Video Still showing the artist herself dancing in a red blouse and light blue denim shorts. Tracey Emin, Sammlung Goetz Munich
Sammlung Goetz in Haus der Kunst

Why I Never Became a Dancer

Why I Never Became a Dancer is the second exhibition to be mounted at Haus der Kunst as a joint project with the Sammlung Goetz. It presents 15 video works by international artists addressing the theme of youth and exploring the social behavioural patterns of young people both privately and within the wider community. The focus is not only on today’s generation but also on youth culture in the past 30 years.

With Doug Aitken, Andrea Bowers, Martin Brand, Cao Fei, Rineke Dijkstra, Tracey Emin, Nina Könnemann, Mark Leckey, Paul Pfeiffer, Beat Streuli, Ryan Trecartin, Rosemarie Trockel, Gillian Wearing and Tobias Zielony.

“Every generation has its own idols, its own language, its own music, fashion and forms of expression. Until they have found those, young people try out everything from alternative lifestyles to drugs to the virtual world of the internet. I’d like to show that here.“ (Ingvild Goetz)

Tracey Emin‘s work Why I Never Became a Dancer, from which the exhibition takes its name, invites viewers into the world of her youth in Margate (England), and her dreams of escaping small-town life. In Rineke Dijkstra‘s The Buzzclub, Liverpool, UK / Mysteryworld, Zaandam, NL young people in empty spaces reconstruct the moves they had just moments ago been making in a crowded room. In this way, the artist shows the viewer an isolated model situation. Doug Aitken‘s i am in you, with its associative film sequences, reveals the lifeworld of a little girl.

 

Why I Never Became a Dancer.
Sammlung Goetz im Haus der Kunst

124 pages, 458 ill., softcover
German/English
2011, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-3154-6
€ 10,00

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