Art Calendar – Current Exhibitions in Germany

She was prized for her independence of mind and her love of experimentation, which refused to shrink before any material or any genre. In 2013 Meret Oppenheim would have been 100 years old. In Berlin, the city of her birth, the Martin Gropius Bau is now dedicating a retrospective to the artist.

She lived for the longest time of her life in Switzerland. In the 1930s she lived for a time in Paris, the capital of Surrealism. There she became friends with Alberto Giacometti, Hans Arp and Max Ernst. She became famous overnight in 1936 with a fur-covered cup, which André Breton entitled Breakfast in Fur.

Until her death in 1985, Oppenheim continued to produce drawings, paintings, objects, collages, poems, jewellery and fashion. Never without humour, she treated dreams and myths, the invisible and transformations – between animals and man and between the sexes. She always defied taking a purely feminist approach. Whether it was a glass with a squirrel tail, a Halsband mit Mund (i.e., Necklace with Mouth) or a pair of lace-up shoes tied at the peak – the common denominator in the Oppenheim’s work is non-conformity and the consistent realization of every idea. “Freedom”, said Meret Oppenheim in 1975, “is not given to you – you have to take it”.