In Jan­uary 1973, ten weeks be­fore Pab­lo Pi­cas­so’s death, Louise Leiris showed a se­ries of prints that would be his fi­nal le­ga­cy in her Paris gallery: 155 etch­in­gs cre­at­ed be­tween 1968 and 1972. Af­ter the print of three proof sheets a small­er plate (No. 7) was lost, and there­fore was nev­er part oft he pub­lished edi­tion by the gallery. Since this pre­miere, th­ese last prints by the artist have been rare­ly pre­sent­ed. Suite 156, now re­gard­ed as a char­ac­teris­tic ex­am­ple of Pi­cas­so’s late graph­ic work, is part of the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig.

April 8, 2023, marks the fifti­eth an­niv­er­sary of Pi­cas­so’s death. Un­der the ti­tle The Pi­cas­so Cele­bra­tion, 1973–2023, around for­ty ex­hi­bi­tions in Eu­rope and the Unit­ed States are tak­ing the an­niv­er­sary as an op­por­tu­ni­ty to bring his work clos­er to to­day’s au­di­ences. The Mu­se­um Lud­wig is sup­port­ing this monu­men­tal pro­ject both as a len­der and with its own pre­sen­ta­tion: in 2023, fif­ty years af­ter its com­ple­tion, Suite 156 will be shown to a new gen­er­a­tion that is con­front­ed with sim­i­lar ques­tions re­gard­ing the per­cep­tion of the body in so­ci­e­ty. The pre­sen­ta­tion of the se­ries of etch­in­gs is com­ple­ment­ed by a new piece by con­tem­po­rary Afghan artist Kubra Khade­mi (b. 1989 in Ghor, Afgha­nis­tan). Her art in­vesti­gates so­cial nor­ma­tive ex­pec­ta­tions of fe­male bodies in a po­lit­i­cal yet hu­mor­ous way.

Cu­ra­tor: Eboa Iton­do

As an ex­hi­bi­tion or­ganiz­er, co­foun­der of Skulp­tur Pro­jekte Mün­ster, cu­ra­tor of the ma­jor ex­hi­bi­tions West­kunst and von hi­er aus as well as Man­i­fes­ta in St. Peters­burg, Kasper König played an in­com­para­ble role in shap­ing art dis­course over the past five de­cades. He was di­rec­tor of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig for twelve years (2000–12). In his view, a mu­se­um is a public place: “It be­longs to ev­ery­one and no one.”König is now do­nat­ing a se­lec­tion of works from his pri­vate col­lec­tion to the Mu­se­um Lud­wig, which will be pre­sent­ed in one room within the mu­se­um’s per­ma­nent col­lec­tion. Al­though he nev­er saw him­self as a tra­di­tio­n­al col­lec­tor, over the de­cades, spon­ta­neous purchas­es, sou­venirs, and gifts have grown in­to a very per­so­n­al col­lec­tion.

Cu­ra­tor: Stephan Died­erich

Fran­cis Alÿs re­ceives the 2023 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize from the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig. The Mex­i­co Ci­ty–based artist (b. 1959 in An­tw­erp) studied ar­chi­tec­ture and ur­ban plan­n­ing and be­gan work­ing for lo­cal NGOs there in 1986, be­fore start­ing his ar­tis­tic ca­reer in 1990. His di­verse work in­cludes paint­ing, draw­ing, in­s­tal­la­tions, video, pho­tog­ra­phy, and per­for­mances, and has been shown in nu­mer­ous ex­hi­bi­tions around the world, in­clud­ing the Bel­gian Pav­ilion at the fif­ty-ninth Venice Bi­en­nale (2022) and DOC­U­MEN­TA (13) in Kas­sel/Kab­ul (2013).

Fran­cis Alÿs’s unique ar­tis­tic po­si­tion is par­tic­u­lar­ly evi­dent in the way he ob­serves our so­ci­e­ty. Us­ing the sim­plest of ar­tis­tic ges­tures, he la­con­i­cal­ly re­lates com­plex so­cial re­al­i­ties, mak­ing con­tra­dic­tions of po­lit­i­cal and cul­tu­r­al regimes tan­gi­ble as well as those of his own aes­thet­ic pro­duc­tions. His in­ter­ven­tions in re­al si­t­u­a­tions, in which he fre­quent­ly ap­pears as an ac­tor, subt­ly re­fer to is­sues such as mi­gra­tion, de­mar­ca­tions, and the conse­quences of glob­al­iza­tion. The fact that his works of­ten take the form of en­act­ments of the ab­sur­di­ty of ev­ery­day life makes their re­cep­tion an en­ter­tain­ing in­tel­lec­tu­al de­light.

Cu­ra­tor: Yil­maz Dziewior