2022 program

March 26–July 31, 2022 
Isamu Noguchi

American sculptor Isamu Noguchi (1904–1988) is one of the most experimental and important artists of the 20th century. Museum Ludwig is pleased to stage the first European touring retrospective of his work in over 20 years—conceived together with Barbican Centre in London and Zentrum Paul Klee in Berne. 

Six decades across sculpture, architecture, dance and design are presented in the exhibition which celebrates the artist’s inventive and political approach to sculpture. The show brings together over 150 works—created in stone, bronze, ceramics, wood, aluminium, magnesite etc.—including autonomous sculpture, theatre sets, memorials, playground models, lighting and furniture design. 

Mostly known as an icon of mid-century design for his celebrated coffee table and Akari lights, Noguchi pushed the boundaries of sculpture by embracing social, political, environmental and spiritual consciousness. This major survey celebrates Noguchi as a global citizen travelling across the world and working with artists like Brancusi or Qi Baishi,  dancers like Martha Graham and architects and engineers like Marcel Breuer, Kenzo Tange, or Buckminster Fuller. Archival materials offer illuminating insights into the life of Noguchi, son of a Japanese father and American mother, highlighting his humanist values and artistic vsions between nature, industry, and earth, between grown-ups and children. 

The exhibition is organised by Museum Ludwig together with Barbican Centre (London), and Zentrum Paul Klee (Berne), in partnership with LaM—Lille and in cooperation with the Isamu Noguchi Foundation and Garden Museum New York. 

Curator: Rita Kersting

September 17, 2022–January 22, 2023
Green Modernism: The New View of Plants 

Green Modernism: The New View of Plants leads us back into the early 20th century, to how the arts approached plants. The movie theaters were crowded when in 1926 Das Blumenwunder (“The Miracle of Flowers”) made visible plants’ liveliness in a whole new way, despite the fact that the “miracle” was based on laboratory time lapse recordings from testing the first artificial fertilizer. Jagadis Chandra Bose’s famous electromagnetic recordings of a plant’s “pulse” fueled even more the discovery of plants as actual living beings.   

Paintings, photographs, works on paper, and sculptures were also full of greenery during the Weimar Republic in Germany. After all, the “New Architecture” with its larger windows opened up new possibilities to build “Zimmergärten” (room gardens). Cactus windows became popular, decorative plants conquered the cities. But, as the fashion magazines of the time reveal, Flora remained female in the 20th century. The reception of Carl von Linné’s binary gender difference in the realm of plants exemplifies the fact that thinking about plants always means thinking about humans. Artists featured in the exhibition include Aenne Biermann, Heinrich Hoerle, Karl Blossfeldt, Renée Sintenis, Karl Schmidt-Rottluff, and Otto Dix. 

Today’s popularity of plants is certainly influenced by an awareness of our interconnectedness and dependence made all the more vivid by the climate crisis. Green Modernism: The New View of Plants will therefore explore and communicate the possibilities of sustainable exhibition making. 

Curator: Miriam Szwast, advised by Suzanne Pierre

October 8, 2022–February 5, 2023
HERE AND NOW at Museum Ludwig: Anticolonial Interventions

The eighth project in the exhibition series “HERE AND NOW at Museum Ludwig” embarks on an anticolonial journey through the permanent collection. Together with the artists Daniela Ortiz (b. 1985 in Peru) and Paula Baeza Pailamilla (b. 1988 in Chile), we will take a critical and curious look at artistic positions from Latin America. Which Latin American artists are part of the collection? How did modernist artists (most of whom were from Europe) reproduce the exoticizing gaze directed at the Global South? Which works need to be critically questioned, and which ones offer counter-models?

Daniela Ortiz is committed to an antiracist and anticolonial discourse in her art. Paula Baeza Pailamilla is a Mapuche artist and engages with the cultural practices of her indigenous ancestors, among other topics. She is interested in collective actions that examine the political, social, and historical body. New works as well as new forms of conveying knowledge develop out of this collaboration. These include sound works by the artist Pavel Aguilar (b. 1989 in Honduras) and workshops by the artist Paloma Ayala (b. 1980 in Mexico).

As part of this decentralized exhibition, the anticolonial interventions scattered across the entire building make existing power structures visible, and not least remind us of the long, discriminatory history of the institution of the museum itself. At the same time, the questions raised point to the future: How can we act in an anticolonial manner when we operate within colonial structures? Can a museum with predominantly white employees be anticolonial? Opening up to other perspectives can also mean giving space to indigenous forms of knowledge—— for example, in order to discover sustainable ways of living and doing business in harmony with nature.

Curator: Joanne Rodriguez

November 16, 2022–February 12, 2023
2022 Wolfgang Hahn Prize: Frank Bowling

Frank Bowling will be awarded the 28th Wolfgang Hahn Prize from the Gesellschaft für Moderne Kunst am Museum Ludwig. The artist is being recognized for his work at the end of a long career and at the beginning of his status as a classic in art history, as decided by the jury members Yilmaz Dziewior, director of the Museum Ludwig, Zoe Whitley, director of Chisenhale Gallery in London, and the board members of the association. Frank Bowling creates unique abstract paintings that subversively resist clear interpretations in their thematic and material complexity. With the acquisition for the Wolfgang Hahn Prize, the Museum Ludwig will be the first public collection in Germany to obtain one of Bowling’s works, thus opening up the possibility of a deeper reception of his oeuvre. Guest juror Zoe Whitley: “Frank Bowling’s paintings and critical writings have nothing short of redefined the possibilities of paint for the past six decades. The 2022 Wolfgang Hahn Prize recognizes a resolute and uniquely innovative figure in the history of abstract painting. Spanning lived experience in Guyana, Britain and the United States, Bowling’s oeuvre preserves histories in pigment, wax and gel.”

Frank Bowling (b. 1934 in Guyana) lives and works in London and New York. He graduated from the Royal College of Art in 1962. As an artist and contributing editor for Arts Magazine from 1969 to 1972, he made an early and significant contribution to debates on African-American art. He was appointed Royal Academician in 2005 and was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2008. His work was lately shown in the solo exhibition Mappa Mundi (2017–19) at the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Irish Museum of Modern Art in Dublin, and the Sharjah Art Foundation. Tate Britain in London hosted a comprehensive retrospective of his work in 2019.

Presentations in the Photography Room

February 19–June 12, 2022
Voiceover: Felice Beato in Japan

In 1863 the photographer Felice Beato went to Japan and started a photography studio in Yokohama. His highly staged photos of people as well as his landscapes were printed in large editions and were particularly popular among travelers to Japan. Hand-colored by Japanese woodblock artists and bound in precious lacquered albums, his pictures are now scattered around the globe, and some have found their way to the Museum Ludwig. Since they convey a Western view of premodern Japan, the presentation will feature spoken commentary by Japanese people, which will deconstruct the exoticizing gaze that remains evident in the works today.

Curator: Miriam Szwast with Meike Deilmann

July 9–November 6, 2022
Raghubir Singh: Kolkata

Raghubir Singh (1942–1999) repeatedly returned to Kolkata over a period of ten years to create a complex and multilayered photographic portrait of the city. In his street views in particular, Singh condenses Kolkata’s varied impressions into photographs of impressive color and composition. The presentation shows twelve photographs from the series, which are part of the collection.

Curator: Barbara Engelbach

December 3, 2022–March 12, 2023
Walde Huth: Material and Fashion

In 2020 the Museum Ludwig was able to acquire over 250 works by the photographer Walde Huth (1923–2011). She came to fame with her fashion photographs of 1950s haute couture in Paris and Florence. This presentation aims to offer a sensitive introduction to Huth based on these newly acquired works.

Curator: Miriam Szwast

Director Yilmaz Dziewior: “We understand that art is always a mirror of social and political reality, and simultaneously plays a role in shaping it. Questions about sustainability, diversity as well as the colonial history of the twentieth century and its effects up to the present, are of great importance for our institution’s program.”