Jahresgaben 2020/21

The Bielefeld Kunstverein is pleased to present the 2020/21 annual editions, offering an exclusive selection of works by Julie Béna, Olivier Foulon & Alexander Lieck, Gottfried Jäger, Shuang Li, Samuel Richardot and Charline Tyberghein. All artists featured were part of this year’s exhibition program. As in 2019, this year’s focus is on unique pieces and small editions, created especially as annual editions for the Kunstverein. The annual editions 2020/21 are accessible online from 20.11.2020 at 19:00. They can be ordered from this date on.

The idea of annual editions goes back to the earliest days of Kunstvereine in Germany, which were first founded in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. The new organizations were established as joint-stock companies or as lottery associations. This model of financing kept participation costs low for individual members, while the opportunity for individual profit made sharing the costs of a public good more attractive. At the same time, the idea of artworks as commodities was in keeping with the spirit of the times. According to the prevailing notion of the “immanent justice of freely circulating commodities” (Jürgen Habermas, 1962), art as a commodity formed the basis for the kind of open discussion to which Kunstvereine were committed.

The first Kunstverein in Bielefeld was founded in 1881 under the name Kunstverein für Bielefeld und Umgegend e.V. [Kunstverein for Bielefeld and Region]. Membership fees were sold as “shares,” which gave access to prize draws, allowing members to acquire “really good paintings at extremely low prices,” as the Kunstverein’s 13th Annual Report (1902–1904) put it. In 1909, the Kunstverein für Bielefeld und Umgegend e.V. was dissolved; the Bielefelder Kunstverein, its successor organization, was established in 1929 with a different focus. The Kunstverein first presented annual editions in 1968, an innovation which was met with phenomenal demand.

Even today, the basic idea remains unchanged – to offer annual editions produced exclusively for the Kunstverein Bielefeld, which are unavailable on the art market and offered to members at a special discount. By buying one of our annual editions, you support contemporary artists and the Kunstverein itself in equal measure.