Archive

What do plants mean to human beings? The exhibition Green Modernism: The New View of Plants took us back to the early twentieth century and examines the depiction of plants in the visual arts and how they were viewed in botany and society in general. After all, as plain as potted plants in pictures may appear at first glance, and as matter-of-fact as botanical reports read, they always also attest to the contradictions, fears, longings, and ideologies of the modern age.

The In­dian pho­to­g­ra­pher Raghu­bir Singh (1942–1999) re­peat­ed­ly re­turned to Kol­ka­ta (called Cal­cut­ta un­til 2001), and over the years he cre­at­ed a com­plex and mul­ti­lay­ered pho­to­graph­ic por­trait of the ci­ty. In this way, the dif­fer­ent his­tor­i­cal lay­ers are equal­ly rep­re­sent­ed in the pho­to­graph. Singh’s pho­to­graphs are a cos­mopol­i­tan’s ho­mage to a cos­mopol­i­tan ci­ty. In the pho­tog­ra­phy room, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig pre­sent­ed twelve pho­to­graphs from Singh’s Cal­cut­ta se­ries, which have been part of the col­lec­tion since 2017.

The Mu­se­um Lud­wig was pre­sent­ing a con­cen­trat­ed ex­hi­bi­tion in hon­or of Ger­hard Richter’s nineti­eth birth­day. From Fe­bruary 1 to May 1, 2022, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig showed a se­lec­tion of five works by Ger­hard Richter (born Fe­bruary 9, 1932) from its col­lec­tion. The ex­hi­bi­tion fea­tured fig­u­ra­tive works de­pict­ing peo­ple and ob­jects as well as ab­s­tract paint­ings and works com­prised of panes of glass and mir­rors.

Mar­cel Oden­bach (*1953 in Cologne) was award­ed the 2021 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize by the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst. The award cer­e­mony al­ways al­so in­cludes an ac­qui­si­tion for the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig. Thanks to Mar­cel Oden­bach’s generos­i­ty, the Ge­sellschaft für Mod­erne Kunst am Mu­se­um Lud­wig ac­quired his unique Sch­nittvor­la­gen for the 2021 Wolf­gang Hahn Prize, which were shown in the exhibition.

With the ex­hi­bi­tion to­gether for and against it, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig was fo­cus­ing on po­si­tions of con­tem­po­rary art in Ja­pan and their his­tor­i­cal pre­de­ces­sors. A start­ing point is the con­sid­er­a­tion of the Ja­pa­nese avant-garde in the 1960s from to­day’s per­spec­tives. What de­vel­op­ments in the post-war pe­ri­od did artists re­act to at the time? What mo­ti­vat­ed their sen­sa­tio­n­al public per­for­mances? What moves the artist col­lec­tive Chim↑Pom and the artist Ko­ki Ta­na­ka to­day, and how do they re­late to this his­tor­i­cal move­ment?

What do we as­so­ci­ate with Pab­lo Pi­cas­so? And what as­so­ci­a­tions with him did the Ger­man peo­ple have in mind dur­ing the post-war years, when he was at the height of his fame? Far more than we do: This was the main idea of the ex­hi­bi­tion, which re­veals a for­got­ten breadth, ten­sion, and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty of th­ese ap­pro­pri­a­tions. It dealt not on­ly with the artist, but with his au­di­ence, which in­ter­pret­ed Pi­cas­so’s art in very dif­fer­ent ways in the cap­i­tal­ist West and in the so­cial­ist East. The Ger­man Pi­cas­so was di­vid­ed, but this di­vi­sion al­so sti­m­u­lat­ed the re­cep­tion: Be­cause ev­ery­one ques­tioned his art, it had some­thing to say for ev­ery­one.

The photo al­bum “A­the­nien­sische Al­terthümer” by Fe­lix Alex­an­der Op­pen­heim was ex­hi­b­it­ed for the first time, thus re­veal­ing a mo­ment in his­to­ry when the en­thu­si­asm for an­tiqui­ty, ear­ly arche­ol­o­gy, the politics of sym­bols in Greece, and the strug­gle for right­ful own­er­ship cre­at­ed a con­text rich in words and im­ages for th­ese si­lent ruins.

Since the 1970s, Nil Yal­ter has been work­ing as a pi­oneer of so­cial­ly en­gaged and tech­ni­cal­ly ad­vanced art.The Mu­se­um Lud­wig will hosted the Turk­ish artist’s first ma­jor sur­vey ex­hi­bi­tion.

The year 2019 will mark the 250th an­niver­sary of the birth of Alexan­der von Hum­boldt (1769–1859). The Mu­se­um Lud­wig is tak­ing this an­niver­sary as an oc­ca­sion to trace Hum­boldt’s con­nec­tion to pho­tog­ra­phy.

This sur­vey ex­hi­bi­tion pre­sented the mu­tu­al in­flu­ence be­tween Ger­man and Amer­i­can po­si­tions in the dense cul­tu­r­al land­s­cape of the Rhine­land from the 1960s to the 1990s.

Aenne Bi­er­mann (1898–1933) took pho­to­graphs of her im­me­di­ate sur­round­in­gs from 1925 un­til her ear­ly death, and this body of work helped shape mod­er­nist pho­tog­ra­phy.

Werner Mantz is known as one of the most prominent photographers of the Neues Bauen movement of modernist architecture in Cologne during the 1920s. In a second creative period he returned to portrait photography. .

On the cen­te­nary of Hein­rich Böll’s birth, the Mu­se­um Lud­wig ex­amined Böll’s re­la­tion­ship to pho­tog­ra­phy and tak­ing pho­to­graph­s.

The ex­hi­bi­tion Gerhard Richter: New Paintings presented new ab­s­tract paint­in­gs cre­at­ed in 2016 along­side works from the col­lec­tion of the Mu­se­um Lud­wig by Richter

In a big retrospective, the Museum Ludwig presented one of the most original abstract artists of the twentieth century: Otto Freundlich (1878–1943)

The second exhibition in the series HERE AND NOW did not take place in the museum, but in six private homes in Cologne

The Chinese artists is the recipient of the 22. Wolfgang Hahn Prize, presenting an exhibition in the grand stairwell of the museum

The first ret­ro­spec­tive that fo­cus­es on Fer­nand Léger’s mu­rals, casting a new light on one of the most di­verse and in­flu­en­tial artists of mod­er­nism.

The first part of the new exhibition series HERE AND NOW takes Zobernig's installation for the Venice Biennale in 2015 as a starting point

The Mu­se­um Lud­wig is presenting a restrospective exhibition of the legendary artist Joan Mitchell, one of the most im­­por­­tant fig­ures in twen­ti­eth-cen­­tu­ry art

Ber­nard Schultze (1915–2005) was a lead­ing ex­po­nent of ges­tu­ral ab­s­tract paint­ing in Eu­rope. The Museum Ludwig is pay­ing ho­mage to him on the cen­ten­nial of his birth.

The Vietnamese artist Danh Võ is presenting his most well-known long-term project 'We The People', amongst other works

For the first time, the Wolfgang Hahn Prize was awarded to two artists: Michael Krebber and R.H. Quaytman

For the first time, all the me­dia with which the artist en­gaged in­ten­sive­ly through­out his ca­reer are brought to­gether in one ex­hi­bi­tion, with works dating from 1963 through 2010.

Do we need a museum of photography? Taking a closer look at the collector Erich Stenger (1878–1958) and his collection, the exhibition submits his idea to a revision

Oscar Tuazon has realized a site-specific installation at the Museum Ludwig, rebulding parts of a private home inside the museum's wide open staircase

Pierre Huyghe has transformed the exhibition space into a whole world of its own, bringing together liv­ing sys­tems, ob­jects, films, pho­to­graphs, draw­ings, and mu­sic

Peter and Irene Lud­wig brought Pop Art to Ger­many. The exhibition brings it to­gether in a large sur­vey ex­hi­bi­tion with works from the other Lud­wig Mu­se­ums around the world

2 – the title is the agenda. The largest room in the museum is divided into two parts, one light and the other dark, showing recent works rangeing from prints, woodcuts, photgraphs, to a large-scale video-installation

See­ing fa­miliar things with new eyes and com­ing up with dif­fer­ent sto­ries. The new presentation of the collection

The Museum Ludwig mounted the first solo exhibition of work by Californian artist Kathryn Andrews to be seen in a public institution

From 24 May through 25 August 2013, the Museum Ludwig showcased - as the first ever German institution to do so - the US American artist Jo Baer (b.1929 in Seattle, lives since 1984 in Amsterdam) in a solo exhibition

The first retrospective exhibition by the American Performance artist in an institution

At the heart of Phil Collins' work is the individual in our media society. A new comprehensive project has been created especially for the Museum Ludwig

The Museum Ludwig presents the complete mural-collage created by Saul Steinberg for EXPO 58 in Brussels for the first time since its entirety

The outstanding archive of an extraordinary friendship

Cinetic machine-sculptures with cryptic humour

Landscape paintings, iPad-Drawings, and Multi-Focus-Films offer a broad overview of the recent work by the British artist

A Retrospektive of Comics, Graphics, and Scraps

The most comprehensive exhibition to date focusing on the monumental oeuvre of the 1950s to 70s by the Pop-Artist

An overview of 12 years at the Museum Ludwig - The last presentation of the collection by the former director

The first European retrospective of the influential choreographer and filmmaker

The Danish artist was the 2012 recipient of the Wolfgang Hahn Prize awarded by the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig

Graphic works and audio plays by German artist Ferdinand Kriwet

The parable “Before the Law” by Franz Kafka (1915) serves as a guiding motif for this exhibition idea

On the occasion of the first anniversary of her passing, the Museum Ludwig has installed a room with works from the private residence of Peter and Irene Ludwig

The Museum Ludwig is presenting an exhibition of the artist Cosima von Bonin, which will develop as a 'Work in Progress' in four European cities

Pablo Picasso was not only a great artist but also a master of self-dramatization