2023 exhibition preview

PRESS RELEASE
2023 Exhibition Preview
Early Photographs of Italy / From Rodin to Picasso – The Relief in Art / Holbein and the Renaissance in the North / Contemporary Art by Philipp Fürhofer, Ugo Rondinone, Victor Man, and Miron Schmückle

Images of Italy. Places of Longing in Early Photography
23 February – 3 September 2023
Gondoliers on the Grand Canal, the Leaning Tower of Pisa, and the antiquities of Rome: Numerous photographs by Giorgio Sommer (1834–1914), the company of the Alinari brothers (founded in 1854), Carlo Naya (1816–1882), and Robert Macpherson (1814–1872), among others, shaped the image of Italy as a place of longing. In an exhibition comprising 90 works, the Städel Museum will present a selection of early photographs of Italy from the years 1850 to 1880 from its collection.

Philipp Fürhofer: Phantom Islands
12 May – 5 November 2023
Palm leaves, sunsets, forests – at the interface between installation and painting, tropical landscapes by the artist Philipp Fürhofer (b. 1982) radiate towards the viewer in light boxes and paintings. However, the romanticism of nature is deceptive: Beneath layers of paint bursts, questions regarding the existential, reciprocal influence of humans and nature, of capitalist civilisation, and the constant destruction of our living environment are revealed. The Städel Museum presents the artist’s latest works in a focused solo exhibition.

Outstanding! The Relief from Rodin to Picasso
24 May – 17 September 2023
Is it painting, or is it sculpture? No other artistic medium transcends the boundaries of our vision like a relief. This ambiguity has always made reliefs appealing to the most famous artists. In the spring of 2023, the Städel Museum will present a major survey exhibition on the possibilities explored in reliefs from 1800 to the 1960s. Literally outstanding works will be on display, spanning some 150 years, by artists that include Bertel Thorvaldsen, Jules Dalou, Auguste Rodin, Medardo Rosso, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pablo Picasso, and Alexander Archipenko, as well as Hans Arp, Kurt Schwitters, Sophie Taeuber-Arp, Yves Klein, Louise Nevelson, and Lee Bontecou. To this end, the Städel Museum – in cooperation with the Hamburger Kunsthalle – is bringing together important works of art from European museums, including the Petit Palais and the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, the Kunstmuseum Basel, and the Musée des Beaux-Arts Lyon, as well as rarely seen works from various private collections.

Ugo Rondinone. Sunrise. East
28 June – 5 November 2023
Grotesque creatures welcome the public to the Städel Garden. The Swiss artist Ugo Rondinone (b. 1964) will transform the prominent hill above the Garden Halls into a strange landscape. For his group of works Sunrise. East, Rondinone assigned a head with characteristic, highly reduced facial features to represent each calendar month. Visitors to the Städel Garden are invited to come face-to-face with all twelve creatures – and thus every month of the year – and experience the various joys, adversities, and emotions of an entire year in fast forward.

Victor Man
14 October – 4 February 2024
Intimate, predominantly small-format paintings seemingly lost in time characterise the work of Romanian artist Victor Man (b. 1974, Cluj). Subtle influences of the pre-Renaissance period and echoes of Symbolism can be discerned in his melancholic imagery. Amid the Old Masters Collection, the Städel Museum will present an exhibition of works from the last ten years dedicated to the painter’s artistic focus: self-portraits and portraits. His oeuvre reveals numerous art historical references but also represents a unique position in contemporary painting. A fascinating dialogue between history and the present emerges.

Holbein and the Renaissance in the North
2 November 2023 – 18 February 2024
Along with Albrecht Dürer, the painters Hans Holbein the Elder and Hans Burgkmair the Elder are regarded as pioneers of a new art: Renaissance painting. The centre of this art was the imperial and commercial metropolis of Augsburg, which developed into the capital of both the German and international Renaissance in just a few decades. In the autumn of 2023, the Städel Museum – together with the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna – will dedicate a major special exhibition to this art historical turning point. For the first time, a significant number of the most important paintings, drawings, and prints by Hans Holbein the Elder (c. 1460/70–1524) and Hans Burgkmair the Elder (1473–1531) will be brought together in one exhibition. Works by other Augsburg-based artists from the period, dating from 1480/90 to around 1530, as well as selected German, Italian, and Dutch artworks by Albrecht Dürer, Andrea Solario, and Hugo van der Goes, among others, will augment the selection. These works were created either for municipal patrons or had an exemplary influence on the work of Holbein and Burgkmair. The exhibition presents a comprehensive overview of the development of Northern European art from the late Gothic period to the beginning of the modern age.

Miron Schmückle
Opening November 2023
The Romanian-German artist Miron Schmückle (b. 1966, Sibiu) is a very unique protagonist of contemporary art. Growing up in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu, as a child, the artist had dreamed of other worlds which seemed forever inaccessible due to the Iron Curtain. His early engagement with art history on the one hand and with flora and fauna of distant countries on the other resulted in a uniquely coherent artistic oeuvre.

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