Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625) is one of the most important Flemish painters of the early 17th century. He developed his own individual style at an early stage. His small-format landscape paintings, true-to-life floral works and richly detailed allegories were ground-breaking for Flemish Baroque painting. 

Pieter Bruegel the Elder: A Country Wedding, ca. 1630
© Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Alte Pinakothek, Munich

With 49 works painted in the artist’s own hand, the holdings at the Alte Pinakothek in Munich are unique and document Jan Brueghel the Elder’s œuvre in its many facets. Several major works were created in cooperation with other artists – such as Virgin in a Flower Garland together with Peter Paul Rubens and the magnificent ‘Seasons’ cycle with Hendrik van Balen. In addition, the exhibition highlights the works of a whole family of artists, as works by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Pieter Brueghel the Younger, Jan Brueghel the Younger and Jan van Kessel are also on show in the Alte Pinakothek.

Prominent loans, including paintings, drawings and prints from international museums in Madrid, Budapest, Florence, Rotterdam, London, Paris and Vienna, as well as from German collections in Coburg, Dresden, Brunswick and Dessau, among others, complement the holdings in Munich. As such, the exhibition does not just offer an overview of Brueghel’s multifaceted and richly detailed pictorial compositions but, at the same time,also provides a fascinating insight into the production of artworks in Antwerp around 1600. 

On the occasion of a large retrospective in London, Berlin, and Paris several works by Gerhard Richter (*1932 Dresden) from the collection of the Museum Ludwig were on loan for an extended period of time. Now the museum is exhibiting its holdings again, including Richter's famous painting Ema - Nude on a Staircase and 48 Portraits, with which Richter was represented in the German Pavillion at the Venice Biennale in 1972.

The works from the museum's collection are supplemented by the two graphic cycles Elbe and November as well as by additional loans from the artist and private collectors.

In the print series Elbe, the layers of the picture are concentrated through the application of successive coats of ink with a rubber roller, thus creating the impression of an unfathomable depth. Upon leaving East Germany in 1961 the artist entrusted the prints to a friend. When they resurfaced following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Richter was struck that some of the elements hinted at in them had in the meantime been pursued further in his abstract works of the 1980s.

Appearing like a counterpart to Elbe is the series November. With these twenty-seven prints Richter experimented with ink on highly absorbent paper. As the ink permeated through each of the sheets, it created two corresponding images, one on the front and one on the back.

The presentation offers a concentrated overview of the multifaceted oeuvre of Gerhard Richter, who lives and works in Cologne.

In the print series Elbe, the layers of the picture are concentrated through the application of successive coats of ink with a rubber roller, thus creating the impression of an unfathomable depth. Upon leaving East Germany in 1961 the artist entrusted the prints to a friend. When they resurfaced following the fall of the Berlin Wall, Richter was struck that some of the elements hinted at in them had in the meantime been pursued further in his abstract works of the 1980s.

This small exhibition on the upper floor of the Altes Museum draws on exemplary objects within the Collection of Classical Antiquities' own holdings to put the spotlight on the Aegean Bronze Age and the material legacy of the developments that occurred during this period, which climaxed in the region's 'palace culture'.

The Collection of Classical Antiquities presides over several treasures from protohistory already familiar to scholars and the general public, as well as objects dating from the Aegean Bronze Age that are not very well known at all. The museum shop on the Altes Museum's upper floor now displays around 50 objects distributed in 10 exhibition cases. On show are previously exhibited, well-known finds, such as the burial complex of the island Syros (an Early Bronze Age burial complex with outstanding stone vessels), Cycladic idols, anthropomorphic terracotta and bronze statuettes, a Late Bronze Age tomb complex from the Değirmentepe necropolis at Miletus. Alongside them however some unusual, peculiar vessels, masterpieces of Late Bronze Age pottery and several items of jewellery.

The National Gallery's collection features several important works by Hans-Peter Feldmann. The artist recently made a donation to the National Gallery of his key work, Die Toten ('The Dead').

In 1967 Benno Ohnesorg was shot dead at a demonstration in West Berlin. The escalation of violence and terrorism in the years that followed led to more than 100 people loosing their lives. The full scale of this violence and the true death toll has never really sunk into the public consciousness.

Starting in the late 1960s, Hans-Peter Feldmann spent years collecting images of the dead, culled from print media with near archival fastidiousness. The photocopies of newspaper photographs on grey A3 sheets bear depictions of police officers, hostages, terrorists and members of the general public who all lost their lives. A legend under each picture gives the names and the dates on which the individuals died. Additional information is provided separately as to the age, status and cause of death of the deceased.

In this work, the artist aims 'to view the events of the recent past from a certain distance and to draw attention to the sheer scale of events.' The work thus directly confronts viewers with the deaths of real people as a consequence of terror.

Having grown up in the North of England in the 70s and 80s, Phil Collins has always had a passionate interest in music, television and popular culture. In his films, photographs and live events, he investigates the relationship between the camera and its subjects, and the affective potential of various recording media in their everyday context. Collins' practice is focused on close engagement with people and communities, which over the years have included, amongst others, disco-dancing Palestinians, fans of The Smiths over three continents, and teachers of Marxism-Leninism in the former DDR. The projects are often announced through newspaper ads and poster campaigns, or take the form of castings and press conferences, so as to provide a wide-reaching platform for encounters predicated on high emotional stakes.

For his exhibition at the Museum Ludwig, Collins and his production initiative Shady Lane Productions have realised my heart's in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand's in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught, a new work in collaboration with guests of GULLIVER, a survival station for the homeless located in the centre of Cologne. There, Collins installed a phone booth with a free line that anyone could use for unlimited international calls on the agreement that the conversations were anonymously recorded. The selected material was then posted to a group of international musicians, serving as the starting point for original new songs presented in the exhibition as 7" vinyl records in specially designed listening booths which overlook the city's central station. The project includes contributions by legendary figures such as David Sylvian, Scritti Politti, Lætitia Sadier and Damon & Naomi, the trailblazing experimental and indie acts (Demdike Stare, Planningtorock, Maria Minerva, Heroin In Tahiti, Pye Corner Audio, Peaking Lights), local heroes across different generations (Elektronische Musik aus: Köln, Pluramon, Cologne Tape), and a special guest turn from the original German superstar Julia Hummer.

Other works in the exhibition are spawns of the same unholy alliance between pop and politics. They both feature original soundtracks by Welsh musician Gruff Rhys and North Wales surf band Y Niwl. This Unfortunate Thing Between Us (2011) is an installation based on TUTBU.TV, an alternative shopping channel performed and broadcast live on German national television. Hosted by a cast of actors and porn workers (Julia Hummer, Susanne Sachsse, Sharon Smith, Judy Minx, Pau Pappel, Matthias Matschke, Trystan Pütter, Niels Bormann, Christian Kärgel, Marcel Schlutt), TUTBU.TV sold real life experiences in place of mass-produced commodities, offering a tantalising glimpse into what could be the future of consumer television. Conceived on the other side of the world in Malaysia, the short film the meaning of style (2011) is a tropical fantasy featuring a cast of anti-fascist skinheads and exotic butterflies, which provides the frame for a poetic meditation on the relationship between British colonial history and youth subcultures in South-East Asia.

Galerie Michael Janssen
Potsdamer Str. 63
D-10785 Berlin
Germany

At the dawn of the last century, photographs of nudes could be found everywhere. The exhibition The Naked Truth and More Besides presents the astonishing diversity of photographic depictions of the disrobed human body that existed around this time. It was an age in which the foundations were laid for the development in the public domain of an extremely varied type of image, which, more than any other, continues to inform the world in which we live today.

Most striking of all, the photographic nude appeared as a reproducible medium - on postcards, cigarette cards, posters, in magazines and in advertising, as inspiration for artists and an incentive for sportsmen, as instructional material, and as collector's items. From the vast array of material, it is possible to identify several distinct groups that fall under such headings as: the mass produced, visual pleasures (arcadias, eroticism, and pornography), the body in the eye of science (ethnography, motion-study photography, medicine), the cult of the body (reform movements - especially in German-speaking countries - naturism, 'Free Body Culture', and staged nudes from the world of sport and variety shows), and, of course, the nude in the artistic context (art academies and the Pictorialist tradition of fine-art prints). The most important characteristic of the image of naked people during this time is the inseparability of nude photographic production and reproduction.

The trade or exchange in nude photographs was widespread across the whole of Europe. This is reflected in today's exhibition, which not only features many treasures and rare finds from the Kunstbibliothek's own Collection of Photography, but also includes important loans from several European institutions, ranging from the Bibliothèque nationale de France to the Police Museum of Lower Saxony.

At the very least since the financial crisis, architecture has been undergoing a global change. Even though architectural prestige projects are being planned and realised around the world, more sustainable architectural concepts have nevertheless gained in significance for economic and social, as well as ecological reasons. Against the background of diminishing resources, migratory movements and permanent crisis, the production conditions for architecture have fundamentally altered. Economic as well as ecological aspects, but also ongoing deficiencies in structurally weak areas, are confronting architecture with new challenges.

In this frame the exhibition, The New Restraint is presenting, in the form of room-filling installations, five trend-setting initiatives, which see a social and cultural commitment in architecture. On the basis of videos, photography, plans, material samples, as well as a 1:1 model, forms of architecture are being shown, which employ simple means to react creatively to the shift outlined above. The exhibition is presenting projects distinguished by a high degree of independent initiative, often coming about in cooperation with a local populace as well as using locally-available building materials.

Participating architects or firms:

a.gor.a architects / Brandlhuber+ in collaboration with , Cristina Garriga, Constanze Haas, Erica Overmeer and Christopher Roth / ELEMENTAL / Anupama Kundoo / TYIN tegnestue Architects

Franz Schubert: Die schöne Müllerin D 795

Matthias Goerne, baritone
Christoph Eschenbach, piano

Beethoven: "Coriolan" op. 62 Ouvertüre zu Heinrich Joseph von Collins Trauerspiel
Shostakovitch: Violin Concerto No. 1 in A Minor op. 99
Beethoven: Symphony No. 4 op. 60

Frankfurter Opern- und Museumsorchester
Sebastian Weigle, conductor
Frank Peter Zimmermann, violin

Caravaggio
Choreography: Mauro Bigonzetti
Music: Bruno Moretti
Set and Light design: Carlo Cerri
Costume design: Kristopher Millar
Lois Swandale

Paul Connelly, conductor
Orchestra Staatskapelle Berlin

Solisten und Corps de ballet des Staatsballetts Berlin

Mauro Bigonzetti is one of the leading choreographers of the Italian ballet which freed itself from the predominance of mainly classical opera companies in the 1980’s. He created his choreographies mainly for the Aterballetto in Reggio Emilia that helped him to fame and worldwide attention. “When I think of Caravaggio, I think of the artist and the human being at the same time. These are the two sides of the human existence that interest me in particular. The relations of these two worlds are the inspiration for this work: the inner world on the one hand – and how it evolves artistically on the other.”

Mauro Bigonzetti developed Caravaggio in collaboration with the Staatsballett Berlin.

Richard Wagner: Rienzi
Tragic opera in five acts
Stage Director:  Nicolas Joel
Libretto by Richard Wagner after the novel Rienzi or The Last of the Tribunes by Edward Earle Bulwer-Lytton

Matthias Foremny, conductor

Leipzig Opera

The sultry chanteuse, who has made an indelible mark interpreting the dark gems of Bertolt Brecht, Kurt Weill and the French chanson, revisits the timeless repertoire of Berlin cabaret and lends her distinctive flair to contemporary classics.

Ute Lemper's performing career grows out of a passionate and enduring commitment to art, politics and history, and out of a contentious and complicated relationship with her homeland and its past. Her panache, versatility and sophisticated repertoire - including Berlin cabaret songs and the dark gems of Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill - have led her to international acclaim as a recording artist, and in the theatre, cabaret and film worlds.