Worlds in Motion

A Roman emperor meets an English pop star, Lucas Cranach’s Venus meets Benedikte Bjerre’s Chicken and Cindy Sherman’s sex dolls, horse-drawn carriages meet a giant flying machine. With these and other surpri­sing encoun­ters, the Kunst­mu­seum Wolfsburg is celebra­ting its thirtieth anniversary.

This major exhibi­tion not only features well-known highlights from the museum’s outstan­ding collec­tion, but also presents numerous new donations to the public for the first time. Special “guests” have been invited to stage exciting dialogs on timeless yet highly topical themes in a parti­cu­larly effective way: Fifteen histo­rical works from the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum in Braun­schweig are juxta­posed with contem­porary paintings, sculp­tures, and instal­la­tions by inter­na­tio­nally renowned artists, including Phyllida Barlow, Gauri Gill, Andreas Gursky, Michel Majerus, Jonathan Meese, Bruce Nauman, Panama­renko, Elizabeth Peyton, and many more – a veritable Who’s Who of contem­porary art! The exhibi­tion offers unusual perspec­tives on the body, sexuality and identity, family sensi­ti­vi­ties, and social values such as freedom and equality; in fifteen chapters, it spans a thematic arc from the indivi­dual to the global.

With its coope­ra­tion with the Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, the anniver­sary exhibi­tion is a further sign of insti­tu­tional solida­rity, not least to streng­then art and culture in the region. The juxta­po­si­tion of works from both museums results in a lively exami­na­tion of both the constants and the varia­tions of our living environment.

Artists of the exhibition

Franz Ackermann, Nobuyoshi Araki, Richard Artsch­wager, Awst & Walther, Natalie Ball, Phyllida Barlow, Ute Behrend, Richard Billingham, Benedikte Bjerre, Hussein Chalayan, Serge Attukwei Clottey, Charles-Nicolas Cochin d. Ä., Dirck Volckerts­zoon Coornhert, Tony Cragg, Lucas Cranach d. Ä., Domenico da Venezia, Emanuel de Witte, Jan Dibbets, John Dixon, Burhan Dogançay, Sophie Erlund, Jacques Fouquier, Frans Francken d. J., Sandra Gamarra Heshiki, Gilbert & George, Gauri Gill, Liam Gillick, Douglas Gordon, Andreas Gursky, Eberhard Havekost, Ulrich Hensel, Georg Herold, William Hogarth, Jörg Immen­dorff, Christian Keinstar, In Sook Kim, Jeff Koons, Mischa Kuball, Chris­to­pher Kulendran Thomas, Robert Lebeck, Rebecca Lewis, Pia Linz, Ann Lisle­gaard, Sharon Lockhart, Michel Majerus, Anna Malagrida, Jonathan Meese, Mario Merz, Bruce Nauman, Nam June Paik, Panama­renko, Elizabeth Peyton, Prajakta Potnis, Adam Putnam, Neo Rauch, Mariela Scafati, Thomas Schütte, Tejal Shah, Cindy Sherman, Antanas Sutkus, Stefan Thiel, Goran Tomcic, Mette Tronvoll, Luc Tuymans, Timm Ulrichs, Willem van Nieulandt, Hendrick van Steenwyck d. Ä., Mariana Vassileva, Tobias Verhaecht, Danh Vō, Abraham Willaerts, Thoralf Knobloch

Kurator
Holger Broeker

Kurato­ri­sche Assistenz
Veronika Mehlhart