Deichtorhallen Hamburg –
Sammlung Falckenberg

How can the evolution of contemporary art serve as a lens through which to understand the history of counterculture – a phenomenon that continues to influence artistic approaches today? This question serves as a guiding force behind the exhibition Inner Mornings, or Forms of Counterculture.

Through the interplay of three major collections – the Falckenberg Collection and the collections of the FRAC Pays de la Loire and the Musée d’arts de Nantes – the exhibition makes visible the ways in which artists develop resistant aesthetic strategies, open up alternative spaces, and blur the line between the mainstream and the margins of society.
The result is a fascinating dialogue that shows how counterculture is collected, conveyed, and understood in different contexts. What emerges is a multifaceted picture of art as a means of questioning social realities and opening up new perspectives.
Drawing on Thoreau, Foucault, and Guattari, the exhibition understands counterculture as something ­ active, discursive, and transformative. Across four thematic­ sections – “Claiming the multiplication of points of view and voices”, “See, show, divert and denounce”, “Rereading­ history, another story”, and “Shock, shake, upset, move the lines” – the exhibition presents artists who rewrite ­historical narratives, challenge social power structures, and make­ visible artistic strategies of provocation and resistance.

The exhibition is developed in cooperation with the­ Centre Claude Cahun and the photography collections of the city of Nantes and the Regional Pays de la Loire Contemporary Art Fund.

With works by Halil Altındere, Maja Bajevic, John Baldessari, Lewis Baltz, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Victor Burgin, Claude Cahun, Sophie Calle, Claire Chevrier, Jeremy Deller, VALIE EXPORT, Fischli & Weiss, Joan Fontcuberta, Aikaterini Gegisian, Thomas Hirschhorn, Astrid Klein, Walid Raad, Sophie Ristelhueber, Martha Rosler, Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.