Visual Arts - Exhibitions and Artist Portraits

Aernout Mik, „Communitas“, 2010 © Aernout Mik und carlier | gebauer, Berlin, photo: Florian Braun

“Communitas” – Aernout Mik at the Folkwang Museum

The Folkwang Museum in Essen is showing a retrospective of the video artist Aernout Mik. In his works of the past ten years, he has dealt with the political and psycho-social state of society.More ...

A Look Ahead into the 1990s – Michel Majerus

Even after his untimely death, the art of Michel Majerus continues to receive much attention. The Stuttgart Art Museum is showing a retrospective of his work.More ...

Margarete Dietrich. Berlin. 1979; from the series: Berlin in einer Hundenacht. 1977 bis 1990. Gundula Schulze Eldowy, “Die frühen Jahre” C/O Berlin

Images from the Unflinching Lens of Gundula Schulze Eldowy at C/O Berlin

C/O Berlin presents over 120 early works by one of the most remarkable photographers who practiced in East Germany: Gundula Schulze Eldowy.More ...

Otto Dix in front of his house in Hemmenhofen, 1961 | photo: Hannes Kilian @ Haus der Geschichte Baden-Württemberg/Sammlung Kilian

Trust Your Eyes – Otto Dix

His motto was “Trust your eyes”. Otto Dix, one of the great loners of twentieth century art, would have celebrated his 120th birthday in December 2011. An occasion for an unbiased assessment.More ...

Julius Popp, Bit.fall, 2001–06, Courtesy Galerie Jochen Hempel, Leipzig, photo: François Doury, Paris

“The Art of Deceleration” at the Home of the Volkswagen, in Wolfsburg

In a flurry of major works of modern and contemporary art, this show asks: Don’t we need to slow down?More ...

Things Don’t Speak for Themselves – Beate Gütschow

In her photographs of interiors and discarded technical parts, Beate Gütschow recapitulates pictorial strategies. In the Braunschweig Museum for Photography she is showing this new series of works.More ...

Florian Slotawa: “Besitzarbeit I: Gesamtbesitz”, 1996, Installation view Hochschule für Bildende Künste Hamburg, February 1996 | © VG Bild-Kunst Bonn 2011

Worldly Goods and Art. Florian Slotawa

When the student Florian Slotawa hauled all his possessions into his studio, stacked and photographed them, he laid the foundation stone for his artistic work.More ...

J. MAYER H.: Rapport 1428 | © J. MAYER H., photographer: Ludger Paffrath, Berlin

Data Structures – An Exhibition of the Architect Jürgen Mayer H.

The Berlinische Galerie is showing an exponent of contemporary Berlin architecture: Jürgen Mayer H., border-crosser between architecture, design and the visual arts.More ...

Max Beckmann: “Meeresstrand” (Seashore), 1935, oil on canvas, 65 x 95.5 cm (from the exhibition “The Landscapes” at the Basel Kunstmuseum) | Museum Ludwig Köln, Göpel 419, © ProLitteris, Zürich

Magic Reality – Max Beckmann

He was long considered the typical German painter; Max Beckmann is now acclaimed as a titan of modernity. Three museums show his work.More ...

Thomas Ruff | Photo: Ralph Goertz/ IKS-Medienarchiv

Thomas Ruff – Stellar Landscapes

In more than two dozen series on various subjects, Thomas Ruff has investigated the capacities and limits of the medium of photography.More ...

Bernhard Blume, “Geometry and Exhaustion” (Geometrie und Erschöpfung), 2002, from the series “Abstract art” (Abstrakte Kunst) | Courtesy Buchmann Galerie Berlin

The Uprising of Things – Obituary for Bernhard Johannes Blume

The bookseller Walther König cleared his shop window to display publications by Bernhard Blume – to show his appreciation of a great conceptual artist, who died on September 1, 2011.More ...

The Principle of Metamorphosis: Gerhard Richter

His style consists in the constant change of style and has made Gerhard Richter one of the most successful contemporary German painters.More ...

David Claerbout, Vietnam, 1967, near Duc Pho (reconstruction after Hiromichi Mine), 2001 | Courtesy Sammlung Goetz, © David Claerbout / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

“Mouths of Ash” – The Goetz Collection at the Haus der Kunst

To launch her collaboration with the Haus der Kunst, Munich collector Ingvild Goetz has selected from her collection 15 works which deal with the subject of war.More ...

Jonathan Monk, “Remake of the Weekend”, 2010 | courtesy Meyer Riegger, Berlin, © David Brandt

Aha Experiences Aren’t the Point – “Is that true?” At the Dresden Kunsthaus

An exhibition at the Dresden Kunsthaus explores how artists stand with respect to knowledge and truth.More ...

Meuser, Knautsch, 2009 | courtesy Galerie Gisela Capitain Köln

Meuser: Once without Everything

He had endless discussions with Beuys and shared a love for picture titles with Kippenberger. Now Meuser is exhibiting his work at the Municipal Art Gallery in Karlsruhe under the title “Crumple”, guaranteed pathos-free.More ...

Peter Piller: “Kraft” (Kraft), 2010, series of 40 slides | Courtesy Galerie Michael Wiesehöfer © Peter Piller: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Peter Piller: The Abnormal in the Normal

Peter Piller draws, writes texts, photographs and collects. Recently, his own photos have also been incorporated into the Peter Piller Archive, as an exhibition at the Brunswick Art Society shows.More ...

Franz West „Ion“ (2010); © Hugo Glendinning

When Art becomes a Playground: The Exhibition “Move”

Dance as a radical art form of post-war modernity has influenced the works of visual artists in many and diverse ways - or has itself put art into choreographic contexts.More ...

Olafur Eliasson: Your blind movement, 2010; Fluorescent lights, aluminium, steel, fog machine, wood, foil / Dimensions variable; Photo: Studio Olafur Eliasson; Courtesy the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York | © 2010 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson Turns Museums into Inspiring Laboratories

The artist Olafur Eliasson has caused quite a stir internationally with his increasingly complex and striking constructions. At the “Institut für Raumexperimente”, he is now also putting a model for art education to the test.More ...

Timm Ulrichs: Betreten der Ausstellung verboten (i.e., Do Not Enter the Exhibition), 1968/69, Sprengel Museum, Hanover | © VG Bildkunst Bonn, 2011; photo: Herling/Gwose

Timm Ulrichs – Do Not Enter the Exhibition!

The Sprengel Museum and the Kunstverein have devoted a double exhibition to the conceptual artist Timm Ulrichs in his hometown of Hanover.More ...

“Internal Cell Pressure” – Artist Magazines and Books in the Late GDR

An exhibition at the New Museum in Nuremberg offers a look at the diverse, critical scene that used art to buffet against the walls of an ossified and insecure state.More ...

“Afropolis. City – Media –Art” at the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne

With “Afropolis“, the Rautenstrauch-Joest Museum in Cologne has set a course: an ethnological museum opens itself to current global processes of urbanisation and artistic intervention.More ...

Michael Sailstorfer: Rocket Tree (Raketenbaum), 2008, diptych, diasec on aluminium, museum glass; Hennecke Collection, Berlin, Germany | © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2011; photo: Achim Kukulies

Rebellious Promise – Michael Sailstorfer in Hanover

Once again Michael Sailstorfer impresses the viewer with a sculptural arsenal of natural and motorised elements, smell and noise, melancholy and allegory.More ...

Eberhard Havekost: Tier, B08 2008 | © Eberhard Havekost, Galerie Gebrüder Lehmann Dresden/Berlin

Ambitious New Pictures: Eberhard Havekost in Dresden

Recently, figurative elements have disappeared from the pictures of Eberhard Havekost, as the first large museum exhibition of his work in his hometown of Dresden shows.More ...

Anne Lass: Untitled, Las Vergas (2004); © Anne Lass

Focus on the Unknown: Young German Photographic Art in “Hijacked 2”

Desolate urban environments, phony war snapshots, ghostly border crossings: the book “Hijacked 2” shows how young German photographers have repositioned themselves in a global world.More ...

Abbas Kiarostami: Filmstill from „Shirin“, 2008

Future and Tradition. Exhibition in the Munich House of Art

Exactly 100 years after the exhibition ‘Masterpieces if Mohammedan Art’, the Munich House of Art brings ‘classics’ of Islamic art face to face with contemporary Arabic artistic positions.More ...

Thomas Geiger: Der Untergang, 2009 | Courtesy Weingrüll, Karlsruhe

Bottle post from the home port

In the Städtische Galerie in Karlsruhe, students and graduates of the local art academy are exhibiting their works under the title: “The Irresistible Rise of Daredevils and Losers”.More ...

photo: Markus Tretter © Kunsthaus Bregenz, Cosima von Bonin

Cosima von Bonin in Bregenz

“Bye Bye Utopia” and welcome to “Fatigue Empire” – the wealth of ideas and the positive presence of the works of Cosima von Bonin and raumlaborberlin contradict their pessimistic titles.More ...

Rosemarie Trockel: Untitled | Photo: Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler

In Flux – Rosemarie Trockel in Basel and Zürich

In her work, which weaves its way among various media, she masters the balancing act between abstraction and empathy. Now, Rosemarie Trockel is being acclaimed with two exhibitions in Switzerland.More ...

© Mark Leckey, courtesy: Galerie Daniel Buchholz

Moving Images – Artists & Video/Film 1958–2010

An exhibition in the Museum Ludwig explores the development of the two rival technologies of video and film – differences and similarities, convergences as well as divergences.More ...

Sigmar Polke: The Three Lies of Painting, 1994 | photo: Haydar Koyupinar, Courtesy Gallery Michael Werner Berlin, Cologne, New York © Sigmar Polke 2010

For an inventive magician – Tribute to Sigmar Polke

Playing with materials and content, Sigmar Polke gave our present an ironic grilling as inexorable as it was light-footed.More ...

Tobias Zielony, BMX, 2008. From the series Trona | © Kunstverein Hamburg

The Queer Bird Of Youth – Tobias Zielony in Hamburg

The Hamburger Kunstverein is showing works by photographer Tobias Zielony. They cast an imploring perspective on the worlds between childhood and becoming an adult.More ...

Your Uncertain Shadow (color), 2010. Halogen lamps, glass, aluminum,
variable dimensions | Photo: Jens Ziehe. Courtesy the artist; neugerriemschneider, Berlin; Tanya Bonakdar Gallery, New York © 2010 Olafur Eliasson

Olafur Eliasson: The Miracles Happens in the Eye

At the Martin Gropius Bau in Berlin, Olafur Eliasson has set in motion a visual arsenal of dissimulation, fog actions and space modulations.More ...

Neo Rauch | Die Vorführung, 2006, oil on canvas, 300 x 420 cm, Rubell Family Collection, Miami. PHOTO: UWE WALTER, COURTESY GALERIE EIGEN + ART, BERLIN AND DAVID ZWIRNER, NEW YORK © VG BILD-KUNST, BONN 2011

“Companions” – Celebrating Neo Rauch’s 50th Birthday

A major double exhibition in Neo Rauch’s home city of Leipzig and in Munich celebrates the painter’s 50th birthday and shows how his paintings have changed.More ...

Franz Ackermann: Leben und Sterben (Living and Dying), 2009 (installation detail, Bonn 2009) | Photo: Reni Hansen

Franz Ackermann’s spatial art at the Bonn Art Museum

From small-format “Mental Maps” to large-scale installations – Franz Ackermann transforms travel impressions into explosive, pop-art wall canvases.More ...

Andreas Hofer: “Trans Time” | Photo: Sammlung Goetz

Batman’s Gallery – Andreas Hofer in The Goetz Collection

Andreas Hofer, a shooting star in Germany’s contemporary art scene, once again demostrates the sovereignty with which he is able to cocoon entire rooms with his rough, raw use of signs.More ...

Corinne Wasmuht: Pathfinder, 2002 | Photo: Heinz Pelz

In the Vortex of the World – Corinne Wasmuht in Berlin

The Haus am Waldsee in Berlin presents “Supracity”, the first retrospective of the work of Corinne Wasmuht, who paints pictures – slowly and deliberately – of a high-speed world.More ...

Thomas Struth: Crossroads with passers-by, Wuhan, 1995 | © Schirmer/Mosel Verlag, Thomas Struth

The World of Today – Texts on the Work of Thomas Struth

Desolate streets and densely populated museum-like interior spaces, family portraits and individual portraits: as diverse as Thomas Struth’s themes might seem, the uniformity lies in the consistency of showing what is there.More ...

Beate Gütschow, 2001, C-print
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011. Courtesy Louise and Eric Franck Collection, London; Barbara Gross Galerie, Munich; Produzentengalerie Hamburg; Sonnabend Gallery, New York.

What we see is fictive – Beate Gütschow in Dresden

The Berlin-based photographer Beate Gütschow, who came to prominence with idyllic, green landscapes and bleak, black-and-white images of cities, has found an ideal exhibition venue in Dresden.More ...

A. R. Penck: Der Übergang (Passage), 1963. Aachen, Sammlung Ludwig, Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst © 2009 A. R. Penck

Attempts to Account for the Unspeakable: “Art of Two Germanys/Cold War Cultures”

Between 1949 and 1989, despite the ideological borders between the two countries, artists on either side of the Wall were more attuned to one another than a glimpse at that brief chapter in art history would suggest.More ...

Thomas Demand: Büro / Office, 1995. C-Print / Diasec, 183.5 x 240 cm © Thomas Demand, VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Draped Scenes – Thomas Demand at the New National Gallery in Berlin

One of the most important German artists, Thomas Demand, uses around 40 images to bring together his photographic historical interpretation of the 60th anniversary of the Federal Republic.More ...

Katharina Fritsch Company at Table, 1988, polyester, wood, cotton, paint, 1600 x 175 x 140 cm; Museum of Modern Art, Frankfurt am Main; On permanent loan from the Dresdner Bank, Frankfurt; Copyright: VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, 2011

Katharina Fritsch – Dancing to the Tune of the Muse

It is a successful revival in more ways than one. The exhibition of Katharina Fritsch at the Kunsthaus Zürich surprises us with flirtatious glimpses of a new rococo.More ...

Thomas Schütte 
Großer Geist (Big Spirit) No. 4 and No. 5, 1997; Großer Geist (Big Spirit) No. 14, 1999  
Polished aluminium, 246 x 187 x 112 cm; 238 x 200 x 131 cm; 250 x 100 x 110 cm 
De Pont museum of contemporary art Tilburg, NL
 Photo: Florian Holzherr 
Copyright: Thomas Schütte / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Big Spirits and Little Imps – Thomas Schütte in Munich’s Haus der Kunst

With a keen sense for the humour and unfathomable depths of his figures, the high halls in the “Haus der Kunst” have been bedecked with the sculptural and graphic works of Thomas Schütte.More ...

Andreja Kuluncic: For Austrians only, 2005 © Andreja Kuluncic
Selja Kameric: Bosnian Girl, 2003 © Selja Kameric

A Pair of Left Shoes – Reality Check in Eastern Europe

20 Eastern European artists are exhibiting in Bochum Art Museum. They come from eleven nations, especially from the Balkan States. In their works they tell of hurtful prejudices, rock music and life in uninhabitable dream houses.More ...

Candida Höfer: Türken in Deutschland (Turks in Germany), slideshow 1979
© 2011 VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn

Candida Höfer: “Projects: Done” at Morsbroich Museum

Candida Höfer’s latest show combines an inventive projection into the future with a retrospective of accomplishments past: “Projects: Done”, her 15th and latest project, provides a sort of résumé of her completed photo series.More ...

IMI KNOEBEL: RAUM 19 III 1968/2006. New National Gallery, Berlin, 2009 | © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011; Photo: Ivo Faber

Exhibiting in a Space Without Walls: Imi Knoebel in Berlin – Twice Over!

He confronts an icon of architecture with a couple of cans of paint: Imi Knoebel has applied rhythmic brush-strokes to the glass exterior of the New National Gallery in Berlin and has put together a minimal selection of his works in the exhibition area. In a second show, this artist, who lives in Düsseldorf, shows that he is not the least bit afraid of red, yellow and blue.More ...

Katharina Grosse
shadowbox, 2009
Acrylic on laminated hard foam (partial view)
Photo: Jens Ziehe, Berlin
© Temporäre Kunsthalle Berlin / Katharina Grosse /
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Colour Manoeuvres between Heaven and Earth – Katharina Grosse in Berlin and Nuremberg

For at least ten years now, the German painter Katharina Grosse has cast a spell over museum walls with her vapoury atmospheric colour mists. She has successfully replaced the brush with the airbrush. In two exhibitions Grosse now shows that illusory colour spaces can be transferred to sculptural objects. An attempt that does not invariably succeed.More ...

Katharina Sieverding, Steigbild X, 1977
A/D/A Process, acrylic, steel, 300 x 375 cm
Courtesy Galerie Christian Lethert, Köln
Photo: Klaus Mettig.
Copyright: Katharina Sieverding/VF Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Miracles and Exorcised Demons: “Drei” (i.e. “three”) – An Exhibition In Stuttgart on the Triptych in Modern Art

For the very first time, a survey exhibition focuses on the development of the modern triptych. Starting with the late 19th century, the Stuttgart Museum of Art explores the forms that this class of paintings – considered to be among the most majestic – has taken since then. A long-overdue exhibition, researched and organised in a true spirit of discovery, and which does not fail to include utterly contemporary apocalypses and experiments with colour.More ...

Olaf Otto Becker: Inland Ice 2, Grönland 07/2007, 69°41’00’’ N, 049°53’22’’ W, 829 Meter Höhe. Pigment print, 160 x 200 cm © DuMont Buchverlag

“Vanishing Landscapes” – With Nothing But GPS And A Camera

Artists from ten countries went to Iceland, the Arctic and the jungle to photograph landscapes that future generations will most probably never be able to see.More ...

Henriette Grahnert
© Galerie Kleindienst

Henriette Grahnert: The Painter and the Ambiguous Playfulness of Her Painting

She is one of those exciting graduates of the Leipzig Art Academy whose virtuosity lies in pushing painting to the limits of its possibilities and for which they have won international acclaim. But instead of figures, she elevates paint drippings and painter’s tape to the protagonists of her oil-on-canvas paintings. She was awarded the Bank of Saxony’s Art Award in 2008, and exhibits her works in Leipzig’s Museum of Fine Arts.More ...

Alexander Kosolapov
This is my Blood, 2002
Leuchtkasten
82 x 150 cm
Courtesy Guelman Gallery
VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Religion in the Media, Media as a Religion: an exhibition in the Center for Art and Media in Karlsruhe

Holy scriptures, icons, music and song: religions have always made use of various media forms to put their messages across. An exhibition in the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in Karlsruhe demonstrates the extent to which visual communication is now characterised by political/religious imagery.More ...

Reiner Ruthenbeck, Endless crossing black/white on two mirrors, 1995, Tape on mirror glass, 240 x 300 cm; Photograph: Juan García Rosell, IVAM Valencia; © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2011

Precision and Good Cheer: Reiner Ruthenbeck in Duisburg and Düsseldorf

Drawings and photographs, sculptures, spatial works, conceptual projects and noise pieces: The artist Reiner Ruthenbeck (born 1937) has created an extraordinarily multifaceted oeuvre. Two exhibitions are currently looking back over his career.More ...

Gerhard Richter, Cage (2), 2006, 300 x 300 cm, private collection, © Gerhard Richter

Visual Arts in Germany: Exhibitions and Artist Portraits

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