SHOOT! SHOOT! SHOOT!

Photographs from the 60s and 70s from the Nicola Erni Collection

21.01.2018 bis 27.05.2018

Brigitte Bardot with a blonde mane, Yves Saint-Laurent stark naked and Mick Jagger with a fur hat: icons from the worlds of film, fashion and music photographed by superstars such as Richard Avedon, Bert Stern and Helmut Newton resuscitate in the LUDWIGGALERIE the verve of life of the 1960s and 1970s.

The black and white photographs presented on coloured museum walls radiate with aplomb. Party, politics, fashion, music, art and the cult of the body are pictorially depicted by Warhol's Factory and the associated New York scene.

The Beatles letting off heat with a pillow fight, Twiggy as the new, androgynous supermodel and the stars of Hollywood reflect the important moments in time through impressive portraits.

Over 200 photographs from the Swiss Nicola Erni Collection document a Who's Who of celebrity society. With their adulation of the cult of the person, sensual pleasure and total devotion to the moment the photographs exude a sense of uninterrupted fascination.

Exhibition concept: Photography collection/Stadtmuseum Munich.

In cooperation with the Nicola Erni Collection and Ira Stehmann.

MORDILLO

The Very Optimistic Pessimist

24.09.2017 bis 07.01.2018

Who doesn't know the speechless balloon-nosed characters capable of telling so much with their facial expressions, gestures and interaction with their surroundings? Guillermo Mordillo, born in 1932 in Buenos Aires, has been illustrating his rotund figures for many decades and references a wide and multi-coloured spectrum of topics: people with their specific peculiarities are lovingly portrayed, love itself with its trials and tribulations, animals with human characteristics, football, golf and also political motifs find their way into the artist’s frequently highly surreal worlds.

In his images he not only brings unequal things into unity in a surreal way but also enables his characters to effortlessly clear the minor and major hurdles of everyday life. Freely interpreted according to his statement of "humour is the spirit that dances pirouettes in the middle of the endless dance of life", Mordillo reverses world-weariness and melancholy into contrary meanings with his humour, offering observers the possibility of counteracting the pessimism of everyday life with a touch of optimism. In his both funny and contemplative drawings he repeatedly relates minor stories taken from life without the need for words.

More than 150 of his seldom-presented originals have been brought together in the exhibition, offering an insight into the work of the internationally active artist and the recipient of many awards. The exhibition is also supplemented with high quality prints and an extensive biography of Mordillo. Images from his creative periods in Buenos Aires, Lima, New York, Paris and Monaco offer viewers a precise overview of his multifarious work, and initial humorous drawings from his time as a graphic designer in advertising and as an illustrator trace his early talent and capacity for visual communication.

For the first time in 25 years an extensive exhibition shows a retrospective selection of original works in a German museum. In addition to black and white drawings from his early years, many of his currently highly coloured pictorial worlds are also being shown at the LUDWIGGALERIE. Jungles, lonely islands, pirate ships and the big city are waiting to be discovered!

In cooperation with the Karikaturmuseum Krems and Guillermo Mordillo.

Finding the Unexpected
Sam Shaw
60 Years of Photography
21 May to 17 September 2017

With the exhibition Finding the Unexpected. SAM SHAW. 60 Years of Photography, LUDWIGGALERIE Schloss Oberhausen dedicates itself to one of the most important American photographers of the 20th century. The various facets of the multifaceted work of Shaw, born in New York, are highlighted in a detailed and extensive presentation. Icons such as Marilyn Monroe from The Seven Year Itch can be seen (who doesn't remember the fluttering pleats skirt?) alongside his inventive portraits of artists and photo stories of poverty and crime.

Sam Shaw's career began as a photographer for Collier's magazine. He gained prominence with the essay How America Lives, displaying the multifarious faces of everyday American life in the 1940s far removed from the glitz and glamour of his later Hollywood shots. Portraits of stars, artists and intellectuals of the era embellish an array of magazine front pages such as LIFE or Look and determine our collective visual memory until the present day.

Movies are the major role model for his photography. As a result, Shaw frequently uses unusual perspectives reminiscent of camera angles in film sequences. An additional interest in painting is not only witnessed in the portraits of artists but also in highly painterly shots achieved using lenses with a longer focal length. The photographs have a narrative nature and are often designed as a series: whether the photographer accompanies Sophia Loren on a day of filming or pursuing children at play. Many motifs and city landscapes also reveal a graphic interest, and with nature shots Shaw favours early evening or morning hours with a low sun.

A wide-ranging retrospective can be seen at Oberhausen presenting around 230 black and white photographs in cooperation with the Shaw Family Archives New York. In addition to the classics, topical aspects from his 60-year career can also be seen focusing on sport, portraits, crime and the movies.

"Personally, I search to specifically find. For me it's a visual adventure to locate the unexpected or to see what'll happen around the next corner. I've only seldom arranged a photo compositionally – the only exception was the shot of Marilyn Monroe in the series with the fluttering dress." 

LET'S BUY IT!

Art and shopping

From Albrecht Dürer to Andy Warhol to Gerhard Richter
22 January to 14th May 2017

Art and shopping, two things which are closely and seem to be but far apart. Albrecht Dürer occurs as one of the first art entrepreneurs at the turn of the middle ages to modern times. Over the centuries, the fashions of the art market is reflected in overpainting or reinterpretations of themes. Original, copy and forgery, the question arises again and again. Large bubbles such as the Tulpomania of the 17th century to connect art and money market.

The 20th century is all tradition on its head. Marcel Duchamp declared industrial goods to the art, Andy Warhol and the representatives of the pop art supermarket products include in their images. And the behavior of people when shopping is observed not only in Rudolf Holtappels photo series people in a department store . When Gerhard Richter seems to show MOM and daughter Brigitte Bardot with her mother shopping in his painting, the subject of shopping combined with the most expensive painter of the current art market.

The 1960s were trying to break down barriers with new forms such as multiple and pad printing and to make the connection between art and life with the claim of "Art for all". But the gap is getting bigger, the art market is exploding for years and also the financial crisis this phenomenon could do any harm. That art has become the "most expensive luxury goods of our cultural circle" (Piroschka Dossi), it rub the artists. There are critical positions in addition to the general consumer behaviour and also the money, the means of payment for art and luxury, is part of the works or carrier of the images.

This broad-based exhibition, the works of the 15th century to today, from engraving to video installation, combines, illuminates the wide field that combines art and shopping for the first time in this form.

Entenhausen > > > > Oberhausen

Donald, Mickey and friends

drawn in the Disney Factory by

Carl Barks, Floyd Gottfredson and Al Taliaferro

and Jan Gulbransson, Don Rosa and Ulrich Schröder

September 25, 2016 until 15 January 2017

We connect the great Walt Disney and its huge factory Donald Duck, Micky Maus and their often very independent - like Uncle Scrooge - friends and relatives. But who were the Illustrator behind the Disney Empire, who invented the characters and their worlds and developed the Duckburg universe?
The Oberhausen exhibition presents the three old masters: the mouse man Floyd Gottfredson, which the Mausiversum to us on Earth took; Al Taliaferro, cartoonist of the daily newspaper strips with Donald and the nephews Tick, Trick and Track obstetricians and many other family members always still widely unknown. As well as the esteemed founder of duck picks and father of many characters such as Uncle Scrooge, Daniel Düsentrieb, or the shell crackers, Carl Barks.
But the stories continue after the death of these three great artist, and also focuses on the presentation of Oberhausen. The Germany-born Ulrich Schröder draws stories and especially cover around mouse and duck today. The German Jan Gulbransson and Americans Don Rosa let Donald continued his outburst accompanied adventure and bathe with Uncle Scrooge in the money. In original drawings and prints, of which many leaves are to see the first time publicly, can now immerse visitors in the Cosmos Entenhausen›››Oberhausen›››.
The exhibition is one of the most extensive so far shown presentations to Donald, Mickey, and their subscribers. In cooperation with the collection of Ina Brockmann and Peter Reichelt, Mannheim.

REGINA RELANG
Staged elegance
Fashion and photojournalism from 1930 to 1980
May 22 to September 18, 2016

Regina Relang (Stuttgart 1906-1989 Munich) begins her photographic career in Paris in the 1930s. She celebrates her first success with reportage shots, incurred during her travels through southern Europe. The physically heavy work of the advocates of the loads in the port of Porto arouses interest as well as a traditional Macedonian wedding in Galičnik. In the post-war period, Relang has become the leading fashion photographer of in Germany. Renowned fashion designers such as Christian Dior, Pierre Cardin and Yves Saint Laurent are among her clients, her photographs are printed in contemporary fashion journals such as Constanze, Madame or film and wife .

In her photographs, aptly called "Showcase in movement", combined with everyday situations on unconventional and unusual fashion of kind of. The ruins of the destroyed Munich's serve you just as much as a backdrop like the colorful and lively urban bustle of international fashion capitals. With her own photographic style, Relang overcomes the boundaries between fashion and reportage photography. She staged her models as Star mannequins in the spirit of the glamorous world of film or embeds the latest collections in an everyday context. In the 1960s changes her photographic gaze and photographed in the Studio.

The exhibition spans the range from the early tour reports of 1930 about fashion photography of the post-war period the photographs for glossy magazines like the Lady or VOGUE. It presents Relangs lifetime achievement and reflects the history of German fashion photography of half a century at the same time.

For the first time, a selection from the papers of Regina Relangs from the collection is photography of the Munich City Museum outside the southern area with this exhibition to see.

AMERICAN POP ART
Masterpieces en masse
by Robert Rauschenberg to Andy Warhol from the collection of Heinz Beck
24 January 2016 until 16 may 2016

With the advent of pop art in America are not only subjects of everyday life such as comics, flags or Soup cans art worthy. The question of the original and genius cult discusses in terms of succession Marcel Duchamp - - and causes among other things, that artists began their screen prints, but also objects as ars multiple, en masse as masterpieces to hang up. Art for everyone is the motto, which leads to an own expression and unconventional forms.

The Wilhelm-Hack-Museum in Ludwigshafen is home to a magnificent collection of works of the 1960s and 70's with the collection of the Düsseldorf lawyer Heinz Beck. The special characteristics of this collection lies in Beck's penchant for editions and multiples, which impressively reflects exactly the desire of the time for a democratized art. First shows the LUDWIG GALERIE Schloss Oberhausen a selection of American pop art, which shows the special approach, not only a central figure such as Andy Warhol,. Editions provide insights into artists friendships and art market behavior such as 7 in a box by 1966 or ten from leo castelli from 1967-68.

Participating artists and artist:
Arman (Armand Fernandez), art workers Coalition, Richard Bernstein, Christo, Robert Cottingham, Allan D'Arcangelo, Jim Dine, Don Eddy, Richard Estes, Hans-Dietrich Froese, Ralph goings, Robert Graham, Eila Hershon, Robert Indiana, Alain Jaquet, Jasper Johns, Howard Kanovitz, Allan Kaprow, Alex Katz, Edward Kienholz, R.B. Kitaj, Roy Lichtenstein, Liliane Lijn, Robert W. Munford, Lowel B. Nesbitt, Claes Oldenburg, Mel Ramos, Robert Rauschenberg, Larry rivers , James ROSENQUIST, Edward Ruscha, George Segal, Robert Stanley, Alan Turner, Andy Warhol, Tom WESSELMANN

THE GOOD WAY TO HEAVEN

Late medieval images to right die
The painting Ars moriendi bene from the collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig
21 February to 8 may 2016

The exhibition is devoted to an important piece from the collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig in cooperation with the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen again. The oak table, around 1475, Calvary is attributed to the master of the Sinziger, dealing with rare for the Panel painting of the ars moriendi bene, the central in the middle ages question of right dying.

For the first time this Board is now a stylistic and iconographic examined and classified in the subject area of good dying and the representation of the design (intercession of the Virgin Mary and Christ), which are connected to each other in this picture. More valuable loans such as the unique ars moriendiblock book of the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz or the representation of the poor Lazarus from the collection marks Thomée complement this concentrated a space show with additional loans from the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum.

A parallel presentation of the exhibition American pop art shows the first amazing appearing content links. The banners of such medieval tables, transcribed for the first time for this show, are the precursors of the typical comic balloons. Also, they offer an orientation by reading order and connection to the characters. Roy Lichtenstein achievements are without not thinking this. And the theme of death is in the pop art Central, just think of Andy Warhol's death and disasterseries.

Ruthe Sauer Flix

THIS IS HOWEVER NOT AN ART!

Comics and cartoons between Shit Happens, NICHTLUSTIG and Beautiful Daughters

20th September 2015 - 17 January 2016

Three of the most prominent German comic book and cartoon artists are guests in the LUDWIG Gallery. Ralph Ruthe, Joscha Sauer and Flix (Felix Görmann) decisively determine the scene of the German comics and cartoons for years and their works clearly show the transitions and limits of the medium.

Ralph Ruthe is well-known for his daily disasters, which happen his protagonists in shit happens. The triad of giraffe, rhinoceros and koala bear - neck, nose, ears - deals with the many small mishaps which are the resuluts of too distinct parts of the body. A rich repertoire of the animal world - whether cow, hamster, vulture, or lion - experience predicaments. Tree and death in cartoons stand out particularly as figures. Ruthe working heavily with the moving image for some time. He produces animated films from his cartoon, which he provides himself congenially with voices, sound and music. Currently he is working on a stage program, with which he is touring through Germany during the exhibition. Here, the boundaries of the drawn image be far left.

NICHTLUSTIG from Joscha Sauer has become the cult and trademark. A widespread personal crowded his cartoons. In addition to the suicidal lemmings (for which he has decided also in the theme chosen for this exhibition as an Alter Ego ) the yetis or Mr Riebmann, resident in a wall, find as well attention as death and his poodle, Fäkalini, Ninja, aliens or scientists Wilson and Pickett. Also for Sauer, the moving image plays an increasingly important role, he is currently working on an animated series. All three artist make available new cartoons and comics on their Web pages.

So Flix provides little everyday situations under the title hero days, arranged mostly in four boxes, in the network. Ruthe and Sauer have chosen the cartoon, so the frame, as their medium, Flix is extensive and sometimes literature-based comics. Faust or Don Quijote be retold here highly original. Hero debut, already showed the strong influence of his stories with the own life and experience. The beautiful daughters who appear currently to the exhibition as a book, play as observations of daily life like many of his other stories. And Ferdinand the reporter dog he gives appearance and embossed regularly in DEIN SPIEGEL, while Ralph Ruthe writes the stories. A very instructive and amusing matter. Is it art? Find out for yourself!

Green city shaped landscape -

networked nature the Ruhr in art

10 May to 13 September 2015

Roads, waterways, railway lines and power lines expand and connect, disconnect, and cut. They are the key design features of the Ruhr area. These large corridors dominate the landscape of the region and also currently give rise to discussion. A counter to the energy revolution or disfigurement of scenic panoramas is the construction of electricity pylons? Means a direct motorway connection mobility and modernity or noise and danger? Different room profiles bear witness of wounded landscape, restoration and structural change. This exhibition, titled challenging GREEN CITY visualizes the unusual and complex networked landscape of the Ruhr region by the artistic look. The themes of ecology, climate, environmental protection and energy are not only social importance, but play a central role for a long time in the works of numerous artists. The LUDWIG gallery presents a spectrum of this idiosyncratic artistic employment, with works by regional artists as well as international artists. Critical examiner works show rivers and roads. Objectives in the outdoor space make sculptural or color the landscape. Photographic series show the re-conquest of spaces by nature. It is worked with natural such as industrial materials, cross-genre and experimental. The actually invisible electrical current can become the subject of art! Works of art in the vicinity of the LUDWIG Gallery in addition open the museum space in the environment.

Herlinde Koelbl
The German living room, traces of power, hair and other human things
- Photographs from 1980 to today

25 January to 3 May 2015

This extensive exhibition presents the work of one of the most prominent German photographers. Mid-1970s discovered the living in the vicinity of Munich Herlinde Koelbl their passion for photography. From the outset special feeling for the people, idiosyncratic topics and their approach to work in long term projects showed her himself. The German living room was her first published book in 1980 and is today one of the classics of German photographic history. More than a dozen books should follow, as well as numerous awards, international lecturer, and exhibitions.
But it would be too short taken alone as a photographer to see Herlinde Koelbl. A comprehensive text and interview work belongs to many of their projects. Films and video installations complement their work. At the German living room, letting the subjects come to Word. The Jewish portraits of 1989 the comprehensive answers of the "last generation of Jewish German, who were born in the fertile german Jewish symbiosis - and who then had to witness their destruction" belong inseparably to the factory and give testimony about questions on religion, tradition and home.
Herlinde of Kalash is reflected as well in the series for children, men and strong women - profound interest in the people sometimes winking at the observations to fine people. But it is often almost sociological analyses, providing them with their projects, so when clothes make the man, where Kaiser explored the effect of professional ornaten. Writer and whose place of work are used by her in the picture, and again it is the man who is at the Centre. About his body's jewelry, hair, or even through the examination of licence and be.
Her perhaps best-known project is the long-term study traces the power. 1991 began this study applied initially for eight years, was looking for fifteen politicians, and politicians, as well as CEO and observed during their annual visit, as Office and responsibility, public attention and pressure to succeed changed people. The images of Joschka Fischer, Gerhard Schröder and Angela Merkel in particular are indispensable from the German pictorial memory.

Coup d'etat
150 years of German-language comics since MAX and Moritz
14 September 2014 to 18 January 2015

"Crack Ratze! "- full of trick / in the bridge a gap." In the autumn of 1864, Wilhelm Busch completed his most famous picture story: Max and Moritz. This bad boy pranks are today considered the birth of the German comics. With coup d'etat, the LUDWIG gallery now shows the first big overall view on the history and development of the comics in German-speaking countries. Divided into 15 chapters (pranks), the favorite comics of the Germans in almost 300 original drawings and over 60 first-prints will be presented.
Father and son, Kanchi, fix and Foxi, Mecki or Strizz then populate Schloss Oberhausen. Ralf König has as well as Walter Moers the moved man cult figure of the little asshole. In addition, this first retrospective exhibition of comic granted fascinating insights into the local comic scene of the present. The artistically ambitious graphic novels by Isabel Kreitz or Reinhard Kleist join avant-garde works by Hendrik Dorgathen or Anke Feuchtenberger. And also the latest developments, such as German gas to Japanese-style, superhero comics for the U.S. market or web comics, are part of the exhibition.
You make it clear that the German language comic like never before is so versatile and high-quality. In 150 years, he won continuously on innovative power.

Eve Arnold
Hommage to the major Magnum photographer
19 January to 18 May 2014
 

One of the most important women photographers of the twentieth century, Eve Arnold, is honoured within this wide-ranging retrospective. She began as a self-taught photographer in the 1940s, was taken on at an early stage by the Magnum photo agency and achieved photographic history during the course of her life over almost 100 years. The beguiling fashion shots in Harlem, the enduring cooperation with Marilyn Monroe, the observance of the beginnings of life, her political documentations as well of course, and the famous photos taken on her travels to Afghanistan, South Africa and China all track her highly unique and truly impressive pictorial language.

Andy Warhol
Pop Artist
19 January to 18 May 2014
 

Soup cans and Marilyn Monroe, album covers and the assassination of John F. Kennedy: Andy Warhol is one of the most important exponents of Pop Art, and he was the artist who rendered social themes, daily media and mass products presentable as art. He confronted observers with familiar objects snatched from an artificial, consumption-oriented and superficial world.
The use of the new technique of screenprinting used in advertising offered him unlimited possibilities and characterised the inherent aesthetics of his images, along with their high recognition factor. Interpreting everyday objects artistically and producing en masse – Warhol created symbols and icons that assert the same level of mesmerisation today.

Hair! Hair in the world of art Masterpieces from the Ludwig Collection,
from Antiquity until Warhol from Tilman Riemenschneider to Cindy Sherman
22 September 2013 to January 2014
 

Hair has exerted a particular fascination with people from all cultures over the millennia. Deemed the seat of the soul, a symbol for the elemental vitality of people or as a central bearer of erotic messages, hair has played a particular role within all religions, symbolising humility by cutting hair or getting closer to the Almighty with real hair on crucifixes in the Christian Middle Ages. Fertility or the loss of power is reflected in opulent or cut hair, and status, gender or the membership of a group is signalled by open or concealed hair, via the haircut itself or in the form of the 'bonnet'. The colour of hair ranges from the red of the traitorous Judas and affiliation within the world of witches to the beguiling blond of Maria Magdalena and Marilyn Monroe and the deep black of the femme fatale. The curls of beloved people were also kept as a sign of friendship.
The art of the 20th and 21st centuries discovered new meanings in hair. Presented repulsively or else with the intention of stirring up desire, surprising in an isolated context or fitting into everyday life, hair is now seen in a great diversity of forms. In fact the metamorphoses appear to have absolutely no limits at all.
Until now, there was never an exhibition that got to the roots of this particular form of human embellishment. Based on the generous and qualitative holdings in the collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig, the show traces the ways of artists over the centuries and how they have interpreted hair.
The concept of this exhibition takes a nod to the idea of Peter and Irene Ludwig to present their artworks within ever new contexts and bringing them together with other works from other collections. The works from many centuries and diverse countries makes this possible: "detecting what separates and experiencing what brings together". (Peter Ludwig)

WEEGEE - The Famous
Photography
26 May to 8 September 2013
 

Arthur Fellig, who adopted the self-confident synonym of Weegee – The Famous, is one of the unusual positions in American photography of the nineteen-thirties, forties and fifties. He became famous with his nocturnal shots of fire calamities, accidents and murders as well as observations of New York tramps and outlaws, and hard light and shadowing characterised his output. The exhibition also displays photographs of celebrities and stars such as Jackie Kennedy and Salvador Dali.

Cornelia Funke Inkheart, C.H.I.X. and Ghosthunters -
The incredible worlds of images from the early children's books to Reckless
20 January to 20 May 2013
 

Cornelia Funke is one of the major German storytellers, both with words and with the pencil. The trained illustrator began her career with drawings for texts written by others but quickly realised that she could write just as good, or even better! Thinking out stories continuously progessed over to writing. She started with her own stories in the 1980s with Kein Keks für Kobolde (“No Cookie for Trolls”) and other childrens' books. Series such as Gespensterjäger (“Ghosthunters”) and Die Wilden Hühner (“Wild Chicks”) made her a favourite for young readers. She became famous internationally with Herr der Diebe (“The Thief Lord”) and, finally, her trilogy of Tintenwelt (“Inkheart”) volumes.
In past years her writing has become more important that her drawing, but the originals clearly show that she is a highly creative inventor of images as well. The early illustrations are usually strongly coloured with lots of figures, and in later books she often limited herself to very fine black ink, chalk or graphite drawings for the beginnings of chapters. Cornelia Funke was born in Dorsten, but her chosen homeland America can be seen in some of the latest drawings.
For the first time the graphical work of Funke is presented, ranging from the very beginnings right up to the latest works from Reckless, and accompanied by an extensive catalogue. The exhibition shows that Cornelia Funke is one of the rare twin talents able to carry people off into new and exciting worlds with both text and illustration, and with a high degree of originality. She inspires not only children and young people but is also able to mesmerise adults as well. There have also been several films of her books for new worlds of fantasy in this medium as well.

Russians, Jews, Germans.
Photographs from Michael Kerstgens since 1992 in cooperation with the Oberhausen Memorial Hall and the Jewish Museum Berlin
24 February to 21 April 2013
 

The photographer Michael Kerstgens in his long-term survey has dedicated himself to the phenomenon of the major immigration of Russian Jews at the beginning of the 1990s. The statistics tell us that in 1990 around 25,000 people were members of the Jewish community in Germany, and today this is more than 110,000. Kerstgens observes and documents their arrival, their start in a new life and has also accompanied some of the families and their destinies and journeys through life.
His photographic eye shows his great interest for the people and for common and religious themes, but also exposes a photographer that sets structures into the visual image and captures the 'right moments'. His themes serve to open up a wide spectrum. The transferral home in Weiden in the Upper Palatine is one of the locations where he accompanies his subjects. The start, for example with the German language is often difficult, as shown by Kerstgens' images. Many photos are shot in the Jewish community in Berlin, the largest in Germany. But Kerstgens also enters the “Russendsiko” (“Russian disco”) made famous by Wladimir Kaminer and shows the relaxed life of the young Russian immigrants. Kerstgens is one of the photographers that can tell stories with a high level of sensitivity, as demonstrated by around 80 photos in this exhibition.
LUDWIGGALERIE has organised this show in cooperation with the Gedenkhalle (Memorial Hall) in Schloss Oberhausen. The educational program in the museum benefits considerably from this cooperation, the Berlin Jewish Museum was able to acquire the complete series of black and white images at the beginning of 2011 for its collection. This also demonstrates the uniqueness of the Michael Kerstgens' photo project.

Marilyn Monroe
In photographs from George Barris, Allan Grant, Milton H. Greene, Tom Kelley, Leif-Eric Nygård und Bert Stern – The Last Sitting
23 September 2012 to 11 January 2013
 

1962, six weeks prior to being found dead in her house at Brentwood, Los Angeles, she met for a sitting with photographer Bert Stern that was to her last. Stern's photos present Marilyn in a powerful concentration and to some extent with great intimacy. With and without accessories, rather as a diva or as a playful girlish woman, Stern's camera sees the various facet's from film star through to Norma Jean Baker. The last photo, by Stern's assistant Leif-Eric Nygård, completes this Last Sitting.
The legendary series of photos is supplemented by Milton H. Greene's view of Monroe and Tom Kelley's early series, from which one photo became world-famous as a centrefold in the first issue of Playboy magazine.

Ulf K.
The Poet among Comic-Artists
28 October 2012 to 13 January 2013
 

The characters of Ulf K. are loveable outsiders that have a vested belief in their own imagination. His stories are infectious, and with a level of fascination that is ignored with difficulty.
Born in Oberhausen, Germany in 1969 with the real name of Ulf Keyenburg, the cartoonist and illustrator is one of the most renowned of his kind in Germany. In 2004, Ulf K. was distinguished as the best German-speaking comic artist at the international Comicsalon in Erlangen, being awarded the Max-and-Moritz Prize. His publications are marketed across the world.
Ulf K.early came under the influence of Franco-Belgian comics such as Tintin by Hergé, but rapidly developed his own innate style that incorporates a high level of recognition with its clear and simplified lines and wide-area, single-tone colouration akin to ligne claire.
His comics often achieve a lightly morbid to melancholy atmosphere or even have Death itself as the leading actor, as in the recently republished Tango de la Mort (2000/2012). They are often also spiced with a touch of black humour.
He creates illustrated stories and also stories that function completely without text, the spectrum ranging from comics for grown-ups, childrens' comics and school books to cardboard picture-books for ages of two to four.
The shows casts a spotlight on the complete output with well over 200 coloured originals, hand drawings and sketches. Early drawings are shown such as Der Mondgucker comic album published independently in 1998, as well as the current series of childrens' books being published by Gerstenberg. In past years the LUDWIGGALERIE has already showcased exceptional talents active in the German comic scene such as Ralf König and Walter Moers, and now following many national as well as international exhibitions the comic poet Ulf K. is honoured in the town of his birth with a solo exhibition.

AT HOME The view through the keyhole
Living in the Ruhr area - seen by art
13 May to 16 September 2012
 

Living in the Ruhr area – many have a preconceived idea about workers' settlements and 'Gelsenkirchen Barock' design. Hardly anything says so much and requires less explanation than private rooms when it comes to "getting an idea". How artists approach the phenomenon of living is seen for the first time in this comprehensive exhibition. Whether its is historical living style, photography, painting, new media or objects; a look through the keyhole is risked in all categories and the voyeur gets his money's worth.
Visitors are invited to interactively participate in the exhibition. Exhibits, whether objects or photographs, can be brought to the LUDWIGGALERIE and go on to demonstrate the characterisation of the environment as a kind of work in progress.

Keith Haring - Short Messages
Posters and bills 1982-1990
21 January 2012 to 6 May 2012
 

This American pop artist made his mark on the language of emblematic shapes. Keith Haring, a pop idol and shooting star of the 1980s scene who died young, was particularly known for his compact messages in the New York subway and represents the artistic form of graffiti. By focusing on art in public areas, he also belongs to the greater designers in the area of posters and bills.
His Radiant Baby conquered the hearts of people and became a highly popular and easily understandable symbol, his first poster design in 1982 already protested against nuclear power. Haring also took a position against drugs, and after contracting Aids this became the main theme he was concerned with.
The exhibition presents his complete 85 designs for posters. Here, the topics range from political protest via the announcement of cultural events through to advertising products.

Vanitas Vanitatum! The Tödlein from the Ludwig Collection
Representation of death in the early modern period
5 February 2012 to 6 May 2012
 

In the finest carving technique, this ivory Tödlein ("Little Death") communicates its message: the transience of life and the decay of flesh. Swarming animals demonstrate the sinfulness of mankind. Toads and snakes represent the animals from hell; flies – the infernal beings – even take on the place of the heart. The body is laid inside a box decorated with ivory and ebony marquetry that can be viewed through the side even when the lid is closed.
This cabinet exhibition is dedicated to the unique work of commemorative culture from the Peter and Irene Ludwig collection and is supplemented by further graphic and figurative representations of death, in which the Basle Dance of Death also plays a role.

The 7 1/2 lives of Walter Moers
From Little Asshole to Captain Bluebear and Zamonia
25 September 2011 to 15 January 2012
 

For the first time an exhibition has been dedicated to the work of the graphic artist and author Walter Moers in all of its rich diversity. Some connect his name with the politically consistently incorrect comic figure of Kleines Arschloch or Little Asshole, others take him for an ingenious weaver of sailor's yarns recounting the Captain Bluebear stories for children. And yet others perceive him as the founder of worlds in the Zamonia realm.
But Walter Moers has created a whole lot more in his 7½ lives. A sheer inexhaustible diversity of figures and an overflowing play on words and language can now be experienced in original in Oberhausen. Accoladed with a host of awards for his various genres, Moers tells his tales with irony and satire, and on many occasions with a distinct tendency towards the grotesque as well.
Many more than 100 works present one of the most important storytellers in Germany in his full medial bandwidth. Museum coverage has been long overdue.

I am serious about not being serious
Elliott Erwitt - Photography
8 May to 11 September 2011
 

The Ludwig Galerie shows an overview of the work of the celebrated Magnum photographer born in 1928. Dogs and children, groups, naked people, museums and landscapes; nobody is safe from his tongue-in-cheek, humorous angle of vision.
"I am serious about not being serious" states Erwitt about himself. People and animals are the focus of his work. His travels took him all over the world, and the documentary photos still characterise our view of historical occurrences to the present day.
Represented at Edward Steichen's legendary photography exhibition The Family of Man in 1955 at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the American with Russian parentage also influenced fashion and advertising photography in addition to creative photography and numerous documentary reports.
In cooperation with Magnum Photos.

Roy Lichtenstein
posters and more
23 January to 1 May 2011
 

As one of the leading protagonists of pop art, Roy Lichtenstein worked particularly in the poster field and in this genre, he produced more than 70 drafts over 35 years. The presentation which features his entire designs provides a total overview of the output of this unusual artist.
His work unfolds before the observer from the early years of comic scenes, through a barely physical shape language inspired by art deco, to the later serene landscapes. The function of the posters ranges from advertising his own exhibitions at the New York Leo Castelli gallery, through implemented designs such as the cover for "Tintin [Tim und Struppi] in the new world" to political posters for Unicef together with Andy Warhol, Keith Haring and others.
Apart from his personal concepts, the exhibition is rounded off by further posters with reproductions of paintings and drawings that were produced during Lichtenstein's life.

Artefact und Wonder of Nature
The Leuchterweibchen from the Ludwig Collection
6 February to 17 April 2011
 

The so-called Leuchter- or Lüsterweibchen from the Peter and Irene Ludwig Collection is the centre of focus of this very high quality one-room exhibition. Assumed to have been created around 1540 in Northern Switzerland, the piece stems either from the Rapperswil Town Hall or else once hung in the residency of Thüring Göldlin and Margareta Muntprat, the original commissioners. Surrounded by the proud antlers of a stag of fourteen points, the figure bears the coat of arms of the pair.
Many loans in the form of further Leuchterweibchen, sculptures, paintings and graphic works serve to illustrate the context of the piece and elaborate the unique dual structure of both art and proximity to nature that characterises this highly wondrous genre.

Janosch
Panama and Other Worlds
26th September 2010 to 9th January 2011
 

Janosch is one of the most popular and best known picture book illustrators in Germany. With over 300 published childrens' books, both young and old people are on intimate terms with his tigers, lions and bears. He tames these beasts of the wild, transforming them into appealing animals for home and hearth. Tiger and Bear have not only shown us that Panama can be found on our own doorsteps, but also how important friendship is.

In an extensive exhibition encompassing many more than 130 works, the Ludwig Galerie presents the graphic artist with original watercolours, gouache paintings and drawings. The designs show just how tightly knit images are with their accompanying narrative. In this way grown-ups are given an insight into the artistic processes of the internationally renowned childrens' author equipped with a magically creative pencil, and children are cast adrift into the wonderful storyteller's world of fantasy.

On Tables!
Masterpieces from the Ludwig Collection from Antiquity to Picasso, from Dürer to Demand
21 June - 30 September 2010
 

In this unusual presentation, Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen shows an extensive exhibition focusing on the artistic approach to the table as a theme of art, within the framework of the year of the Capital of Culture 2010. Internationally based, highly qualitative pieces from the collection of Peter and Irene Ludwig form the starting point. A panopticon of tables unfolds unusual perspectives. Antique vessels, medieval (altar) tables and still lives from the 17th century are confronted with tendencies from the 20th and 21st centuries. Together, next to and against each other, the positions provide evidence of widely differing approaches. Culturally historic investigations into table culture do not take place but rather a rendering visible of inner contexts, that on the surface at least often present us with highly diverse appearances.

The table as an everyday object serves here for the first time as a medium for the presentation of artistic approaches that sometimes avail us of wide distances and at other times with surprising proximities. While the chair is and has always been a supreme object of design, the table on the other hand tends to assume a more servile, incidental role. And yet it gathers much around it and indeed on top of it. The still life is the only genre that has given the table a leading role. Apart from that it is perhaps in particular the sense of casualness in its presence that serves to emphasise its existence. This is the first time that an exhibition has been dedicated to the theme of the table in a cross-genre fashion, and with the help of masterpieces from the Ludwig Collection embarks on a search for inner structure and the essence of fundamental possibilities.

The array of exponents ranges from decorative, finely worked porcelain tableware from the Ludwig Collection to Renato Guttoso's Funerary Banquet that draws its inspiration from Picasso and his world. Campbell soup cans belong on the table as much as the large antique Skyphos and the Attic eye bowl. Ritual activities (altar tables) are part of the exhibition as are general, everyday aspects. David Hockney allows us a glimpse of his studio, and Albrecht Dürer presents us with the study chamber of Saint Jerome.
Not all tables however are well laid, as displayed by the triad of Joseph de Bray's fasting still life from 1657 acclaiming pickled herring, Picasso's Simple Feast from 1904 and Günter Weseler's Table with Object for Breathing from the 1970's. And the exhibition also eminently demonstrates the harmonious unison of historical cutlery with New Objectivity photography.

'On Tables' is the exhibition of art and as such the primary exhibition of the Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen for the Ruhr Capital of Culture 2010.

From Cabbage to Cypresses
Garden Art on Emscher and Ruhr
21 February 2010 - 30 May 2010
 

The continuously evolving territory in which coal and steel formed a richly individual cultural landscape over a span of nearly 200 years is characterised by a unique form of garden art. Already in the Baroque period, parks and gardens of the highest artistic order (Borbeck) were established, and the English landscape gardening style still bequeaths to us its legacy (Herten). The Wilhelminian style and the Reform Movement with their countless public and private gardens create a highly diverse landscape of decorative greenery that characterise the identity of the region to this day.

This uniquely green territory where cabbage (reality and use of) and cypresses (dreams and the exquisiteness of) come together, reflects the ever changing, conflicting relationship between the social and cultural processes of industrial transformation. Present times continue to determine this process.

The various accretions of time in terms of garden culture and in relation to the rapidly changing Emscher valley can be seen in particular in the Kaisergarten, the largest exhibition exponent, bordering directly onto the Ludwig Galerie in Schloss Oberhausen. High quality paintings and sculptures, historic garden furniture and designs, as well as glorious flowerage once again given the kiss of life allow for the first time in an art museum a comprehensive overview of the history of gardening in the Emscher and Ruhr regions.

The Ludwig Galerie and the Emschergenossenschaft again come together for the exhibition and catalogue. The show has been made possible with the cooperation of the NRW-Stiftung Naturschutz, Heimat- und Kulturpflege together with the State of North-Rhine Westphalia as a part of the Capital of Culture 2010. Further partners are the Art Historical Institute of Bochum University and Heinrich Heine University in Düsseldorf and the regional association Regionalverband Ruhr.

The exhibition is given an international backdrop with a congress dedicated to contemporary garden design and landscape gardening as part of the yearly congress of the Parks Agency directors at the German Association of Cities and Towns from 07.-09. May 2010.

Der Eros der Nasen / The Eros of Noses
Comics by Ralf König
20 September 2009 - 31 January 2010
 

Big, knobbly, potato-like noses or Knollennasen are his hallmark, and the observing of (homo)erotic togetherness his content: Ralf König (*drum rolls, fanfare*) presents original drawings from his graphic stories in Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen.

Ludwig Galerie is home to his first major, comprehensive exhibition. The recipient of international awards (his comics have been translated into 15 languages), his work is now the subject of an overview of his creative output with a major show of original art.
'Most desired men' and 'Pretty babies ' frolic through his narratives, making Ralf König not only the most important German comic artist but also one of the most distinguished popular figures of the gay scene.
Born in 1960 in Westphalia near Soest, he grew up in Catholic surroundings, was keen on telling stories as a child, became a carpenter and then studied at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf. 'Der bewegte Mann' (int. title 'Most desired man') in 1996 established his wider popularity with an increasingly heterosexual public. His comic art has been filmed and also successfully presented in the form of puppet theatre. König has repeatedly reverted to classic literary sources of inspiration such as 'Lysistrata', freely adapted from Aristophanes, or 'Jago', loosely based on Shakespeare. In 'Kondom des Grauens' (int. title 'Killer condom') he parodies the figure of the sleuth Philipp Marlowe. He also approaches the theme of Aids in the form of Superparadise Nebenwirkungen (Superparadise side-effects). And he packaged his own (short) biography into a cheekily drawn comic in 1993 with aplomb.

In his two latest books 'Prototyp' and 'Archetyp' he affords an insight into the potato-nosed story of the Creation as well as the goings on in Noah's Ark. He tackles the theme of religion and the Bible in his own highly unconventional manner. He has expressed himself critically to the Islamic cartoon controversy and has taken a stand for the general freedom of opinion and the press. For his stance he was awarded the Max-and-Moritz Prize in Erlangen in 2006. His position on the advisory committee of the Giordano-Bruno Foundation also demonstrates his dedication to a peaceful and equal co-existence for mankind.
As well as his comic strips, large-format works from Ralf König are also shown, many of which were created especially for the Oberhausen exhibition. The show, enabling the Ludwig Galerie to underline and further increase its importance as a central exhibition location for the comic and caricature genre, promises exciting insights into the (erotic) world of the noses. Ralf König is on-site in person on a number of occasions (see the calendar), allowing his fans to get to know him in real life.

Baselitz, Lüpertz, Penck & Co.
Zeichnerische Positionen aus der Sammlung Ludwig / Positions in Drawing from the Ludwig Collection
28 June to 6 September 2009
 

Georg Baselitz, Markus Lüpertz and A. R. Penck are unarguably some of the most important protagonists of painting in Germany. In the last decades their artistic worlds have characterised and continue to characterise the visual arts far beyond the borders of Germany. Peter and Irene Ludwig accumulated early works on paper from all three artists for their collection that allow viewers to follow the development enabling Baselitz, Lüpertz and Penck to discover their themes and forms.
At the close of the 1950s Baselitz turned his back on gestural forms to address his gaze to figurative art. The phase is characterised by people and individual parts of the human body with almost organic appearances. It closes with the heroes and 'New Types', achieving a programmatic zenith with the 'Großen Freunden' (Big Friends). In the late 1960s Baselitz began to rotate his pictorial motifs. The drawings clarify this process, in particular with the first turned objects from the 'Wald auf dem Kopf' (Wood upside down).
With the dithyramb in 1964 Markus Lüpertz introduced a form to art that because of its decidedly physical effect arouses representational associations but cannot however be designated as being representational. His drawings point the way. Further groups clarify the development of his well known pictorial objects. Coats, helmets, snails, dragons and fish populate the works on paper, the 'style images' are denoted by their own innate form.
The development of the A. R. Penck drawing system is also documented by the array of drawings selected from the Ludwig Collection. Already with early system paintings Penck showed his interest in drawing as a method of communicating information. From 1968 he attempted to develop a drawing system in the 'Standart' images that corresponded to scientific systems in relation to its unambiguity, combining signal character with a call to action in the way of traffic signs. With his move to West Germany in 1980 his images gained in hindsight political dimensions.
The exhibition in the Kleines Schloss brought into being in cooperation with the Ludwig Forum for International Art and the Ludwig Foundation in Aachen affords for the first time a view of the resources of international applied art from the Ludwig Collection taken from Eastern and Western Europe as well as from Asia and Cuba.

Jim Rakete
1/8 sec. – Vertraute Fremde / Familiar Strangers
18 January to 10 May 2009
 

"An eighth of a second seems to me to be the blink of the eye of classical photography," says Jim Rakete, one of the most important of German photographers. He shoots his portraits with a plate camera, a technique taken from the dawning era of photography. The photographer from Berlin allows a glimpse into the worlds of film and music, art and dancing, literature and politics.
'Familiar Strangers' show images the names of which read like a who's-who of public life. For Rakete it is important that his protagonists are devoid of make-up in order to capture them as real people. Heino Ferch relaxes with a cup of coffee, Christiane Paul in the last weeks of pregnancy at a busy railway station, and Helmut Schmidt with his mandatory cigarette. The artist Jörg Immendorff takes a whiff of a clove with a melancholy gesture.

The music scene that was significantly defined by Jim Rakete as a manager is not only represented by Nena and Ulla Meinecke but also by Silbermond and Wir sind Helden. Some of the rare colour photographs showing Nadja Auermann and Polina Semionova illuminate this area of his work. Rakete's concealed preference for rabbits is not only seen on the back of the volume of photography bearing the same title.

Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen displays around 130 of these impressive portraits. The images represent a quick run through of the decisive people from various walks of life (music, the cinema, politics, sport and art) with a slowly operating plate camera, according to Jim Rakete. A homage to silver photography was the result, the era of which is finally coming to a close. In order to give an impression of the chaste and unadorned atmosphere of work required for this type of photography, the exhibition features a studio situation showing the tried-and-true plate camera, the crumpled background taken from some of the photos and some original photographic plates.
The film portrait of the artist Jim Rakete by Claudia Müller focuses on the photographer in detail. She accompanied him throughout 2007 for MA VIE and recorded during five days of shooting just how long an eighth of a second really can be.

Figuren und Ikonen / Figures and Icons
Prints from Munch to Kirchner and from Picasso to Warhol
27 September 2008 to 4 January 2009
 

The impression of man has undergone an intense metamorphosis since the Modern Movement. Avante-garde artists grappled with innovative forms of representation and explore new paths. The exhibition illuminates this phenomenon. Beginning with Edvard Munch's early Madonna masterpiece, the arc is spanned across to the pop icons of Andy Warhol.

The dancing figures of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner develop their own irregularly convoluted rhythms, and the figures of Brücke artists such as Heckel, Schmidt-Rottluff, Pechstein and Müller differentiate forms of representation. Nolde, Kandinsky, Dix and Beckmann similarly lead viewers into a transformed conception of man, as do the lascivious nudes of Egon Schiele.

Picasso creates new forms of the ideal of man in leaps and bounds, ranging from the Simple Feast and the harlequins to his work dictated by the prismatic influence of Cubism and the experimental white line prints. Various portraits of his partners in life allow a glimpse into the sphere of his private relationships.

The pop icons of Andy Warhol mark a stylistic termination in the representation of man during the 20th century. In addition to tickets, flowers and cows the figure itself dominates as an object of art worthy of view. Warhol has had a crucial influence on how we perceive icons of the screen such as Marilyn Monroe, Elizabeth Taylor and Jane Fonda.

With partly large-format colour prints, proofs and one-offs the exhibition documents the transformation of the figure to become an icon. The Ludwig Galerie displays the representation of man in the 20th century over three storeys.

Metamorphosen / Metamorphoses
European Landscapes between Industry and Nature – Photographs by Thomas Wolf
14 June 2008 to 4 January 2009
 

Amsterdam, Barcelona, Manchester, Leipzig and the Ruhr region: since 1989 Thomas Wolf has been photographing the exciting process of transformation in urban development that has taken place since the end of the Industrial Age in these European cities and regions. The metropolitan areas have not simply torn down and disposed of their civic heritage from the Industrial Age but have transformed, redefined and reinvented it according to the demands of the 21st century. In particular the giant, disused industrial areas and fallow land have become new centres for a thriving urban existence into which the old industrial architecture has been integrated. Wolf's images are not traditional architectural portraits documenting municipal highlights but urban landscapes in panoramic format that show how a new form of life emerges from and out of the old.
To show the photographic work of Thomas Wolf in an exhibition in the Ludwig Galerie Schloss Oberhausen is an obvious step, because since the International Construction Exhibition in the Emscher Park and with the major Emscher renovation project, the Ruhr region is deemed to be one of the main urban centres of Europe, with structural transformation in an advanced state.

Thomas Hoepker
Photography 1955 - 2008
14 June to 14 September 2008
 

There are photographic images from Thomas Hoepker that have been implanted in our visual memory: the famine in India (1951), lepers in Ethiopia (1963), the boxing idol Muhammad Ali (1966), the recruiting of U.S. marines (1970) and New York on 11 September 2001. These photographs were not intended merely to illustrate text but were part of exciting multi-page picture series that sourced their vitality solely from the visual expressiveness of photography.
What we notice in Hoepker's images today more than all else is the 'human glance'. He is no photographic journalist seeking the sensational report but an inquisitive, highly sensitive observer. Hoepker's pictures are seen in the category of 'human interest photography' along with names such as Dorothea Lange, Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Robert Capa, the photographic style of which has been decidedly influenced by the legendary MAGNUM photographic agency, of which Hoepker has been a member since 1989.
Thomas Hoepker's retrospective documents not only the curiosity and intensity with which he confronts the human dramas he witnesses throughout the world, but also how he has always searched for the most suitable form of expression in his array of photographic tasks.
The exhibition was prepared together with Thomas Hoepker and in cooperation with MAGNUM Photos Paris and the photographic museum in the Stadtmuseum, Munich.

Deix in the City
8 March to 8 June 2008
 

Audacious taboo-breaking, caustic derision, irrepressible carnal desire and Baroque sensual delight are the hallmarks of the Austrian satirist Manfred Deix. His characters caricature 'healthy popular sentiment' as being obese, blown up and downright mean. Politicians, policemen, the clergy, pederasts, perverts, prostitutes, tourists, foreigners, the unemployed and neo-nazis are all to be found in his bursting cosmos of images.
When the exhibition illustrations are looked at his people depicted on paper are seen at first to be monstrous incarnations of his fantasy until it is surprisingly seen later on that people on the street really do look like Deix's figures. "The satire of our reality today," says Deix, "beats the power of imagination of a caricaturist hands down." He therefore does not see himself as being one who 'exaggerates' but one who 'touches up' or 'belittles' the daily satire of everyday life, and a graphic artist who aims to 'playfully spread a touch of beauteousness among the people'.
200 original Deix drawings are put on display by the Ludwig Galerie, including his new Arnold Schwarzenegger biography 'The Naked Truth'.
The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Caricature Museum in Krems and the Wilhelm Busch Museum in Hanover.

Herzenspein und Nasenschmerz / Heart Pain and Nose Ache
Wilhelm Busch and the consequences
13 October 2007 to 24 February 2008
 

Wilhelm Busch, thanks to his legendary comic series Max and Moritz, the pious Helene, Plisch and Plum, Hans Huckebein, Fips the monkey and others, was the man who really taught pictures how to run. The thing that fascinates us with Winsor McCay's 'Little Nemo' comics and the early 'Silly Sinphonies' films from Disney, the world of moving images, was in effect invented by Wilhelm Busch. He attempted to distance himself from the attitude of artists before him trying to express themselves within one frame, and told his pictorial narrative in a series of images with a compelling sense of drama that drew viewers into the activity: focal points and perspectives change constantly, part complete views and part close-up, an obsession with detail and the sheer violence of his dynamic line design.
His painterly work was also modern. Franz Marc described Wilhelm Busch as the very first 'Futurist', as with his furious brushwork he extracted all sense of inner stability from his paintings, transforming them into a conglomerate of colour imbued with motion.
His images do not idealise, but caricature, deform, distort and spoof ideal forms, subjecting what is good to ridicule. 'Heart Pain and Nose Ache' documents the dependence of caricature upon malice, spitefulness and malicious joy.
As well as masterpieces from Wilhelm Busch, works are also on display from Callot, Carracci, Gillray, Rowlandson, Hogarth, Grandville, Toepffer, Dirks, McCay, Disney, Heine, Flora, Pericoli, Searle, Sempé, Topor, Ungerer and others.
Exhibition cooperation partners: the Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hanover

Napoleon
Genie und Despot / Genius and Despot
2 June to 23 September 2007
 

Napoleon, both genius and despot, polarises our thoughts until today: for some he was a genius that shook up Europe, spreading his ideas of the rights of man throughout the continent, and for others he was a power obsessed, warmongering despot who aimed to subjugate the whole world to his ideas.
The exhibition documents both idealising representations and vicious caricature with masterpieces of both high and trivial art. Never before have the most important artists of their time admired and hated a personality so passionately as they did Napoleon.
The exhibition traces the progress of Napoleon from the grasping of power until his exile on the island of St. Helena. The starting point is a richly productive satirical presentation from the early days of caricature in Europe, critically documenting his path in life. The distorted picture only becomes understandable when seen in the context of the ideal image, hence the exhibition displays caricatures set against impressive examples of Napoleon's systematically programmed cult of dictatorship with portraits, busts, death masks and devotional objects. Diametrically opposed artistic attitudes come together to communicate a fascinating insight into the highly contradictory personality of the dictator.
The exhibition is a cooperative work together with the Wilhelm Busch Museum Hanover, the Napoleon Museum Schloss Arenenberg am Bodensee and others.

Eine Reise ins Heilige Land / A Trip to the Holy Land
The Large Baroque Nativity Scene of the Ludwig Collection
16 November 2007 to 24 February 2008
 

A panorama gallery of the Kleines Schloss hosts a unique Christmas nativity scene from the Ludwig Collection as part of a presentation distributed through various rooms. The nativity scene tells of the various stages of the Christmas story with a Baroque finery and glorious illumination.
The Christmas manger of the Ludwig Collection is the highlight of the Bamberg nativity scene: a Baroque large-scale presentation from the 17th century with over 450 figures. The home of the scene is Rottenburg on the Neckar River. Generations have contributed to depicting the Holy story in a wonderfully lucid form, and the figures, robed in fine Baroque brocade, appear to be on a theatre stage. The Christmas story is unfolded within an Oriental landscape on several levels. The Proclamation of Christ, the choir of the Heavenly Host, the shepherds on their way to Bethlehem, the Birth of Christ, the Presentation in the Temple and the Journey of the Three Wise Kings from the Orient can all be admired.
The exhibition originated in cooperation with the Ludwig Collection in Bamberg and was supplemented by loans from the Schnütgen Museum, Cologne.

Living Stones
Mother Nature as an Artist
10 February to 20 May 2007
 

The exhibition unfolds to the visitor the fascinating diversity in the relationship between nature and art. Stones from two billion years ago and the photographic work of Albert Renger-Patzsch, Alfred Ehrhardt und Karl Blossfeldt demonstrate that nature and art are both imbued to the same degree with the powers of creative form.
'Living Stones' commences with a cultural and historical prologue: a medieval rock crystal crucifix and crystal quartz, ancient Chinese scholars' rocks and bizarrely shaped stones. The fusioning of eminent works of art with precious stones from the Ludwig Collection renders perceivable the differences between the European and Far Eastern philosophies of nature.
The late work from Albert Renger-Patzsch titled 'Gestein' (Stone) with 64 photographs shows the never-ending circle of creation and decay that has been occurring for billions of years – the phases of growth in the rocks of the Earth. The photography of Renger-Patzsch, Blossfeldt and Ehrhardt form an exciting contrast to the unique stone findings and crystals. The exhibition presents the stones exquisitely as creative forms of Mother Nature and as also forms of art. When viewers begins to enter into the consciousness of the stones with all their beauty they commence to tell their story: each one has its own biography, for example the large iron nickel meteorite that plunged to Earth over 30,000 years ago and that originates from the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and originated 4.5 billion years ago together with the solar system.
The exhibition originated in cooperation with the Ruhr Museum in Essen, the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Collection, Zülpich, and the Alfred Ehrhardt Foundation, Cologne. Donors of the works of cultural heritage are the Museum for East Asian Art, Cologne, Museum Schnütgen, Cologne and the Suermondt Ludwig Museum, Aachen.

Gartenträume / Dreams of Gardens
Poster Art from Mucha to Staeck
9 September 2006 to 26 November 2006
 

The exhibition shows 150 outstanding works of placative art taken from the 19th and 20th centuries that cite a diverse array of flowers, plants, nature and landscape experiences as their subjects. Leading poster artists such as Alphonse Mucha, Ludwig Hohlwein, Uwe Loesch and Klaus Staeck have created important works of applied art that render visible the transformation of nature across more than one hundred years.
In the realm of poster art, dreams of gardens have found a source of fascinating visual expression since the 19th century. While applied artists were mainly inspired in the Wilhelminian age with the visual language of painting, in the time of Art Nouveau they transformed the poster medium into a spectacularly organic form of decoration dominated by the rhythms of nature. In the eras of Art Déco and New Objectivity the poster as a form of art then found its own methods for expression: large, coloured surfaces, eye-catching lines and succinct text melt and fuse in the masterpieces of placative art to pictorial organisms bursting with tension and infused with monumental, suggestive force.
The exhibition though is not only interesting in terms of art history but also in relation to cultural history. The posters demonstrate the fundamental transformations in our perception of nature that have taken place in the last century and our efforts to recapture these, ranging from exotic displays of flowers, garden arbours and homely gardens to the municipal park movement, the greenage of urbanity and the renaturation of landscapes.
The exhibition from the Peter Drecker Collection is supplemented with loans from the German Poster Museum in Essen.

Henri Cartier-Bresson
Photography and Drawings
27 May 2006 to 27 August 2006
 

The exhibition displays 150 photographic masterpieces collected by Henri Cartier-Bresson (1908 – 2004) in his last years in the form of a 'small-scale retrospective'. We come face to face with many of the familiar images from France, Mexico, Spain, North America, Russia, India and China that make us conscious of just how strongly this photographer defined the image of man in the 20th century.
The unique essence of this exhibition is that photographs are shown for the first time in the Ludwig Galerie on an equal footing with his portrait, nude and landscape drawings; in the last three decades of his life Henri Cartier-Bresson only photographed occasionally, applying most of his creative strength to pencil and paper. He himself merely saw a change of the craft, as the activity of drawing for him was seen to be on the same level as photography, demanding maximum awareness and concentration in order to capture the exciting vibrancy of life.
Films have been integrated into the exhibition in which Henri Cartier-Bresson talks about his abstruse desire to 'penetrate the living hearts of people with his camera and drawing utensils and to capture this decisive moment of contact'. In addition many of the legendary original magazines can be seen (LIFE, Paris Match, stern and DU) that first published Cartier-Bresson's photo series since 1937.
The exhibition was realised in cooperation with MAGNUM Photos Paris.

Deutsche Bilder aus der Sammlung Ludwig / German Paintings from the Ludwig Collection

11 February to 14 May 2006
 

Peter and Irene Ludwig collected high quality works in the 1970s in equal measure from important artists hailing from both West and East Germany: Altenbourg, Baselitz, Beuys, Ebersbach, Fetting, Grützke, Heisig, Immendorff, Kiefer, Klapheck, Lüpertz, Mattheuer, Metzkes, Penck, Polke, Richter, Schultze, Sitte, Stelzmann, Stötzer, Tübke, Vostell and others.
'German Paintings' shows for the first time works from the collection at eye level: a German-to-German contention and amalgamation of images. The exhibition attempts to give a concrete form to the often quite grim painterly debate of recent years with the coming together of the paintings. It happens to be a specific peculiarity of art that its richness and fascination is only experienced by observation of original works. For us to perceive their differences and also indeed their familiarities demands a need for such images to come together more often than has been the case in recent times.
The exhibition draws on works of Medieval art from the Ludwig Collection as well as Expressionism and New Objectivity from other collections in order to excite the perception of the multifaceted historical roots of German-German art to an order in excess of that until now.
The objects of art from the Ludwig Collection are on loan from: Museum Ludwig Cologne, Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen, Suermondt Ludwig Museum Aachen, Museum of Modern Art Foundation Ludwig Vienna, Ludwig Museum Budapest, Museum Ludwig in the Russian State Museum St. Petersburg, Germanic National Museum Nuremberg, Museum Ludwig Coblenz and others.

leicht und weit / light and wide
Bridges in the New Emscher Valley
15 October 2005 to 29 January 2006
 

The exhibition documents the transformation of the Ruhr region from a former coal and steel territory to become a unique landscape of bridges, with 90 monumental photographs and films by Thomas Wolf. Nearly 10,000 bridges form a tight network of tracks, conduits and waterways. A system reminiscent of Venice and Amsterdam, but here bridges interfuse not merely with a city but a complete region. With the demise of coal and steel, large parts of the system were rendered idle. The economic standstill was seen to be a chance for the inhabitants, and the network of traffic routes and bridges was not torn out but rather opened up for the benefit of the population. In the 1990s the IBA Emscherpark, the Regionalverband Ruhr and the Emschergenossenschaft began to create a net of trails for cyclists and hikers upon the closed-down tracks and dikes. The construction of new bridges and the refurbishment of existing ones during this process became a symbol for transforming the landscape from dereliction and mutilation to one that has become perceptible and accessible again. Routes for people were created from routes for profit.
The new bridges designed by the architects Schlaich, Polonyi, Otto Frei, Foster, Hegger and Schleiff, Wörzberger, Pahl and Weber-Pahl among others connect not only the landscape but also beckon people to stay, to linger.

Gottfried Helnwein
Beautiful Children
19 June to 3 October 2005
 

He is deemed to be the master of shock: the Austrian painter Gottfried Helnwein shatters taboos to confront viewers with his hyper realistically painted visions. The central theme of the one hundred mostly large format works of Helnwein is the child. Not as being innocent and lovable but as an object of injury, disrobement, humiliation and abuse. The ability of mankind to suffer, the most shocking motif in the history of art, leads us into the heady images of Helnwein and the destiny of a child void of pity. The harrowing factor of his method of representation is that he destroys those clichés of a happy childhood so dear to us, casting observers into the role of confidants, witnesses and accomplices of a glaringly blatant injustice.
The viewer can hardly cast his eyes away from the mesmerising quality of the Helnwein images, as within them meticulous attention to photographic detail fuses with the inner illumination reminiscent of Old Master paintings to create an almost magical surface effect. This inner source of light permeates the figures and objects, appearing to lift them up and transcend them in a way that reminds us of devotional images. Although what we then see in the works are not Holy scenes but rather apocalyptic nightmares.
Few artists have explored the area of conflict to be found between painting and photography as deeply as Helnwein. At first glance it is not yet clear as to whether his works are paintings or photography. What appears at first to be photographed reality is seen to be painted upon close inspection. His pictures of children, but also of the catastrophes of history and modern times appear to us irritatingly ambiguous, as do his portraits of personalities such as Arno Breker, Andy Warhol, Che Guevara and Marilyn Manson: that which is and that which seems to be, masks and faces, image and reality merge, blur and are cast down into the depths of disfigurement.
The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hanover.

Die Wunder der Natur / The Wonder of Nature
Romanesque Capitals, Old Plant Books and the Photography of Blossfeldt
5 March to 4 June 2005
 

The exhibition puts on display works sourced from three unique collections of art: photography from Karl Blossfeldt from the collection of Ann and Jürgen Wilde located at Zülpich, decorative Romanesque capitals from the Schnütgen Museum in Cologne and antiquarian books on flora from the Bamberg State Library. The material created by artists, craftsmen and scientists over a period of almost 1,000 years is highly diverse, but all sings a song of praise dedicated to the creative forces of nature.
Karl Blossfeldt photographed the world of plants in enlargements of 2 to 40 times in order to make apparent an evolvement of art history from the forms of nature. As Walter Benjamin wrote, the power of association in relation to art history that almost forces itself upon us when we observe the photographic work is manifested in the prologue of the exhibition: the photo of the fiddlehead fern and a golden crozier, a leaf of the saxifrage and a Gothic rose window, an acanthus plant and medieval tapestry.
The exhibition allows for the first time Blossfeldt's photographic work to be seen in conjunction with Romanesque capitals from the 10th to 13th centuries. It combines over a span of 1,000 years the reverence and curiosity felt by artists and scientists in the face of the creative forces of nature.
In the old plant and herb books each plant is exactly specified in text and illustration and their use as a source of nutrition, medicine or poison is described. At the same time the pictures also attempt to respectfully display the plant as a unique creation. For these artists and scientists it was a question of knowledge and edification to an equal degree.
The unique forms of art that until now were for us the sole expression of the creative powers of man are concealed within the most unobtrusive and inconspicuous of plants. Man and nature enter into unison as creative beings in a miraculous way.

Welt der Gefäße / The World of Vessels
From the Antique to Picasso
9 October 2004 to 30 January 2005
 

The exhibition presents 130 masterpieces of applied art from 5,000 years taken from the collections of Peter and Irene Ludwig as well as other major museums and private collections: an ancient Egyptian child's urn, a Greek bulbous amphora, an Iranian donor vessel, a pre-Columbian figurative vessel, an ancient Chinese standing amphora, a Korean calabash and a Medieval chalice. The fascination created by the exhibition's masterpieces of handicraft enable the comprehension that these vessels were once perceived as secretive, life-giving and life-destroying forces with anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and geomorphic forms imbued with the energy of nature and man. A pantheistic view of the world infuses the 'World of Vessels' that became lost in the modern age, as did the central role the vessels assumed in matriarchal culture and art.
The vessel as an object has since that time undergone an array of diverse metamorphoses. Unique porcelain and faiences from Meissen, Delft and Strasbourg show how in the gloss and glamour of the Baroque and Rococo eras the vessel as a universal symbol of creation was transformed into gallant yet delicate decoration for the table, possessing the highest levels of artistic ability.
Ceramic masterpieces from Pablo Picasso have been put on view at the end of the exhibition. After all it was thanks to Picasso that following the reform movement of Art Nouveau a significant contribution to ceramics was made, gaining new impulses after lying fallow as applied art in the 19th century.

Günter Grass
Graphics and Sculpture
1 May to 4 July 2004
 

The exhibition, featuring 220 drawings, manuscript pages, printed cycles, watercolours and sculptures, shows the tensely exciting relationship existing between drawing and writing. Together with works from the private collection of Günter Grass and until now shown partly for the first time, the exhibition enables a highly diverse insight into his creative activity developed over the course of five decades.
Writing, drawing and sculptural activity during the creative processes of Günter Grass are on an equal footing, representing interfusing and productive forms of expression stemming from his artistic personality. Long before Günter Grass laid his parable 'The Flounder' to paper the fish was drawn with brush, charcoal and pencil; the graphic designs for the 'Diary of a Snail' on the other hand were created following the completion of the manuscript. And the first 20 pages of 'The Rat' were not written on paper but on damp clay tiles.
The activity of drawing helps Günter Grass to grasp overseen, forgotten or suppressed things that he would otherwise aim to describe with text in a sensual, physical way. A metaphor dictates that only when something is transformed into the form of a graphical sheet does it have constancy. His desire to draw objectively gives the things to which he relates to in his images and texts their overwhelming sense of clarity, serving to bring us into close proximity with life itself and enables us to smell, taste and touch its grotesque fantasy, smells, excretions, hysteria, mirth and violence. The energy of life aroused in his images flows through man, animals and plants to the same extent, coming together in an excessively Baroque, grotesque bestiary.
Cooperation partners: The Günter Grass Archive Lübeck and the Ludwig Forum for International Art, Aachen.

Park-Stadt Oberhausen / Oberhausen as a City of Parks
The Renaissance of a Historical City Centre of Modern Architecture Photography by Thomas Wolf
7. 2. to 18. 4. 2004
 

The exhibition shows Oberhausen in a way thoroughly unexpected from an industrial city: administration buildings and dwellings exist in a sea of trees, as in a park. Precious tree-lined alleys pervade the city like a network of green arteries. That which was created in the centre of Oberhausen from 1900 to the end of the 1930s was the realisation of a major municipal utopia for modern architecture: the centre of the city itself was transformed to a park.
At the time the municipal architect Ludwig Freitag was not only able to animate the best architects from the schools of Berlin and Darmstadt to create masterpieces of expressionist brickwork architecture, but also to allow these buildings to fuse with the city's parks and tree-lined alleys to become a unity of fascinating and rhythmical dynamism.
The recreation of the historic park city of Oberhausen with its look into the past also at the same time casts its gaze far into the future: the park city was developed with the aim of creating a 'healthy urban corpus with a network of radiating alleys and green areas as powerful arteries and lungs'.

ManMade Planet
Photography from Wolfgang Volz
27 September to 11 January 2004
 

'Man-Made Planet' shows in 80 large-scale colour photographs and 120 black and white photographs from North America, Asia and Europe just how diversely various cultures have designed their landscapes. The photographs from Wolfgang Volz, shown for the first time, are shown as part of an exciting dialogue with the legendary artificial encroachments of Christo and Jeanne-Claude in the landscaped spaces of our planet.
Wolfgang Volz's fascinating colour photography renders visible just how mankind deals with landscape as the highly vulnerable skin of our Earth. They document that nature untouched is a fictive concept, and that all of Earth's landscapes have been formed by the doings of man. While the primeval circles of stone in Scotland and the imposing terraces and river systems of Ancient China blend organically with the land, the industrial landscapes of America and Europe shows us how mankind forcefully subjugates nature and wilfully exploits it.
'Wolfgang Volz', writes Werner Spies, 'is the eye of Christo and Jeanne-Claude'. He managed to congenially record the monumental happenings of art created for historical moments in time, thereby preserving the utopian philosophy of the works of Christo and Jeanne-Claude for the sake of eternity.

Gerhard Haderer
Unser täglich Wahnsinn / Our Daily Insanity
24 May to 7 September 2003
 

For over ten years now Gerhard Haderer has been creating his fascinating caricatures on a weekly basis for the magazines 'Stern' and 'Profil', although Haderer does not see himself as a cartoonist but as a realist. With his almost embarrassingly precise method of observation he shows us how we really appear, or put another way what our keen striving to achieve modernity, fitness and dynamism does to our faces and bodies, our spirit and also to our environment.
And everything start off so wonderfully well: the glossy surfaces brimming with preciously painted details entice us to analysis his pictures more closely, although Haderer forbids us to make ourselves comfortable. Voyeurism quickly turns to the shudders, as what he has painted with lovingly attentive care is upon closer looks the hectic, everyday insanity of our existen¬ce: obsession with beauty and fitness, holiday stress, family get-togethers, the craving for food, TV addiction, the dependence upon mobile phones and technology, the intoxicating thrill of speed, the lasciviousness of scandal, the craving for destruction, megalomania and egomania. Haderer's drawings show us not as lamentable victims but as fanatical participants that invest their complete ¬energy of life in this daily madness. The images show that the vision of Neil Postman, 'we amuse ourselves to death' is no longer a prophesy but indeed grim reality.
The exhibition shows 140 original drawings and cartoons, including the image series 'The Life of Jesus' that in recent years caused a scandal in Austria by flouting with religious sensitivities.
Cooperation partner: Wilhelm Busch Museum, Hanover

subjektive fotografie / subjective photography
Otto Steinert's students in Saarbrücken
24 May to 7 September 2003
 

In 1951 Otto Steinert released a form of expression with the exhibitions of 'subjective photography' in Saarbrücken that at the time heartened young photographers from all over Europe the find expression for their subjective sentiments, thoughts and fears in the form of bold pictorial experiments.
The show begins with the works of the legendary 'subjective photography' exhibition. Images from Moholy-Nagy, Man Ray, Hausmann and Bayer are shown together with works from Otto Steinert and his students. The latter documents that the photographic department at the State School for Art and Handicrafts in Saarbrücken was at that time a productive entity for the development of subjective photography born from the independent language of the medium, a creative laboratory in which Otto Steinert together with his students created a new photographic style. In 'Camera' magazine Otto Toussaint wrote in 1959: 'These images used to be other images. Evolving from the New Objectivity movement, but overcoming its boldness of representation and impersonal, technical pictorial language, photographers from all over the world had found a new style. Not the rendering of objects, but individual recordings of the existence of things, created through subjective sensitivity as an element of design. Human existences had been made visible by the 'objective' photos shot in accordance with traditional ways of teaching. The process of photography had been revealed to be a spiritually creative process. An art of imagery had been born to match the prevailing situation of mankind.'
An exhibition in cooperation with the Ann and Jürgen Wilde Collection, Zülpich, and supported by the Saarland Museum Foundation and Saarland Cultural Heritage.

Stories and Supermodels
Photographs from Peter Lindbergh
14 February to 11 May 2003
 

Nadja Auermann, Milla Jovovich, Naomi Campbell, Linda Evangelista, Tatjana Patitz, Kristen McMenamy, Amber Valletta and Marie-Sophie Wilson are just some of the supermodels and stars that the photography of Peter Lindbergh has transformed into icons of the modern era. Yearningly adored and grimly cursed in the past as goddesses, amazons, witches and fairies, and now reborn through Peter Lindbergh's photographic power of imagery in the form of supermodels. The enigmatic, sphinx-like quality of his women is at the same time their inner contradiction: strong women, but women that are also vulnerable, brittle, fragile. Wim Wenders in the latest Lindbergh book 'Stories' relates that the exhibition title denotes the women as being strong but without protection, full of devotion to the cause but untouchable, both familiar and distanced at the same time. With the expressionist methods of fashion photography Peter Lindbergh sets his Stories in scene at the most unusual of the world's locations. He casts his models against the towering industrial facades of Duisburg steelworks, the rugged cliffs at Zabriskie Point, within the urban canyons of Manhattan and on the deserted beaches of California. These are singular landscapes that with the artificiality of the creative entities coming to life from within them become the venues for modern myths, appearing at the same time real and a part of fiction. The 'Invasion' story forms the central part of the exhibition, a fantastically modern apocalypse documenting the arrival of beings from outer space to the planet Earth.

STORIES is the most comprehensive show of Peter Lindbergh's work until the present time. The 204 mostly large-format photographs are shown in this exhibition for the first time together with expressive documentary films such as the film about Pina Bausch, and his commercial advertising spots.

China – Tradition and Modernity

12 October 2002 to 2 February 2003
 

The exhibition shows for the first time masterpieces of both ancient and contemporary Chinese art. It delineates the cultural area of conflict in which Chinese culture is set today: in the grips of an awe-inspiring and ancient art evolved from the forces of tradition and a cultural upheaval driven on by the hustle and bustle of economical progress, putting to question the complete array of the traditional concepts of value and beauty.
Unique works such as the nine-part chimes from the Zhou period (8th century B.C.) and the group of ceramic camels from the Tang Dynasty (8th century A.D.) show that ancient Chinese art was characterised by both the highest spiritual withdrawal as well as exciting elements of expression. The coming together of these works of art in an exhibition drawn from various millennia may well contribute to Europeans better comprehending the daunting contradictions between tradition and modernity existing in China today.
The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Museum for East Asian Art Cologne, the Museum Ludwig Cologne, the Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen and the China National Museum of Fine Arts Peking.

Made in USA
Keith Haring, Robert Longo, Kenny Scharf, Bill Beckley
19 January to 14 April 2002
 

No artistic movement has so fascinatingly expressed the American spirit of the times as much as Pop Art. Since the seventies American artists of various generations such as Warhol, Lichtenstein, Haring, Longo, Scharf and Beckley have uplifted the triviality of the American Way to become the heroes of their images, integrating the graphic language of popular magazines, advertising, photography and graffiti into their methods of expression.
The works of Keith Haring, Robert Longo, Kenny Scharf and Bill Beckley also show us the American culture of fun, in which all is happy, funny or pretty, but is still part of a society that 'amuses itself to death', as once prophesied by Neil Postman. Whether it is the expressive language of graffiti contained within the paintings of Haring and Scharf or the analytical photography of Longo and Beckley, we experience their uplifting and at the same time shuddering fascination: the goings-on of the fun generation conceal hysteria, alienation, violence and the fear of death. This ambivalence between the desire for pleasure and the fear of death has existed in the works of Pop Art since the time of Andy Warhol. Much of that communicated by the images of Keith Haring, Robert Longo, Kenny Scharf and Bill Beckley since the 80's and 90's indeed first becomes cognisant following the 11th of September.
The exhibition is organised in cooperation with the Kunstverein Oberhausen and Galerie Mayer, Dusseldorf.

Götter, Helden und Idole / Gods, Heroes and Idols

25 January to 13 April 1998
 

We come across images of gods both old and new and from different cultures in the masterpieces of painting, sculpture, applied art, poster art and photography: the Egyptian queen Nefertiti, Olympic athletes, the 'enlightened' Buddha, the Holy Virgin, Aphrodite, the Indian goddess Sita, the Medieval knights and the awe-inspiring Fudó, the highly gifted actress Sarah Bernardt, the godly Garbo, the rock idol Elvis Presley and the superstar Michael Jackson.
All gods, heroes, idols, holy people, witches and demons are the immortal paragons that are resurrected in the pantheon of our modern Trivial culture. The everyday imagery of films, photography, comics and television and the power of their systematic distribution via electronic pictorial communication is responsible for their continued fascination in the everyday lives of people: the arousing of passions, keeping demons at safe distance, fulfilling holy expectations, maintaining balances, separating good from evil in a world where Heaven is devoid of gods and where we must get used to seeing activity and experiences in cyber-space as being more real than those of our senseless everyday lives.
The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Basel Museum of Antiquities, the Ludwig Collection, the Ludwig Forum for International Art Aachen, the Museum Ludwig Cologne, the Rautenstrauch Joest Museum Cologne, the Suermondt Ludwig Museum Aachen and others.