“Die Rede” is a free edition of Meret Oppenheim’s ‘Acceptance speech for the art prize of the city of Basel’ from 1975 where she famously said that ‘Freedom is not a given, you have to take it’.
On the occasion of the solo show ‘9 espaces distincts’ at Kunsthaus Langenthal this text was published for the first time alongside an undated, subsequently written annex by Oppenheim which I found during an extended research in the Swiss Literary Archives. In it, she expands on some of her concerns formulated within the speech. Visitors of the exhibition were invited to take a set of copies of the risograph-printed speech with them. I’m deeply thankful to Lisa Wenger – Meret Oppenheim’s niece – for her generosity as well as to the Swiss Literary Archives which both played an important role in making this project possible.
The risographs printed by Gaspard Weissheimer in Basel.
Image: courtesy Kunsthaus Langenthal, photo by CE.
