Walk on the Carpet (25.04.-12.05.2024)

Students of the Academy of Fine Arts were invited by the Mendelssohn Orchestra Academy to take part in the festival "Meet the MOA. Young artists on stage" festival. The exhibition, which will be shown in the Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, has been prepared by 13 art students since October 2023 especially for this event and tailored to the space of the Leo Schwarz and box office foyer.

The ideas for most of the artworks were developed in a joint exploration of the Gewandhaus, the festival's musical program and numerous encounters and conversations in the Leo Schwarz Foyer. The foyer with its window front and crystal lamps, the wine-red upholstered armchairs and glass tables, the wood-panelled walls and the beige carpet, which shows no signs of wear, forms the visual context for the exhibition. The building itself - the only concert hall built in the GDR and the third Gewandhaus zu Leipzig, which is located on the former site of the Museum der bildenden Künste - brings with it a number of additional meanings.

Artistic works that intervene in a public or institutional space not only reflect the existing meanings, but also bring further perspectives and create their own space. The exhibition negotiates the conditions of art production and viewing, the still existing separation between high and mass culture, personal positioning in the present in relation to tradition, but above all music and the places where the arts are experienced.