Dorothy Iannone and Juliette Blightman

“The Köln Concert,” an exhibition of works by Dorothy Iannone and Juliette Blightman, curated by Nikola Dietrich, arose from an emotional connection between the artists across the nearly five decades that separate them, resonant with the vital role that love plays in both their practices. Their exchange was sparked by Blightman’s encounter with Iannone’s 1970 publication The Story of Bern (or) Showing Colors (exhibited here as a slideshow), which narrativized the censorship of her work from the 1969 group exhibition “Freunde” (Friends) at the Kunsthalle Bern in Switzerland. For that show, curator Harald Szeemann asked artists to invite friends to exhibit alongside them.