Städel Museum

A coast becomes a myth: the cliffs of Étretat, located in Normandy on the Atlantic coast, captivated numerous artists in the 19th century. Claude Monet was also so fascinated by the unique cliffs with their three rock arches that he dedicated a series of paintings to them. The Städel Museum is presenting a major exhibition dedicated to the artistic discovery of the former fishing village of Étretat and its influence on modern painting.

Asta Gröting’s films are more than visual representations of our environment: they open up contemplative spaces that encourage reflection on the intricacies of hidden relationships and their dynamics. Through her work, Gröting shows how art can act as a medium for interpersonal connections by capturing intimate and intense encounters. Her sensitive translation of captivating moments into moving images invites to explore the subtle, often hidden liminal states of existence, and experience the poetry of the moment anew. Highlights of the exhibition include the work “Breathing Curve”, 2025, created especially for the exhibition, and the premiere of her latest video work, “Matthias, Helge and Asta” (2025), featuring Matthias Brandt, Helge Schneider and Asta Gröting herself as protagonists. Curator Svenja Grosser, Head of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum Project Manager Gioia Mattner, Assistant Curator of Contemporary Art, Städel Museum Exhibition Views

The Städel Museum holds one of the most outstanding Beckmann collections in the world and has been dedicated to collecting, researching and communicating his work for more than a century. In 2021, the museum received a remarkable addition to its holdings in the form of important permanent loans from the collection of Karin and Rüdiger Volhard. This, together with the publication of the three-volume catalogue raisonné of Max Beckmann’s black-and-white drawings by Hirmer Verlag—with which Hedda Finke and Stephan von Wiese have closed one of the last major gaps in research on Beckmann’s drawings—is the occasion for this retrospective exhibition. The exhibition is based on drawings from the Städel Museum’s own collection, complemented by loans from renowned international museums and private collections, including The Museum of Modern Art in New York, the British Museum in London, the Art Institute of Chicago, the Kunstmuseum Basel, the Hamburger Kunsthalle, the Kupferstichkabinett – Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Museum der bildenden Künste Leipzig. Selected paintings and prints also provide insights into Beckmann’s working process and the interplay of different media. Curators Hedda Finke and Stephan von Wiese (catalogue raisonné of Max Beckmann’s drawings), Dr. Regina Freyberger (Head of Prints and Drawings after 1800, Städel Museum)

These compositions bear only a seeming affinity to Pop Art: The son of an art historian was actually inspired by photographic enlargements of details in specialist art-historical literature. Yet whereas there such images fulfil an explanatory function, in Gnoli’s work they cause a sense of alienation. In the enlarged detail, the commonplace object transforms into something strangely different, something familiar and unfamiliar at once. Surfaces, patterns, and textures gain an abstract value of their own that is further heightened by the sand mixed into the paint. Amplified by the attention we give it, the common object is more important, more beautiful, and more horrible than any fantasy could have made it. It says more about me than anything else, fills me with fear, loathing, and delight. Domenico Gnoli Gnoli’s ‘detail views’ are full of memories and hidden stories. The fact that those stories remain untold is part of what constitutes their suggestive power. Indeed, his drawings and illustrations are a product of the pleasure taken in inventing fantastical tales. Narrative elements emerge in the etchings as well. There Gnoli’s fascination with texture and material translates into a gossamer weave of densely layered clusters of strokes. What appears at first to be a seemingly contradictory oeuvre thus comes together in a cohesive whole.