UNPUBLISHED – The comic scene unpacks! Strips and Stories – from Wilhelm Busch to Flix

Strips and Stories – von Wilhelm Busch bis Flix

03.10.2021 bis 16.01.2022

More than 50 comic artists from German-speaking countries open their drawers and provide insight into previously unpublished material. In the exhibition you can discover more than 300 drawings that no one has seen before! Newcomers meet well-known and famous illustrators and make it clear that they all have projects that have so far remained unfinished. Some were rejected or even censored by the publisher. Sometimes there is a lack of time and leisure to pursue project ideas and matters of the heart to completion. Other stories, on the other hand, have been completed and are ready to be printed in large quantities....

A large part of these ambitious projects are freely created drawings and stories which, due to their independence on clients, illustrate the signature of the respective artists to a large extent. At the same time, this compilation of different comic genres, drawing styles and currents provides an insightful overview of German-language comic history. For the first time, so many important players from the current comic scene meet in this constellation and thus illustrate the complexity, innovation and influence of the illustrators and their works. Unseen treasures and previously hidden masterpieces are waiting to be discovered!

The pain of the Father? The Trinitarian Pietà between Gothic and Baroque

To a sculpture from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection

26.09.2021 bis 09.01.2022

The starting point for the thematic one-room show on the so-called "Notgottes", which will then also be shown in the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen, are five late medieval sculptures from the Aachen Museum. Among these is a central or southern German piece from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection, which was transferred to the municipal collection with the large donation in 1977. For the first time, this sculpture will be brought into focus and discussed in its iconographic context.

The concept of the "emergency god", which was only introduced into art history in 1936, refers to the image of God the Father, who presents the body of his son or the living-dead man of pain to the viewer. Thematically, the ghost dove also belongs to this type of picture, which, however, has not been preserved in many pictorial works.

Not infrequently, the concept of the mercy chair and sometimes also the "Compassio patris", mercy or pain of the father, can be found for this motif.

The Trinitarian motif in the form of the so-called "emergency god" is often found in sculpture and painting in the late Middle Ages and early modern times, but also in graphics. In addition to isolated older publications, the few more recent studies refer to the beginnings of this motif around 1400 and in the first half of the 15th century.

A more comprehensive presentation, which includes the period of greatest distribution around 1500, is still missing. There has also been no exhibition on this topic yet. In the scientific essay! The image of the Sancta Trinitas with the Sacrificed Redeemer - Passion Mysticism and Sacramental Cult" by Dr. Dagmar Preising traces the history of the so-called "Emergency God" in painting, sculpture and graphics from the late Middle Ages to the Reformation and Counter-Reformation.

The different characteristics are classified according to types. In addition, it is important to highlight the iconographic and functional context of the representations of the Emergency Of God. Passion mysticism and sacramental cult form the cultural-historical framework for the emergence and dissemination of this iconography. In addition, related types of images, such as the Angel's Pietà and the Chair of Grace in the form of God the Father with Christ on the Cross, are discussed.

Around the sculpture that forms the center, other so-called "not-god representations" as well as pieces with closely related pictorial subjects are grouped, which illustrate the topicality of this theme from the Gothic to the Baroque.