Martin Kippenberger: The Happy End of Franz Kafka's 'Amerika'

Held on the late Martin Kippenberger's birthday, this afternoon symposium responds to the artist's satirical final work, The Happy End of Franz Kafka's ‘Amerika’ 1994. Kippenberger’s vast installation references Kafka’s unfinished novel, in which the protagonist, Karl Rossmann, having travelled across America, navigates an immense employment recruiting centre, ‘the biggest theatre in the world’. Arranged on a reconstructed football field, the installation is comprised of work by other artists including Jason Rhoades, Tony Oursler and Donald Judd; classic twentieth-century furniture by designers such as Arne Jacobsen, Charles and Ray Eames, and Marcel Breuer; remnants from Kippenberger's previous exhibitions; and flea market acquisitions. The work is an absurd and touching testament to the vulnerability of the individual within the power dynamics of the social order. Reflecting Kippenberger's belief in the fundamental importance of relationships and dialogues, his final work also provides a witty critique of the position of the artist at the end of the twentieth century.

The participants in the symposium include Daniel Baumann, Michael Krebber, Martin Prinzhorn and Dorothea von Hantelmann.