Modern & Contemporary Art Exhibitions in Essen

29 rooms – 29 stories of new beginnings and rediscoveries, of similarities and contrasts, of humankind and art. The Museum Folkwang collection offers new insights into developments and connections within art history, with altering displays spanning different eras and media. Recent acquisitions and rarely exhibited works engage in exciting dialogues with the collection’s masterpieces. Painting, photography, poster art …

Starting with Otto Steinert and his Contributions to the History of Photography , artists and photographers have been questioned and interviewed about their work over the course of more than five decades. In audio recordings and contemporary documents, protagonists of photography from the 1930s, 1950s, 1970s, 1990s and 2000s enter into a dialogue with exemplary works from the collection.

William Kentridge (born in 1955 in Johannesburg) is one of the world’s most renowned contemporary artists. He came to fame internationally at the end of the 1980s with his animated short films; in them, Kentridge both critically and very poetically explores South Africa’s past and its present. These films, which are based on large-format charcoal drawings, constitute the starting point of what has evolved into a wide-ranging …

The exhibition shows new works by young artists that are being created as part of the 15th prize round. It combines varied photographic and filmic approaches that deal with the political and social constitution of our world.

Museum Folkwang has housed the photographer Germaine Krull’s estate since 1995. In addition to prints, negatives and publications, it also includes an extensive journalistic oeuvre. This includes (auto) biographical and (auto) fictional texts, (photo) books and maquettes, letters and political reports or reportages. As an extended approach to Germaine Krull’s artistic legacy, this journalistic oeuvre is now becoming visible in essential parts. In view of the fact that writing accompanied all of the artist’s creative phases, this focus, in addition to the avant-garde works of the 1920s and 1930s, also brings the photographic practice of those creative phases into view, which have so far only been marginally considered by research. The exhibition and publication project also opens up a new transcultural perspective on Germaine Krull’s life and artistic work from the beginning of the Second World War after her permanent departure from Europe.