2019 programming surrounding art and architecture

After the opening of the Kleiner Ballsaal (Small Ballroom) in January, the opening of the Paraderäume (State Apartments) in September 2019 will be the culmination of an extensive restoration and refurbishment project at Dresden’s Royal Palace. The recreated Paraderäume, a suite of rooms opened by August the Strong 300 years ago in September 1719, will house outstanding pieces of textiles, porcelain and furniture from the Rüstkammer (Armoury Chamber), Porzellansammlung (Porcelain Collection) and the Kunstgewerbemuseum  (Museum of Decorative Arts).

Visionary Spaces. Kandinsky, Mondrian, Lissitzky and the Abstract-Constructivist Avant-Garde in Dresden 1919–1932
March 2–June 2, 2019
Visitors to the Albertinum will be able to visually experience Dresden’s considerable contribution to the advent of the modern age. Additionally, based on spatial designs created for Dresden by artists and designers working in the international context of the Bauhaus in the 1920s, contemporary artists question traditional spatial and exhibition concepts at the Albertinum.

Inventing the Future
May 2–September 9, 2019
The exhibition project at the Japanisches Palais (Japanese Palace) will focus on the way young people in Saxony see their future and explore the ideas, visions, worries and wishes they have for it.

The German Dream – Utopias From Townhouses
May 16–August 11, 2019
What does IKEA’s hexagonal key have to do with a speed-obsessed population that bureaucratizes death itself? How do Germans love in the Cloud Age? The exhibition attempts to trace social behavior and customs through everyday objects and to take an ironic look at self-reflection. In the year of the state elections in Saxony, the exhibition also examines the future of a community in which more and more people are seeking alternatives for Germany.

Rembrandt’s Mark
June 14–September 15, 2019  
The Kupferstich-Kabinett will take the 350th anniversary of the death of Rembrandt as an opportunity to celebrate one of the most creative and radical artists of all time. Dresden’s impressive collection of the Dutchman’s work will form the foundation for an exhibition focusing on Rembrandt as a draughtsman and printmaker. Valuable international loans will also be on display.

A.R. Penck. Terror in Dresden
October 10, 2019–January 12, 2020
In the year of what would have been his 80th birthday, the Albertinum hosts a major retrospective of A.R. Penck, who was born Ralf Winkler in Dresden in 1939 and died unexpectedly in May 2017. The exhibition will focus on not only sketchbooks, artists’ books and Super 8 films (from which the exhibition takes its title) that have received minimal attention in the past, but also Penck’s wide-ranging activities in the field of music as well as some of his most famous paintings, sculptures and graphic art.

Christian Borchert. Tectonics of Remembrance
October 26, 2019–January 26, 2020
Christian Borchert (1942-2000) is one of the outstanding photographers of the GDR and the post-reunification period. The Kupferstich-Kabinett Dresden will present the first comprehensive retrospective of his extensive body of work.  Born in Dresden and active mostly in his hometown and Berlin, Borchert developed a cautious, haunting pictorial language of analytical distance. His way of narrating history in photo series, his idiosyncratic archival practice and his quasi-archeological handling of visual media like movies and TV, give him an important place in German photo history of the 20th century.

Ceremonial reopening of the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister
December 7, 2019
Following several years of refurbishment, reconstruction and part closures, the Semperbau will reopen with an entirely new permanent exhibition. World-famous masterpieces such as Raphael’s Sistine Madonna, Rembrandt’s Ganymede and Bernardo Bellotto’s Dresden vedutas will act as points of reference. The design concept of the space will follow the principle of hanging paintings according to geographical origin and school and will highlight important themes within each period. The exhibition will also emphasise the fruitful mutual interaction between painting and sculpture by the integration of the pre-1800 sculpture collection into the route through the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.