Munich's museums invite visitors to encounter the Old Masters and new young things. Almost all genres and epochs are represented. It is amazing what art can do: it brings colour to our lives, amuses us, irritates and rebels, relaxes and is sometimes simply beautiful. Here are some exhibitions that you’ll definitely want to catch:
- Art of Antiquity
- The Old Masters
- From the 18th century to classical modernism
- Strong women, strong art
- Art in dialogue
- Architecture, design and handicraft
- Munich – a mecca for contemporary art
- Photo exhibitions
- Exhibitions at the Jüdisches Museum
- Exhibitions at the NS-Dokumentationszentrum
- Exhibitions at the Deutsches Museum
- Exhibitions in the Munich environs
Naga - the buried royal city, Staatliches Museum Ägyptischer Kunst, 12 May to 22 October 2023
In the special exhibition “Naga – the buried royal city“, the State Museum of Egyptian Art takes visitors with it to the excavation work in Sudan. Large, walk-through photo panoramas transport the audience to the Sudanese steppe and give them an insight into the archaeological research work on an excavation. With the help of state-of-the-art audio technology, the impression of being directly on site is also created acoustically.
Naga is located in the south-eastern foothills of the Sahara and is one of the most complex archaeological sites in Sudan. The magnificent temple city of the ancient empire of Meroe (around 350 BC to 350 AD) remained well protected in the desert sands after its heyday from 250 BC to 250 AD, thus offering ideal conditions for archaeological fieldwork. Naga has been a UNSESCO World Heritage Site since 2011.
Venezia 500. The Gentle Revolution of Venetian Painting, Alte Pinakothek, 27 October 2023 to 4 February 2024
The exhibition at the Alte Pinakothek is devoted to the groundbreaking innovations in Venetian Renaissance painting, with lasting effects that continued to resonate far into European modernism. It presents 15 masterpieces from the Munich collection and around 70 international loans, focusing on portraits and landscapes from the first half of the sixteenth century as the most eloquent examples of the characteristics and achievements of the flourishing Venetian school.
The leading masters brought a previously unprecedented intensity to their explorations of the essence of humanity and nature. This explains the attraction and the relevance of these portraits and landscapes, which will be presented in themed groups and in juxtapositions of drawings and sculptures that address the contexts of their creative origins and contemporary readings. Works by Giovanni Bellini, Giorgione, Palma Vecchio, Lorenzo Lotto, Titian and Tintoretto are on display.
From Goya to Manet – Masterpieces from the Neue Pinakothek at the Alte Pinakothek, to 31 December 2023
Around 90 paintings and sculptures from the late 18th to the early 20th century will be exhibited under the title “From Goya to Manet”. This temporary relocation of masterpieces from the Neue Pinakothek to the Alte Pinakothek presents a unique opportunity to view the most famous paintings from both museums under one roof.
Turner. Three Horizons, Lenbachhaus Kunstbau, 28 October 2023 to 10 March 2024
Joseph Mallord William Turner has long been hailed as a revolutionary innovator who helped pave the way for modernism. He began exploring the possibilities of landscape painting early on, both by studying earlier masters of the genre and in direct engagement with the world around him. He experimented with the conventions of his craft, gradually pushing the boundaries of traditional representation. Soon his works loosened the bond that tied them to nature as it appears to the eye to such a degree that, in their reduction to colour, light, and atmosphere, they called the picture’s representational function into question. His art amazed contemporary beholders and sparked controversy.
The cooperation of Lenbachhaus in Munich with Tate Britain, London, which preserves his extensive estate, enables to vividly illustrate Turner’s career and his pictorial innovations. On display are around forty paintings and forty watercolours as well as sketches from all parts of his oeuvre.
The 6th Kunstareal Festival will once again take place on the entire area in Maxvorstadt from 13 to 16 July. Around 300 individual events are planned, both indoors and outdoors, especially on Saturday and Sunday. Admission to all museums in the Kunstareal is free on all days. The exact programme will be announced shortly.
Live free! The women of the Bohemian world, Monacensia at the Hildebrandhaus, 1 July 2022 to 31 July 2023
The exhibition at the Monacensia (Munich's literary archive) focuses on Munich’s Bohemian women between 1890 and 1920, examining their importance in the context of literature, culture, politics and society. What topics did the women of the Bohemian world write about? What living concepts and political demands did they introduce to the public sphere? What ideals and convictions did they represent? How did they wish to live? To what extent did they shape Bohemianism as a subculture at the turn of the century?
The exhibition centres on women whose lives and work were largely based in Munich. The specific destinies of individuals such as Franziska zu Reventlow, Margarete Beutler and Emmy Hennings were clearly marked by difficulties and problems, but these women also emerge as courageous protagonists fighting for female self-determination and independence.
In Other Spaces. Environments by Women Artists 1956 to 1976, Haus der Kunst, 8 September 2023 to 10 March 2024
Judy Chicago, Lygia Clark, Faith Wilding and others are on view here in a reconstruction of historical environments by women artists. “Environment“ is a genre of art in which spaces are designed: Haus der Kunst presents eleven works by women artists of three generations from Asia, Europe and North and South America. The exhibition redefines the artistic canon by showing the elementary role of women in the development of environments.
Meredith Monk: Calling, Haus der Kunst, 10 November 2023 to 8 March 2024
“Meredith Monk. Calling” (cover picture of this exhibition preview) is the most comprehensive survey to date of the celebrated American artist, presenting works from across the last six decades. Monk (b. 1942, New York City) seamlessly works across disciplines - pushing the boundaries of music, theatre, dance, video, and installation – while at the core, continuously exploring the evocative power and dimensionality of the human voice. While Monk is widely recognised in the worlds of music and theatre, the exhibition at Haus der Kunst will be the first exhibition in Europe dedicated to her immersive work.
Nicole Eisenmann. What happened, Museum Brandhorst, 24 March to 10 September 2023
Nicole Eisenman (*1965) has been one of the protagonists of the New York art scene since the 1990s and is today one of the most influential contemporary artists. From the beginning, her work has been characterised by a juxtaposition of different materials, formats and techniques: Thus, some oil and acrylic paintings, large-format murals and works on paper stand on their own, while others are grouped into installations.
Characteristically, Eisenman draws from a variety of sources, including works from the Renaissance, comics from the underground scene or socialist murals from the 1930s. Many of her works invoke the experiences of lesbian communities in New York. However, rather than being purely documentary, they are highly imaginative and comedic.
Charlotte Salomon. Life? or Theater?, Lenbachhaus, 31 March to 10 September 2023
“Life? or Theater?“ is the epic work of the artist Charlotte Salomon (1917 Berlin - 1943 Auschwitz), created between the years 1940 and 1942. This “Singespiel“, as she called it, has remained timely to this day and consists of 769 gouaches, including drawings, lines of text as well as scenic annotations. In this work that was composed in exile in southern France, Salomon interweaves autobiographical and fictional material into a retelling of her life that is captivating in its rich variety of pictorial creations and its abundant references to the art, film, music, and philosophy of her time. “Life? or Theater?” thus offers a unique insight into the complex and violently abbreviated life of a young artist.
Marinella Senatore. We Rise by Lifting Others, Museum Villa Stuck, 4 May to 10 September 2023
Marinella Senatore (*1977) is a central figure in Italian contemporary art. With her work, she creates places where people can develop something together and unfold their creativity. Senatore's projects begin with a public call. The artist seeks people of all ages and backgrounds and specifically invites groups that are rarely on the radar of cultural institutions or have to fight for social recognition. Subsequently, films are made together in workshops, radio contributions are written and dance performances are prepared.
On the one hand, the Museum Villa Stuck gives space to Marinella Senatore's work with the parade “The School of Narrative Dance“, which will take place on 23 July 2023 and is being prepared in workshops and rehearsals from the beginning of May; on the other hand, an exhibition will show drawings, collages, photographs, textiles, sound compositions, films, paintings, small sculptures and light installations by the artist.
Flowers Forever, Flowers in Art and Culture, Kunsthalle München, 3 February to 27 August 2023
Flowers Forever is the first comprehensive exhibition dedicated to the art and cultural history of the flower from antiquity to the present. With paintings, sculptures, photographs, design, fashion, interactive media installations, and scientific objects, the Kunsthalle München presents a fascinating, thematically organized, and elaborately staged exhibition parcours addressing the role of flowers in art and science, in mythology and religion, as well as in literature, politics, economy, and ecology.
The presentation comprises around one hundred and seventy works from international collections as well as installations created especially for the exhibition. Important examples from the histories of art and design enter into a fruitful dialog with new artistic approaches. The exhibition features works by Jan Brueghel the Younger, Abraham Mignon, Barbara Regina Dietzsch, Lawrence Alma-Tadema, Hannah Höch, Andreas Gursky, Miguel Chevalier, Ann Carrington, Patricia Kaersenhout, Kehinde Wiley, DRIFT, and many other artists. The opening of the exhibition is also the kick-off for the city-wide Flower Power Festival Munich 2023.
(Not) A Doll’s House. Traditional Roles and Brand-New Images, Münchner Stadtmuseum, 3 April 2024 to 7 January 2024
Ensconced in doll’s houses, fairground booths, collections of curiosities, wherever, puppets and dolls have always exerted a powerful and fascinating appeal. Not only are they a prime figurative representation of humans, but they also manage to embody our innermost wishes, fears, and desires. They hold up a mirror to our society and its role models both past and present. We can see a similar ambivalence in the Sammlung Goetz by visual artists that take intriguing slants in their treatment of puppets and dolls. By combining their art, the Münchner Stadtmuseum's Puppet Theater/Fairground Attraction Collection and associated historical photographs, we venture into an interdisciplinary dialog between these rich sets of works. Over 500 works by some 50 artists and artisans are displayed throughout the exhibition and can be visited following varied itineraries. It includes videos by Kara Walker and Nathalie Djurberg, photographs by Cindy Sherman and Laurie Simmons and sculptures by Andreas Slominski and Thomas Schütte.
La vie en rose. Brueghel, Monet, Twombly, Museum Brandhorst, 5 May to 22 October 2023
With an exhibition inspired by Cy Twombly's rose paintings, Museum Brandhorst is participating in the city-wide Flower Power Festival. Twombly created the series Untitled (Roses) especially for a room of the museum, which opened in 2009, where the six monumental paintings have been on display ever since.
Based on Twombly's poetically conceived subjects such as death, freedom, loneliness and eroticism, the show brings together works by other artists, including Jennifer Packer, Ellsworth Kelly, Georgia O'Keeffe, Gabriele Münter and, last but not least, Claude Monet, who is represented with his famous Water Lilies from 1915. This bouquet of works from the Bavarian State Painting Collections and external loans reveals the complex, even contradictory motives of numerous artists to deal with the representation of flowers over the centuries.
Menschenbilder, Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke, 28 June to 8 December 2023
The artist Birgit Eiglsperger is exhibiting her latest works at the Museum für Abgüsse Klassischer Bildwerke. The contemporary objects meet casts of antiquities and thus unfold a multi-layered effect. Visitors are invited to trace the images of individuals and at the same time the general, the essential nature of being human. In addition, drawings and photos from the artist's work process present the exciting field between creating and perceiving.
WangShui: Certainty of the Flesh, Haus der Kunst, 8 September 2023 to 10 March 2024
Machine learning and live installation in WangShui's first European solo exhibition: the American artist (b. 1986) develops videos, sculptures and paintings with the help of artificial neural networks and creates generative installations that react to their environment. WangShui's work will be exhibited in dialogue with the works in the concurrent exhibition at the Haus der Kunst “In Other Spaces“ (see above).
The Bicycle. Cult Object - Design Object, Pinakothek der Moderne, 11 November 2022 to 22 September 2024
For the first time, the exhibition at the Pinakothek der Moderne focuses on the subject of bicycle design. On display are 70 examples of some of the most unusual and exciting bicycles in the history of design.
The fact that bicycle design is not only the art of craftsmanship and frame building, not only the work of ingenious inventors, tinkerers, obsessives and enthusiasts, is proven by the numerous designs of aircraft and automobile engineers such as Paul Jaray, Hermann Klaue or Alex Moulton as well as industrial designers, including Luigi Colani, Richard Sapper, Michael Conrad, Giorgetto Giugiaro, Marc Newson, Christian Zanzotti or Ross Lovegrove.
All sewn up. Woven and embroidered textiles from the Ottoman Empire, Museum Fünf Kontinente, 9 December 2022 to 11 June 2023
On 17 November 1922, Sultan Mehmed VI Vahideddin left the city of Istanbul on board a ship. After more than 700 years, his exile marked the end of the Ottoman Empire (1299-1922), which once spanned the continents of Africa, Europe and Asia. Among the gems of Ottoman art are finely embroidered textiles. Pillowcases and wall hangings defined the interior, ornate tablecloths and napkins ennobled meals, and towels with embroidery played an important role in the weekly visit to the hamam.
The exhibition shows cloths from the 18th to the 20th century. These textiles were artistically handcrafted and finely decorated with flowers, fruits or architectural elements. With the help of around 70 clothes and everyday objects from the Werner Middendorf and Ulla Ther collections as well as the museum's own holdings, visitors to the exhibition at Museum Fünf Kontinente will gain insights into various areas of life of the inhabitants of the Ottoman Empire.
Industrial Culture in Munich. Between demolition and preservation. Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum, 2 February to 6 June 2023
The exhibition in the Valentin-Karlstadt-Musäum at the Isartor is intended to raise awareness of the importance of industrial culture in Munich. The exhibition at the Isartor documents 36 industrial monuments.
Many objects have long since been demolished, such as the Glass Palace and the Maffei locomotive factory. Rare surviving buildings include the Schmederersteg in Giesing, the Hackerbrücke and the Munich Ledigenheim in the Westend and the Maximilianswerk in Haidhausen. But it is also possible to continue to use witnesses to industrial culture and, through careful treatment, to put them to new uses, as in the case of the Kraemer art mill on the Auer Mühlbach and the historic trade fair halls on the Theresienhöhe.
AYZIT BOSTAN PALACE, Rathausgalerie Marienplatz, 29 April to 7 July 2023
Munich-based designer and artist Ayzit Bostan creates an installation especially conceived for the Rathausgalerie. The former ticket hall is a space full of quotations from past eras: The impressive light dome, the marble fountain basin, the columns adorned with capitals under the large round arches and the striking tile ornaments. These special features become the starting point for Ayzit Bostan's artistic intervention. In her unmistakable style, she creates the “Ayzit Bostan Palace“.
Kunstlabor 2, Kunstlabor 2 of the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA), from 26 October 2021 for five years
Situated in the Maxvorstadt district and located in a former health centre, Kunstlabor 2 spans some 10,000 square metres over six floors. The building was transformed into a new centre for art and culture as a temporary project by the Museum of Urban and Contemporary Art (MUCA). A particularly exciting point for lovers of street art and urban art to note is that two of the six floors have been – and continue to be – transformed into a walk-in work of art by more than 100 artists.
Those involved include household names such as Loomit and rapper Samy Deluxe, but also newcomers such as Pepe (alias Jose Luis Villanueva Contreras). In addition to the permanent room installations and changing exhibitions, the centre offers an extensive framework programme including guided tours, workshops, film days, concerts, readings, labs, performances and many other cultural highlights. The operators of Kunstlabor 2 offer the façade to artists to use as a design platform, legally and free of charge.
From Andy Warhol to Kara Walker. Scenes from the Collection, Museum Brandhorst, 28 February to 14 July 2023
The Museum Brandhorst will present its collection in a fresh light. The ground floor galleries are now designed as a series of modules bringing together specific themes, historical events, and individual artists, spanning topics such as the relationship between painting and protest, as well as monographic exhibitions dedicated to Andy Warhol, Kara Walker and Pope.L. An area of focus is the combination of newly acquired recent works with classical works from the museum’s holdings. The exhibition aims to highlight how contemporary art – through its subject, its method of creation, or its philosophical reflection - establishes a mutually reinforcing conceptual relationship with our lived reality.
Alfredo Jaar: One Million German Passports, Pinakothek der Moderne, 29 March to 27 August 2023
Alfredo Jaar is considered one of the most culturally, politically and socially engaged visual artists of our time. With his installation in the middle of the rotunda of the Pinakothek der Moderne, Alfredo Jaar once again addresses a pressing issue of our time. The installation is composed of one million German passports behind a glass high-security wall. On the one hand, this is the number of people that former Chancellor Angela Merkel welcomed to Germany in 2015, but on the other hand, it is also the number of people who later distanced themselves from her and her party and voted for the far-right party AfD in 2017.
The installation raises the question of citizenship and identity in the face of increasing migration movements, which are intensifying due to climate change and ongoing conflicts, as well as the unequal treatment of refugees.
From Mystic to Plastic. African Masks. Photographs by Stéphan Gladieu, Museum Fünf Kontinente, 31 March to 6 August 2023
Mask costumes from the Republic of Bénin and from Kinshasa (DR Congo) are the focus of two portrait series by the French photographer Stéphan Gladieu, which are shown in a special exhibition at Museum Fünf Kontinente.
The cycle Egungun (2018-2020) shows ceremonial mask costumes from the Republic of Bénin , which are used in mask dances. The fully veiled dancers act as mediators between the living and the dead in the colourful Egungun garments, which are trimmed with numerous appliqués. The series Homo Détritus (2020/2021) presents photographs of masked costume re-creations by the artist collective Ndaku Ya from Kinshasa. With their performances in mask costumes made of disposable products, cables, CDs, radio and car parts, the artists denounce the social, political and ecological grievances of the DR Congo.
Stéphan Gladieu's two series of approximately 50 photographs offer a glimpse into a West African secret society and point to the effects of Western consumerism and throwaway society, which are particularly noticeable in the global South.
Wildlife Photographer of the Year, Museum Mensch und Natur, 28 April to 30 July 2023
For the 58th time in 2022, the Natural History Museum in London honoured the best nature photographers from all over the world with the “Wildlife Photographer of the Year“ award. The exhibition “Wildlife Photographer of the Year“ at the Museum Mensch und Natur will show a total of 100 award-winning images that were judged in more than 20 competition categories.
The photographs provide insight into the fascinating diversity as well as the sometimes dramatic natural events in the animal and plant world and illustrate the need to protect them. The overall winner and Wildlife Photographer of The Year in 2022 was Karine Aigner from the USA for her image of a cluster of cactus bees mating.
Doppelbelichtung (Double Exposure). Theatre Photography by Abisag Tüllmann and Ruth Walz, Deutsches Theatermuseum, autumn 2023
Since the late 1970s, Abisag Tüllmann and Ruth Walz have used their photographs to capture, each in their own way, the groundbreaking productions - some of which are the same - that have shaped our idea of theatre to this day. From autumn 2023, one focus of the exhibition at the Deutsches Theatermuseum will be the intensive examination of works by the director and set designer Karl-Ernst Herrmann (1936-2018) and the costume designer Moidele Bickel (1937-2016) by the two photographers, who are friends of each other. This turns the "double exposure" into a "multiple exposure" between photography, stage and costume design full of unexpected views and insights into theatre and opera history.
Munich Displaced “The Surviving Remnant”, Jüdisches Museum and Münchner Stadtmuseum, 5 July 2023 to 17 March 2024
The history of the Sh'erit ha-Pletah – Hebrew for “the surviving remnant,” as Jewish displaced persons (DPs) called themselves – forms a central theme in the collection at the Jewish Museum Munich. The history of Munich’s DPs, seen from a non-Jewish, local history perspective, however, has not yet been fully researched.
In two parallel exhibitions, held at the same time in the Jüdisches Museum Munich and the Münchner Stadtmuseum, the histories of the DP communities are to be placed in an interrelated context, and the experiences and fates of both Jewish and non-Jewish DPs in the immediate post-war period in Munich analyzed as a important point of reference in the history of immigration in Munich.
The area around Möhlstrasse in the Bogenhausen neighborhood, which was of immense importance to Jewish DPs after 1945 – with key institutions such as JOINT, the office of the Historical Commission and the Central Committee of Liberated Jews in Bavaria, grocery stores and kosher restaurants – is to be examined in detail. The setting up of businesses by Jewish DPs in Munich after 1945, antisemitism in the postwar period, the rededication of the Reichenbachstrasse Synagogue in 1947, and the “Exhibition of Jewish Artists” in 1948 at the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus are also to be highlighted in the projected exhibition.
“More important than life”: The Underground Archive of the Warsaw Ghetto Exhibition, NS-Dokumentationszentrum, 29 June 2023 to 7 January 2024
The exhibition at the NS-Dokumentationszentrum is devoted to the underground archive of the Warsaw Ghetto. In 1940, following the invasion of Poland by the German Wehrmacht, the German occupying forces cordoned off a large section of Warsaw and forced the Jewish population of the city and the surrounding villages and towns to move there. In order to document these events for the outside world and for posterity, the historian Emanuel Ringelblum initiated an unprecedented campaign to collect material in the ghetto—the collection today known as the Ringelblum Archive. This collective of academics, writers, and activists working secretly in the ghetto called themselves Oneg Shabbat (Joy of the Sabbath). The archive assembled by Oneg Shabbat is a unique and outstanding example of Jewish self-assertion during the Shoah and represents the first attempt to document the German-initiated mass murder of European Jews directly, as it was happening, and later to archive this documentation. As such it constitutes an act of civil resistance.
19 completely new permanent exhibitions on Museumsinsel, at the Deutsches Museum from 8 July 2022
The first phase of the extensive modernisation of the Museumsinsel building is complete. Now there are 19 completely new permanent exhibitions to explore on the 20,000-square-metre site. The diverse list of themes covered ranges from atomic physics to agriculture; from chemistry to bridges and hydraulic engineering; and from aeronautics and space travel to health. A number of major masterpieces are on display, such as the first diesel engine, the Siemens electronic music studio, the Helios space probe and the famous/infamous Enigma code machine. You can get a first glimpse of the departments after the renovation here.
In addition, there are also several new Deutsches Museum acquisitions to admire, such as the groundbreaking Sycamore quantum processor and the first approved coronavirus vaccines. A wealth of interactive demonstrations, accessible exhibitions, virtual reality and augmented reality experience rooms and numerous media stations bring technology and science to life and make them tangible in the truest sense of the word.
100 Years of the Planetarium, Deutsches Museum, 5 May 2023 to 28 January 2024
On 21 October 1923, the world's first public demonstration of a projection planetarium took place in Munich at the Deutsches Museum, which was still under construction at the time. The museum is celebrating the “100 years of the planetarium“ with a large special exhibition. In the entrance hall, exhibits such as a 16th century astrolabe, celestial globes and armillary spheres await visitors. Four large star projectors are also on display, including the original Model I from Zeiss.
Exhibitions of the MuSeenLandschaft Expressionismus, Museums in the Upper Bavarian Alpine foothills, January to December 2023
The extraordinarily attractive landscape of the Upper Bavarian Alpine foothills stretches between Munich and the Alps. In the early 20th century, the young Expressionists from Munich came here to capture nature in powerful colours and forms. Emil Nolde and Ernst Ludwig Kirchner were here before they became members of the Dresden artists' community “Brücke“. The artists of the Blauer Reiter (Blue Rider) Wassily Kandinsky, Gabriele Münter, Franz Marc, Alexej von Jawlensky and Heinrich Campendonk had particularly close ties with the region.
In the “MuSeenLandschaft Expressionismus“, experiencing nature and enjoying art enter into a unique combination: The Buchheim Museum of Fantasy attracts people to Lake Starnberg with its world-famous Expressionists; in Kochel am See, the Franz Marc Museum offers exquisite art experiences around its namesake; at Staffelsee, the Murnau Castle Museum attracts visitors with the “Blue Rider“ and Gabriele Münter; near the Osterseen, the Penzberg Museum draws attention with Campendonk, and in Munich, the world's largest collection of works by the “Blue Rider“ can be seen in the Lenbachhaus. Under the annual theme “New Ways“, the participating museums invite visitors to experience and/or rediscover the museums and their surrounding landscape in 2023.
