In 1974, singer-songwriter Reinhard Mey sang about the noticeable changes of the time in his hit Es gibt keine Maikäfer mehr (engl. There are no more cockchafers), the disappearance of living space driven by the belief in progress for urban expansion. Mey transfers the motif of the cockchafer to the urban modernisation projects of the time: where the houses of the familiar neighbourhood once stood, a multi-storey car park now stands as a representative of a time of economic prosperity, urbanisation and modernisation of German cities with seemingly endless resources and possibilities. Based on Mey's song, the exhibition ES GIBT KEINE MAIKÄFER MEHR at the Skulpturenmuseum Marl examines whether utopian modernisation and urbanisation projects in Germany have fallen out of time. It also raises the question of the role and significance of an art museum in dealing with inner-city or socio-political movements.

On Sunday, 3rd March 2024 at 3 p.m., the Skulpturenmuseum Marl invites you to the finissage of the group exhibition ES GIBT KEINE MAIKÄFER MEHR at the Skulpturenmuseum in Georg-Herwegh-Straße 63-67. The site-specific artworks can be experienced one last time: In three exhibition rooms, a total of nine young artists will be showing their artistic explorations of the city of Marl, which were developed in the "urban stage" seminar with Prof Mischa Kuball at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. On the last day of the exhibition, a selection of the results of the workshops, which were part of the exhibition project from the outset as an opportunity for participation and heterogeneous multilingualism, will expand the original exhibition. A 20-minute film by Mathilde Hawkins and Max Mauro Schmid, the result of several weeks of collaboration with a 7th grade class at the Martin Luther King School, will be shown at 4 p.m. following the welcome and catalogue presentation by museum director Georg Elben.

Artists: inside: Thilo Brämer, Bidisha Das, Mathilde Hawkins, Johannes Hoffmann, Helin Sezen Korkmaz, Tatsiana Licheuskaya, Mary Mikaelyan, Alexandra Nikitina, Leila Orth

The artists will be present. The exhibition and the catalogue were kindly supported by the Freundeskreis Habakuk.