At the beginning of May the third stage of the project “Prélude Nordost Südwest” initiated by the Kunsthaus Dresden began on the outer facade of the robotron canteen with the 20 meter long, three-part installation “The Arrival of Magenta” by Henning Haupt. Haupt uses the medium of painting to make color spaces tangible in three dimensions. The installation designed for the facade of the robotron canteen extends in a folded shape from the meadow to the edge of the roof like a painting that conquers the room in the best sense of the word. The artist is also an architect and in this role teaches design at the TU Dresden. “I'm interested in how spaces change. My painting records the traces of movement in the studio. To be able to relate this dynamic understanding of painting in the robotron canteen to the urban space is a beautiful, basically ideal situation, ”says the artist, who was born in 1964 and lives in Dresden.

Henning Haupt holds the Chair of Foundations in Art and Architecture at the Institute for Buildings and Design of the Faculty of Architecture at the TU Dresden. He studied architecture in Darmstadt and Braunschweig as well as painting and architecture at the Cranbrook Academy of Art, USA.
Together with André Tempel, Ina Weise and Stephanie Lüning, he has been temporarily using the outer facade of the robotron canteen since April, an Eastern Modern building in the heart of the city that is important for the identity of the city. The artistic interventions on the facade of the building, which has been vacant for several years, literally counteract the on-site vandalism with art.

In Dresden there has been a struggle for the existence and further development of the former company restaurant of VEB Robotron for several years. According to the current plans, no building from the former headquarters of the Robotron combine in the center of Dresden would remind of the industrial history that still characterizes the microelectronics location “Silicon Saxony” today. The voluntary network ostmodern.org has been campaigning for the maintenance of the Robotron canteen since 2015 and at the beginning of 2017 launched the call for a “culture canteen”. Immediate demolition was prevented and a long urban discussion process ensued. As part of Dresden's 2025 Capital of Culture application, it even advanced to become a central interdisciplinary future project. The application for the Capital of Culture failed, but the project should still be adhered to - only Corona and the associated financial situation of the municipality currently put the state capital's intention to buy and renovate on hold. With the Ostrale and the Kunsthaus Dresden, two important cultural institutions that temporarily use the Robotron canteen have now entered this gap. In times of the pandemic and the standstill for culture, the project forms the prelude to an international exhibition that is to connect a network of places and people in urban space spun together in 2022.

Henning Haupt's installation can be seen until June 9, 2021.

Additional Information:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/henning_haupt/
http://henninghaupt.com/

Contact for questions:
Prof. Henning Haupt
Foundations in Art and Architecture, Institute for Buildings  and Design
Faculty of Architecture, TU Dresden
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