Exhibitions

Berlin’s art scene has changed more radically than almost any other. This new presentation of the collection at the Hamburger Bahnhof shows how art conquered and transformed the city after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, turning it from a walled-off frontline city into a global metropolis. As always, completely different artistic, political, and migrant paths intersect in Berlin. The exhibition documents the myth of Berlin, with works by more than 50 artists. These include paintings, drawings, sculptures, photographs, and video installations. Featured artists include Mona Hatoum, Henrike Naumann, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Katharina Sieverding, Avery Singer, Slavs and Tatars, Thomas Struth, Sung Tieu, Danh Vo, and many more.

Ausstellungsansicht „Tausendmal Berlin. Die Sammlung Hamburger Bahnhof – Nationalgalerie der Gegenwart“: Michel Majerus, b.o., 2000; Yarema Malashchuk & Roman Khimei, Dedicated to the Youth of the World II, 2019 (von links)
© Courtesy die Künstler*innen / Foto: Jacopo La Forgia

The Berlin art scene of the 1980s is back. In the summer of 2025, the Berlinische Galerie presented a retrospective of Käthe Kruse, who was a member of the artist group and band 'Die Tödliche Doris'. The Weserburg in Bremen is set to become the first museum to present a comprehensive retrospective of the entire group. Founded in the punk movement by Wolfgang Müller and Nikolaus Utermöhlen, who were both still studying at the Berlin University of the Arts at the time, the group combined strategies from Warhol's Factory with influences from Fluxus, punk, wave, concept art, and anarchic and post-structuralist thinking. Active between 1980 and 1987, the group's membership was in constant flux, and it combined strategies from Warhol's Factory with influences from Fluxus, punk, wave, concept art, and anarchic and post-structuralist thinking. 'Doris' was not a star or a solo artist, but rather an amoeba-like network: an avant-garde meme that produced music, noise, light, strip shows, performances, films, books, gossip, furniture, paintings, object art, vinyl records, fashion, and radio plays — even an application for a seat in the Berlin Senate. The Bremen exhibition shows how groundbreaking this artistic work was, and explains why the group still has such a legendary reputation today.

Die Tödliche Doris auf dem Festival der Genialen Dilletanten, West-Berlin, 1981

In the past, Edvard Munch (1863–1944) would have been considered a genius and placed among the pantheon of modern, mostly male painters. However, it is not only the renowned British artist Tracey Emin who holds Munch in high regard; she has dedicated performances, paintings, and a monumental, maternal sculpture to him in front of the Munch Museum in Oslo. His work inspires younger generations of artists who view it through a fresh lens. Consequently, it is fitting to present his work alongside that of Maria Lassnig (1919–2014), an icon of the feminist avant-garde. She is now considered a pioneer of radical body-related art movements such as Viennese Actionism and female body art. Both artists created a style of painting that was both physical and spiritual. For both artists, painting was a means of radical self-questioning. This double exhibition, titled 'Malfluss = Lebensfluss' (Painting Flow = Life Flow), will be the first time they have been shown together. It features over 180 works, including numerous major pieces, as well as rarely exhibited paintings, works on paper, films, photographs, and sculptures.

Maria Lassnig (1919–2014)
Ohne Titel (Schreiende), 1981
Bleistift, Aquarell auf Papier
627 x 438 mm
Maria Lassnig Stiftung
© Maria Lassnig Stiftung / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
Foto: Roland Krauss

Heidi Specker is one of the most significant contemporary German photographers. With her cool, objective yet poetic approach, she has influenced subsequent generations. In collaboration with her photography class at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig, she is currently exploring the political and emotive work of Käthe Kollwitz at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz. The museum's collection features an extensive array of Kollwitz's works. On display are drawings, etchings, lithographs and woodcuts from 1892 to 1938.

Key groups of works, such as 'A Weavers' Revolt', 'Peasants' War' and 'War', are presented alongside self-portraits, portraits of workers, and depictions of mothers and children. Contemporary photographs, prints and sculptural and film installations explore central themes such as self-representation, the body, motherhood, war, class, violence, protest and translate them into the present day.

Heidi Specker
B.F., 2016
Fotografie
Foto: Heidi Specker © Heidi Specker

When Ise Frank married the renowned Bauhaus architect Walter Gropius in 1923, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee acted as their witnesses. For Gropius's sake, she gave up her own career and entered the service of the Bauhaus as a secretary, editor and organiser, as well as an 'equal partner'. The Bauhaus ideal became her 'second self', as she later put it. She had a decisive influence on her husband's work, wrote and took photographs, and emigrated with him to the USA. Yet, to most people, she remains 'Mrs Bauhaus'.

Her photographs are now on display in a major exhibition demonstrating just how bold and avant-garde Bauhaus women's photography was and showcasing their pioneering spirit. With over 300 photographs from the Bauhaus Archive's collection, this is the first exhibition to comprehensively document the significance of these artists and their work. The spectrum ranges from representational portraits and architectural photography to abstract, experimental photography. Prominent figures such as Marianne Brandt are represented alongside many lesser-known female photographers whose works have become iconic.

'Written Art' transcends the boundaries of text and image. It refers to sculptures or site-specific works that can be 'read' or perceived as texts, revealing hidden structures, symbols, and political commentary. A new exhibition at PalaisPopulaire brings together works from the Written Art Collection – arguably the most comprehensive collection of modern written art from after 1945 – with works from the Deutsche Bank Collection. The exhibition showcases the work of around 30 artists from Europe, the USA, the Middle East, Japan, and China.

The spectrum ranges from calligraphy — both gestural and poetic — to political and conceptual works. Many artists use written art to reflect on themes such as violence, war, migration and colonialism. There are some fantastic discoveries to be made, such as the work of Shiryû Morita (1912–1998). A master of modern Japanese calligraphy, he influenced post-war Western abstraction. Other prominent figures featured include Etel Adnan, Natalie Czech, Jenny Holzer, Rebecca Horn, William Kentridge, Shirin Neshat, Slavs and Tatars, and Lawrence Weiner.

Etel Adnan
The Linden Tree Poems, 2019
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026. Courtesy the Artist and Sfeir-Semler Gallery

Based in Berlin, Michael Elmgreen and Ingar Dragset have been working together since the mid-1990s, establishing themselves as two of the most influential queer artists of our time. In the broadest sense, they are sculptors, but they also work with installation, performance, and architecture. Through their art and interventions, they repeatedly challenge the status quo and address the historical and political context of places and institutions, often examining these critically with humour. They are doing just that at the Städel with 'Still Life with Vegetables'.

Visitors will encounter sculptures and installations by Elmgreen & Dragset in unexpected places that interact with the architecture and the Städel Museum’s collection, which spans over 700 years. The conventions of viewing, collecting and representing art are thoroughly shaken up in the process, drawing attention to details that are often overlooked. Embarking on a treasure hunt, visitors will find two large installations in the Contemporary Art Collection at the heart of the exhibition, which unfolds throughout the entire building — including the neighbouring Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection — featuring sculptures and interventions by the artists.

Foto: Studio Elmgreen & Dragset
© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025

AI is a perennial topic in politics and business. And, of course, in art, too. How will AI change the production of art—the way images are described, viewed, created, and distributed? What role will artists play in the age of AI? Following the New Museum in New York's major exhibition on this topic earlier this spring, the Schirn is now presenting a large-scale exhibition of its own. Spanning both of the Schirn’s exhibition spaces, the themed exhibition features around 40 works from the last ten years to the present day. These include video installations, prints, sculptures, and photographs. Several of these works were created specifically for the exhibition. The exhibition features around 30 international artists, including Nora AlBadri, Nouf Aljowaysir, Julian Charrière, Grégory Chatonsky, Kate Crawford and Vladan Joler, Holly Herndon and Mat Dryhurst, Agnieszka Kurant, TrevorPaglen, and Hito Steyerl.

Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst, xhairymutantx, 2024–2025, Video aus Bildern, die von einem individuell
angepassten KI-Modell generiert wurden, Prompter und interaktives Video
© Holly Herndon & Mat Dryhurst

In a time when selfishness and the survival of the fittest are becoming more prevalent, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld is turning the tables. Here, the focus is on sharing. The exhibition, created in collaboration with the Kunsthalle’s collection and the KiCo Collection, asks: What happens when we truly share ideas, spaces, and responsibility?

This concept aligns with the KiCo Collection, founded in 2009 by Doris Keller-Riemer and Hans-Gerd Riemer. They did not simply aim to establish a private collection; they also aimed to continuously develop it through collaboration with public museums and plan acquisitions within this context. Previously, partner museums were the Kunstmuseum Bonn and the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus; now, the Kunsthalle Bielefeld is the partner museum. Our strength in numbers is also evident in the impressive list of artists, including Georg Baselitz, Thomas Bayrle, Monica Bonvicini, Thomas Demand, Nicole Eisenman, Maria Lassnig, Charlotte Posenenske, Gerhard Richter, and Wolfgang Tillmans, among others.

Thomas Demand, Zaun, 2014, Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus und Kunstbau München, Sammlung KiCo © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026

The work of Turkish opera singer and painter Semiha Berksoy (1910–2004) caused a sensation at the Hamburger Bahnhof in Berlin last spring. Berksoy studied at the Berlin Academy of Music in Nazi Germany in the 1930s, becoming famous in 1939 for her role in Richard Strauss's opera Ariadne auf Naxos. She also studied painting. However, it was not until long after she returned to Turkey that she was recognised as a visual artist. In the 1960s, she created works that increasingly focused on dreams, visions and feelings. Berksoy developed an 'expressive', completely idiosyncratic style that broke the boundaries of painting. With 'Aria of All Colors', Istanbul Modern is now presenting the most comprehensive exhibition on Semiha Berksoy in Turkey to date. The exhibition reinterprets the Berlin show, bringing together over 200 of Berksoy's works from the performing and visual arts, cinema, and literature. 'Aria of Colors' documents the unique connections Berksoy made between opera, theatre, painting, and literature. This is certainly one of the art events of the year in Istanbul.

Semiha Berksoy
Feast at the Prison, 1999
Dr. Nejat F. Eczacıbaşı Foundation Collection

Few artists in recent decades have succeeded in capturing our attitude to life in the era of advertising, entertainment and online culture. In this era, we have the power to shape and express our identities, bodies and worlds in ways that were previously unimaginable. However, we are also becoming increasingly formless in the flow of algorithms. With astute wit, Japanese-British artist Simon Fujiwara (born 1982) explores the depths of digital turbo-capitalism, as well as moments of humanity and even joy, in his immersive video works and installations. Now, MUDAM is dedicating A Whole New World to him: an opulent, immersive mid-career retrospective inspired by the scenography and dramaturgy of amusement parks. It brings together Fujiwara's works in the form of his own 'wonder worlds'. These unfold throughout the museum, leading visitors through environments that enchant and unsettle in equal measure. Visitors will encounter Who the Bear (2020–ongoing), Fujiwara's cartoon character and amusement park mascot. 'Who' has no fixed identity — no origin, gender, sexual orientation or nationality — and is constantly searching for an image of their true self. Alongside major works such as Joanne (2016), Fabulous Beasts (2015–2016) and The Mirror Stage (2009–2013), Hope House (2017–2020) is also on display – Fujihara's breathtaking exploration of the story of Anne Frank.

Simon Fujiwara, Likeness, 2018
Ausstellungsansicht, Simon Fujiwara, Hope House,
Blaffer Art Museum in der University of Houston, Texas, 2020-21
Foto: Sean Fleming

No artist has depicted pain with such relentless intimacy as Dame Tracey Emin, perhaps only equalled by Frida Kahlo. She can be seen in the tradition of Munch and Schiele, as well as great poets, outsiders and visionaries. David Bowie, a close friend of hers, said she was like 'William Blake as a woman, written by Mike Leigh'. Emin, who is also represented in the Deutsche Bank Collection, is anything but an outsider, however. She rose to international fame in the 1990s with 'My Bed', her scandalous, Turner Prize-nominated unmade bed littered with cigarette butts and bodily fluids. Not only has Emin conquered the world as a painter, she has also survived an extremely serious bout of cancer against all odds. In the UK, she is something of a national treasure, embodying British culture from the working class to the upper class. Now she is being celebrated with a huge milestone exhibition at the Tate Modern – an event that is simply not to be missed.

Tracey Emin, The End of Love 2024. Tate © Tracey Emin

Born in 1975, Danh Vo fled Vietnam with his family to Denmark at the age of four. For more than two decades, he has been developing a visual language based on uprooting. Now living and working in Mexico City and on his Güldenhof farm north of Berlin with a community of 20 people, the artist is famous for his installation-based 'spatial choreographies', combining his own works with collected objects and pieces by other artists. The eponymous ancient Greek noun πνεῦμα Ἔλισσα, which originally meant 'breath' or 'wind', refers to the active, creative principle that structures the cosmos. In this sense, the exhibition explores human intimacy and the conditions that shape the actions, resilience, and meaning-making of the individual. Fragments of ancient sculptures, religious relics, and monumental found objects are brought together to explore how historical forces affect bodies, materials, and personal narratives.

Installation view: Danh Vo – Tropaeolum, 2023. La Bourse de Commerce, Paris. Photo: Nick Ash

'The Island', Hito Steyerl's site-specific project for the Osservatorio in Milan's Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, is a complex film installation. It intertwines different narratives, all of which are associated with the motif of flooding. The film addresses urgent issues such as current authoritarian tendencies, the use of AI, the climate crisis and political pressure on science. Shot on the Dalmatian island of Korčula, the 26-minute film is full of animations and forms the centrepiece of the exhibition, which was created especially for Milan. German actor Marc Waschke, a frequent collaborator of Steyerl's, plays a tragicomic superhero who must save the world in a Flash Gordon costume wielding a Star Wars lightsaber. The film covers topics such as archaeology, quantum physics, and fascism. “And all this on a small island in Dalmatia on the Adriatic Sea. All these elements collide in this installation, which I hope will delight children too,” says Steyerl. Different time zones also collide: a medially confused, capitalistically distorted, and technologically disruptive “fake time” and “deep time”—the time of the hidden geological space of experience, an underwater time that lies outside the artificially created spectrum of humans.

The Island” by Hito Steyerl, Osservatorio Fondazione Prada, Milan. Photo: Andrea Rossetti, Courtesy Fondazione Prada

Curated by Nancy Spector, the exhibition ‘Helter Skelter’ places the works of two major American artists, Arthur Jafa (b. 1960) and Richard Prince (b. 1949), in an artistic and conceptual dialogue. Although born a decade apart, they both exhibit a certain ruthlessness in their appropriation and manipulation of images. Their sources range from films and pulp fiction to YouTube videos, science fiction stories, album covers, rock ’n’ roll posters, first editions of Beat literature, newsreels, celebrity memorabilia, and social media posts.

Both artists engage intensely with American pop culture, exposing its abysses and deceptions while simultaneously drawing on many of its myths and perversions. Jafa’s film works and installations reflect his identity as an African American, whilst also aiming to revitalise Black cinema and art. Prince’s works oscillate between critiquing white masculinity and exploring the darker aspects of the American psyche. The exhibition presents over fifty pieces, including photographs, videos, installations, sculptures and paintings. In addition, new works by both artists and a jointly conceived zine are on display.

Arthur Jafa, Mickey Mouse was a Scorpio, 2017 (detail). Private collection © Arthur Jafa / Midnight Robber © Photo: Ian Watts.TV. Richard Prince, Graduation, 2018. Collection of Larry Gagosian © Richard Prince

Rosa Barba’s work transcends the boundaries between film, sculpture and installation, maintaining a fluid relationship between these disciplines. Central themes include transformation, perception and memory. Through her work, she successfully bridges the gap between art and science, exploring landscapes and the so-called ecologies of the future. Her films often start out as documentaries but then transition into the sphere of fiction. Reality becomes narrative material that is constantly reshaping itself. The specific location always takes centre stage, encompassing its traces, stories and political dimensions.

'Drawing Vocabularies' is Rosa Barba’s first major institutional exhibition in Portugal. She is the third artist to be offered a 'carte blanche' to work with pieces from the Centro de Arte Moderna Gulbenkian collection in the Nave space. This speculative exploration of stories, repositories and memory highlights the artist’s long-standing interest in the possibilities of archives and places where fact and fiction converge to reveal new narratives and unexplored discourses.

View of the exhibition 'Rosa Barba. Frame Time Open' at MAXXI. Courtesy the artist, Esther Schipper, Vistamare, ©Andrea Rossetti

Until the end of August, the Fondazione Palazzo Strozzi is presenting one of the most significant exhibitions ever held in Italy dedicated to Mark Rothko, the master of post-war American modernism. Curated by Christopher Rothko and Elena Geuna, the exhibition has been designed specifically for the Palazzo Strozzi in honour of the artist’s special bond with the city. Organised chronologically, it traces Rothko’s entire career, from his figurative works of the 1930s and 1940s, which were influenced by Expressionism and Surrealism, to his transcendent, spatial colour-field paintings of the 1950s and 1960s. Lenders include the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the Tate in London and the Centre Pompidou in Paris. The exhibition brings together over 70 works, many of which have never before been shown in Italy.

Mark Rothko No.3 / No. 13 1949
The Museum of Modern Art, New York/Scala, Firenze
©1998 by Kate Rothko Prizel and Christopher Rothko / Artist
Rights Society (ARS), New York / SIAE, Rome

Hurvin Anderson has been painting for over thirty years and is considered a contemporary classic in Britain. Yet it is only now that Tate Britain is dedicating its first retrospective to him. The exhibition features around 80 works spanning the artist’s entire career, from his early pieces to his most recent paintings, some of which have never been exhibited before. Through colourful landscapes and interiors, Anderson’s work connects Britain and the Caribbean.

Anderson’s parents came to Birmingham from Jamaica in 1961 as part of the Windrush generation, where they built a new life for themselves. Even as a schoolchild, he drew and painted almost obsessively. He studied art and, in the 1990s, started painting from photographs – family snaps and images he found in dusty boxes. Anderson’s world is shaped by stark contrasts between Caribbean and British culture, yet he never feels completely at home anywhere. During a working visit to Trinidad, he initially felt alienated. In his masterful, hazy paintings, he frequently transposes Caribbean jungle vegetation into British landscapes. His work reflects experiences of belonging and diaspora, evoking a evoking a sense of, as he puts it, ‘being in one place but thinking about another’.

Hurvin Anderson,Is It OK To Be Black?,2015-16, Arts CouncilCollection, Southbank Centre, London © A 70th Anniversary Commissionfor the Arts Council Collection with New Art Exchange, Nottingham and Thomas Dane Gallery, London. © Hurvin Anderson

She is one of the greatest icons of the 20th century. Frida Kahlo. Madonna and the whole world adore her. This exhibition answers everything you ever wanted to know and never deared to ask about Frida Kahlo. Frida: The Making of an Icon traces Kahlo’s extraordinary rise from relatively unknown painter to global cultural phenomenon. It explores how her life and work influenced subsequent generations, inspiring styles and movements. The more than 30 works by Kahlo on display include rarely seen self-portraits, photographs, and personal belongings. The exhibition also presents Kahlo’s works in dialogue with those of modern and contemporary female artists from around the world who have drawn inspiration from her. Alongside some of her most famous self-portraits are photographs, archive material, and Kahlo’s Tehuana dresses and precious treasures from her personal collection. A blockbuster experience is guaranteed.

Frida Kahlo,Untitled [Self-portrait with thorn necklace and hummingbird]1940. Nickolas Muray Collection of Mexican Art

Harmony Korine was a legend from the very beginning. At just 19 years old, he wrote the screenplay for Larry Clark’s 'Kids' (1995), a raw and magnificent film about skateboarding and youth culture in 1990s New York, covering themes such as drugs, sex, AIDS and depression. Korine knew what he was writing about. The underage actors, including Chloë Sevigny, were non-professionals and authentic 'kids' who were cast on the street. The film caused a scandal, partly due to its explicit scenes, as did Korine's directorial debut, Gummo (1997).

He went on to make further films, including Mister Lonely (2007), Spring Breakers (2012) and The Beach Bum (2019). He has also directed music videos for artists including Rihanna, Sonic Youth and Cat Power. 'Perfect Nonsense' is the first major museum exhibition in the US dedicated to Korine's and multifaceted body of work. Tracking his entire career, the exhibition brings together over 50 works, including paintings, photographs, collages, zines and drawings. It situates his work within a broad continuum of visual production that blurs the boundaries between cinema, contemporary art, and pop culture.

Harmony Korine, Shirley’s Temple, 2016.

Craig Robins Collection.

Robert Gordy (1933–1986) was a Louisiana native and a unique phenomenon in American painting, something of a maverick. His graphically elegant and often ornamental paintings draw on Art Deco and Surrealism, while also foreshadowing postmodern painting. They were also frequently associated with the so-called 'Pattern and Decoration Movement' of the 1970s. This movement comprised female artists and a few male artists who had previously been active in the abstract art movements of the 1960s. This movement was a reaction against the Western, male-dominated Modernist and post-war Modernist canon, which had marginalised non-Western and feminine forms of art and craft. Many of the female artists were committed feminists who sought to revive interest in forms, patterns and decorations that had been considered 'inferior' or trivial.

However, Gordy insisted on independence, saying he preferred to work 'outside the mainstream'. During the 1970s and 1980s, he was renowned for his masterful compositions and sophisticated use of space, line and colour. He participated in the Whitney Biennial and other significant exhibitions, and New York's PS1 dedicated a solo exhibition to him. He is best known today for his prints and late monotypes, but worked with a variety of media throughout his career.
This exhibition, the first comprehensive presentation of the artist’s work at the New Orleans Museum of Art in over four decades, features a selection of Gordy’s work from the 1950s until his untimely death from AIDS in 1986.

Robert Gordy, Rimbaud’s Dream #2, 1971
New Orleans Museum of Art

Born in Brazil in 1938 to Japanese parents, Kenzi Shiokava moved to Los Angeles in 1964 when the military coup began. For 50 years, his sculptural practice focused on reusing and transforming discarded materials. His studio, a former warehouse in Compton that was a work of art in itself, was overflowing with found objects and materials he had collected from secondhand shops, the street, and the beach. These included telephone poles, driftwood, and plastic figurines, which he transformed into wooden totems and assemblages. Shiokava’s pared-down works have a minimalist, meditative quality, bringing to the forefront what he described as the “inner movement” he found in everyday objects.

The exhibition at the MCA is his first institutional solo exhibition and features around 50 sculptures from the 1970s to the 2010s. It centers on abstract totems, meticulously carved from wood, and enigmatic box installations that highlight the transcultural nature of Shiokava’s work, in which influences from Candomblé, Catholicism, and Zen Buddhism converge.

Installation view,Made in L.A. 2016: a, the, though, only, June 12–August 28, 2016, HammerMuseum, Los Angeles. Photo: Brian Forres

Ron Mueck’s sculptures are incredibly physical yet transcendent. He creates figures from fiberglass and polymer — often on a colossal scale or in captivatingly intimate situations — that appear lifelike yet always have a disturbingly surreal quality. Mueck’s works possess a mysterious presence that challenges our relationship with our bodies and our existence. This exhibition continues the long-standing collaboration between the UK-based artist and the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain. First presented in Paris in 2023, it was subsequently shown in Milan and Seoul before making its way to the Mori Art Museum. It features eleven pieces that trace Mueck’s development from his early masterpieces to his more recent works. The exhibition focuses on significant pieces, such as the large-scale installation Mass (2016–2017), which consists of gigantic human skulls stacked on top of one another. Six of these iconic pieces, including the early masterpiece Angel (1997), are being shown in Japan for the first time.

Ron Mueck, Mass, 2016-2017
Installation view: Ron Mueck, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Seoul, 2025
Photo: Nam Kiyong
Courtesy: Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain, National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea

Ragnar Kjartansson, an Icelandic performance artist and painter, comes from a family of artists, writers, theater professionals, and performers. His perfectly staged video works resemble mini dramas or ballads about life. Almost always, there is music and singing about existential themes such as love, failure, and separation, with a touch of humor and tears. In 2013, for A Lot of Sorrow, he had the band The National play their hit "Sorrow" for six hours in a marathon performance outside New York's PS1.

Kjartansson’s films draw on a wide range of stylistic influences, from choreographed music videos and live music performances to 1970s American video art and stage traditions such as opera and ballet. Kjartansson repeatedly takes on the leading role himself, portraying a singer-songwriter, a Rococo dandy, a rock ’n’ roller, or a troubadour, as in his latest work, Sunday Without Love (2025). The setting is reminiscent of Georges Seurat’s Neo-Impressionist painting, "A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte" (1884–1886); the performers wear traditional peasant costumes. In it, Kjartansson sings his own version of "Ohne Liebe Leben Lernen" ("Learning to Live Without Love"), a 1996 classic by Hamburg punk idol Rocko Schamoni. In the video "Me and My Mother," he asks his mother, actress Guðrún Ásmundsdóttir, to repeatedly spit in his face. She carries out this task as one would expect from a mother who firmly believes in her child’s artistic vision. With eight video installations, the exhibition promises to be an emotional roller coaster.

Ragnar Kjartansson, Sunday without Love, 2025
Single Channel Video, Sound
Courtesy of the artist, i8 Gallery Reykjavik and Luring Augustine, New York