2023 program

Exhibitions

March 18–July 23, 2023
Ursula—That’s Me. So What?

With this retrospective, the Museum Ludwig is honoring the highly eccentric and independent artist Ursula Schultze-Bluhm (1921-99). Known simply as Ursula, she is one of the most important German artists of the twentieth century. Her first comprehensive museum exhibition in many years will now offer a fresh look at her oeuvre, exposing her intriguingly self-confident work to a new generation of museum visitors.

Ursula’s life and work offer an alternative narrative of artistic independence. Her art exemplifies the idea that Surrealism is not a style, but an attitude. Ursula subverts reality and finds the uncanny in the everyday, challenging the authorities of society and art by imagining new worlds in which hierarchies are thrown overboard and new ways of life can be imagined. Often poetic and humorous, her works act as catalysts for political, social, and personal freedom. Ursula shares this utopian imagination with artists such as Leonora Carrington, Dorothea Tanning, and Unica Zürn. The contemporary nature of her art is particularly evident in the presence of hybrid physicality in transformation.

Curator: Stephan Diederich

June 3–September 24, 2023
HERE AND NOW at Museum Ludwig: Modernism in Ukraine & Darya Koltsova

The exhibition series HERE AND NOW at Museum Ludwig challenges the conventions of museum work from today’s perspective. Russia’s war against Ukraine is currently changing our perspective on the term of the “Russian avant-garde”. Many artists – also in the Museum Ludwig collection – who are associated with this art movement came from Ukraine and shaped Ukrainian culture. Alexandra Exter, Olexandr Bohomazov, Kazymyr Malevych, and Volodymir Burliuk are just a few of the numerous artists who created Futurist, Suprematist, and Expressionist works. They came from places such as Odesa, Kyiv, and Kharkiv, had studios there, and shaped these radiant centers of art and culture.

Modernism in Ukraine brings together some seventy paintings and works on paper. The many loans that come from the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv have a special significance.

This new art-historical perspective is expanded with a contribution by the contemporary artist Darya Koltsova (b. 1987 in Kharkiv) who will present works that deal with the modern heritage in the face of war.

The exhibition Modernism in Ukraine is a cooperation with the National Art Museum of Ukraine in Kyiv, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid, and the curator Konstantin Akinsha.

Curators: Konstantin Akinsha, Yuliia Berdiyarova, Rita Kersting

September 16, 2023–January 28, 2024
Füsun Onur: Retrospective

Füsun Onur (b. 1937 in Istanbul) is one of the most important artists in Turkey. She has created an impressive and multifaceted body of work that eludes easy categorization. Onur’s precise explorations of surface and space, resulting in commanding sculptures, drew attentions early on. This formal approach was, however, just one of many she developed and later combined with everyday objects and sensory materials in large installations. In addition to this came a narrative impulse, which to this day instills her work with poetic depth. The topical relevance of Onur’s work lies in the diverse methods with which she pursues her artistic questions and arrives at ever-new solutions.

Despite her regular participation in international group exhibitions, Onur’s exceptional work has not received adequate attention. The only comprehensive overview to date was offered by Arter in a single survey exhibition a decade ago. After its major retrospectives on Joan Mitchell (2015), Nil Yalter (2019), and Isamu Noguchi (2022), the Museum Ludwig is presenting the work of Füsun Onur, another artist whose significance has not yet been fully appreciated.

The exhibition is being produced in collaboration with the Istanbul art institution Arter, which will provide more than half of the loans.

Curator: Barbara Engelbach (Museum Ludwig), Co-Curator: Emre Baykal (Arter)

Collection presentations

August 3, 2023–August 31, 2025
On the Value of Time: New Presentation of the Collection of Contemporary Art

Every two years, works of contemporary art are shown in a new presentation at Museum Ludwig. This time the exhibition will feature the installations Mountains of Encounter (2008) by Haegue Yang and The Documentary: Geocentric Puncture (2014) by GuanXiao as starting points, which direct our attention at different understandings of time.

Curator: Barbara Engelbach

October 28, 2023–February 4, 2024
Picasso Suite 156

In January 1973, ten weeks before Pablo Picasso’s death, Louise Leiris showed a series of prints that would be his final legacy in her Paris gallery: 155 etchings created between 1968 and 1972. Since this premiere, these last prints by the artist have been rarely presented fully. Suite 156, now regarded as a characteristic example of Picasso’s late graphic work, is part of the cllection of the Museum Ludwig.

April 8, 2023, marks the fiftieth anniversary of Picasso’s death. Under the title The Picasso Celebration, 1973–2023, around forty exhibitions in Europe and the United States are taking the anniversary as an opportunity to bring his work closer to today’s audiences. The Museum Ludwig is supporting this monumental project both as a lender and with its own presentation: in 2023 the Suite 156 will be shown to a new generation that is confronted with similar questions regarding the perception of the body in society.

Curator: Eboa Itondo

New in the collection

November 11, 2023–February 11, 2024
1000…Miles to the Edge: Kasper König Donation
Curator: Stephan Diederich

November 15, 2023–February 11, 2024
2023 Wolfgang Hahn Prize: Francis Alÿs
Curator: Yilmaz Dziewior 

Presentations in the Photography Room

April 22–August 27, 2023
Image/Counter-Image: VALIE EXPORT, Sanja Iveković, Tarrah Krajnak, Ana Mendieta, Carrie Mae Weems
Curator: Barbara Engelbach

September 23, 2023–January 25, 2024
Walde Huth: Material and Fashion
Curator: Miriam Szwast

Director Yilmaz Dziewior: “Art makes a difference in times of crisis. This aesthetic and intellectual experience strengthens our awareness of exceptional situations, sensitizes us to the range of steps that are possible within the social system, and promotes utopian imagination. This applies especially to the war in Europe. We take a position with our exhibition program and events.“