Udo is Love

The exhibition "Udo is Love" does not presume to show Kier in all his complexity. It focusses on his diverse appearances in the visual arts, which are often only known through anecdotes. A liaison that began in 1968, when the Viennese actionist Otto Muehl staged one of his "material actions" in the feature film Schamlos. Through his collaboration with Warhol in the early seventies, he entered the high school of beautiful appearances that dismantle themselves. Back in Cologne, the artist Michael Buthe repeatedly gave Kier the role of a prince. Sigmar Polke, who repeatedly followed Kier with his Bolex, designed a neon sign together with Mariette Althaus in 1977, a gift that soon fell off the wall and to which the exhibition owes its title: Udo is Love. The first generation of video art, from Marcel Odenbach to Gábor Bódy, was stimulated by the unartificial artifice of the alien from Cologne-Ostheim. Rosemarie Trockel scrutinised the perspectives of protest with Kier.

The reason for this overview of Kier's long career is not only due to his 80th birthday. Today, Kier's artistic stance is once again highly topical and full of possibilities for dealing with a reality that we often just want to get out of. If the world is going to end tomorrow, why not twist it into fantastic counter-realities today? Kier sees the challenges of a reality that has gone off the rails as an invitation to exaggerate its derailments even further. He doesn't seem to care whether others like the poses he strikes, he just doesn't want to appear boring. His addiction to attracting attention is also a search for what cannot be. It is not enough for itself, but forms a long, unfinishable movement around an empty centre - a dance without a name that can never be danced alone.

- Excerpt from the press release for the exhibition of the Kölnischer Kunstverein.
 Full press release