46 x 62 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
CP 192, n.d., Palette-knife work, acrylic or casein paint on paper, 36 x 48 cm cm

Charlotte Posenenske
CP 119, n.d., Palette-knife work, casein paint on paper, 29,5 x 40 cm

Exhibitions

—
Zuid

Group exhibition
'It's all right, don't think twice'

—
Nieuw Zuid

Daniel Buren, Willy De Sauter, Guy Mees, Charlotte Posenenske, Perry Roberts
Over ritme, motief en ruimte

—
Nieuw Zuid

Groupshow
L'heure bleue Part I

—
Nieuw Zuid

Groupshow
Implicit Movement

—
Groen Kwartier

Charlotte Posenenske and Ilse D'Hollander
Private view

—
Nieuw Zuid

Group Show
The Bare Necessity

—
Nieuw Zuid

Group show
Backstage: die Rückseite - the rear side

—
Groen Kwartier

Group show
From nature to abstract

—
Groen Kwartier

Group Show
That's all

—
Groen Kwartier

Group Show
Geometric Abstractions

Fairs

—

Miart 2024

—
Tour & Taxis

'Figuration vs abstraction'
Art Brussels 2019

—
Tour & Taxis

Group show
BRAFA 2019

News

Neighbours

– — 17.08 - 12.10.2023 Rubenskasteel - Zemst Curated by Manor Grunewald A group exhibition with works by Charlotte Posenenske, Katleen Vinck, Filip Vervaet, Tom Volkaert, Joep Van Liefland, Bram … Continue reading

Publications

Press

2019

The social dimension in Charlotte Posenenske’s art

Charlotte Posenenske’s (1930–1985) concept of participation which envisages to engage others – the curators, the collectors, the audience – in the production of the artwork is the ultimate expression of the attempt to make her art accessible. Thus she places herself knowingly in the tradition of the Russian Constructivists of the 20th, especially of El Lissitzky who postulated to make the advanced art understandable by geometry. „The geometric shape is unambiguous i.e. immediately recognizable for all.“

All objects of the artist are stereometrically constructed, after she had given up the subjectivistic manner of informell painting at the end of the 50th. Like El Lissitzky she wanted to connect her art to the objective parameters of technology and architecture by elementarisation and standardisation. El Lissitzky postulated: „Art and technology a new unity.“
Not only geometry and participation are aspects of the accessibility but also the gap of 32 cm in the installation of the steel tubes exhibited in the avantgarde gallery art & project at Amsterdam in 1967. You could walk across the artwork – which was very unusual at that time, compared with the traditional way to contemplate an artwork from outside.

The revolving vanes constructed a bit later are cubes and prisms higher than mansize which you enter by moving the vanes of doorsize. They are transitrooms. At the opening of the first exhibition in the gallery Dorothea Loehr, Frankfurt/M 1967, the galerist, a slim lady in a white suit stepped out of the object that was closed before reading a text. Later young kissing couples and hide-and-seek playing children stayed within the artrwork.

The last object realized only after the artist’s death consistrs in two oversized mobile walls which form a cube in front of a corner when closed.Thus the artwork is integrated in the architecture. In the small, square cabinet you may sit at a little table, drink tea or read a book. Thus the artist had arrived – like El Lissitzky – at architecture in which we live and work. „Architecture – this is art on the highest level.“ The former spectator had become a collaborater who was involved not only mentally but physically as well. The spectator of art doesn’t stand any more in front of the artwork but is situated inside.

Consequently the artist didn’t hesitate to make her art usable, i.e. to transgress the traditional border between art and every day life. Again it was El Lissitzky whom she followed. As a consequence of this the public often took the steel tubes for a ventilation pipe. But the last step – from art to design – she didn’t take: the usability of her artwork is restricted, you can only stay inside. Charlotte Posenenske – in contrast to what the constructivists demanded – remained on the base of art. She didn’t realize the usability effectively (by design), but prefered the allusion. She had arrived at the border of art. Then she gave up art – the art szene was puzzled. She had ended her way from painting to architecture. Regarding her rather small oeuvre, completed in the shortest time, you may come to the conclusion: she had finished her oeuvre which forms a rather consistent whole.

Always and again Charlotte Posenenske has been misunderstood as a political artist. The social dimension of her art is confined in making it more accessible. Her art is political only in so far as she tried to make her art more democratic by partizipation and keeping the prizes as low as possible.

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Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, convexly curved & concavely canted, sprayed standard RAL matt black
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, concavely curved and convexly angled with a short and long side, sprayed standard RAL matt red
2 x (100 x 50 x 14 cm)

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, concavely canted, sprayed standard RAL matt blue
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d.
Aluminium, convexly and concavely curved, sprayed standard RAL matt blue
100 x 50 x 14 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series B Relief, n.d., Aluminium, convexly angled, sprayed standard RAL matt yellow,
40 x 40 x 125 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
Series DW, n.d., corrugated cardboard, dimensions variable

Charlotte Posenenske
Series D, n.d., Hot-dip galvanised sheet steel, dimensions variable

Charlotte Posenenske
Palette-knife work (Taununs Landscape), ca. 1961
Acrylic on paper
42 x 56 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
palette knife work, n.d.
casein print on paper
46 x 62 cm

Charlotte Posenenske
CP 192, n.d., Palette-knife work, acrylic or casein paint on paper, 36 x 48 cm cm

Charlotte Posenenske
CP 119, n.d., Palette-knife work, casein paint on paper, 29,5 x 40 cm