Press information of the exhibition "Cosima von Bonin: feelings"

01.03.2024 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting a unique staging of her oeuvre from March 21 to June 9, 2024, for which the artist has combined recent works that have never been shown in Germany with well-known pieces.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "THE CULTURE"

28.02.2024 | Here you can find the wall panels and labels of the exhibition "THE CULTURE".

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Press information of the additional locations of the exhibition "THE CULTURE" in Frankfurt

28.02.2024 | The exhibition at the Schirn continues at the Kunstverein Familie Montez with Stan Douglas’s video installation ISDN. “THE CULTURE” is also supplemented by an exhibition on the milestones of hip hop at MOMEM – Museum Of Modern Electronic Music, an event organized by the Diamant Offenbach: Museum of Urban Culture, and a film series on the fifty-year history of hip hop at the DFF – Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum.

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Press information of the exhibition "THE CULTURE"

28.02.2024 | From February 29 to May 26, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating a major interdisciplinary exhibition to Hip-Hop’s profound influence on our current art and cultural landscape.

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Press information of the exhibition "Melike Kara: shallow lakes"

14.02.2024 | With "shallow lakes", the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting a site-specific, expansive work by the artist in the exterior and interior of its publicly accessible rotunda from February 15 to May 12, 2024.

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2023 IS THE MOST SUCCESSFUL YEAR IN THE HISTORY OF THE SCHIRN

11.01.2024 | With a total of 502,961 visitors in 2023, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt recorded its most successful year since its opening in 1986.

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Press information: Double Feature

22.12.2023 | On the last Wednesday of every month, the invited artists provide exten­sive insight into their creative work, espe­cially into their interest in film.

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Press information: Exhibition program 2024

14.12.2023 | Here you can find the press information with the preview of the upcoming exhibitions of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt 2024.

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Press information "John Akomfrah: A Space of Empathy"

08.11.2023 | From November 9, 2023 to January 28, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting for the first time a comprehensive overview of John Akomfrah’s work in Germany, featuring a selection of three major multichannel installations from recent years.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "John Akomfrah: A Space of Empathy"

08.11.2023 | Here you can read the wall panels of the exhibition "John Akomfrah: A Space of Empathy".

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Press information "Lyonel Feininger: Retrospective"

26.10.2023 | From October 27, 2023, to February 18, 2024, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating an extensive retrospective to the important painter and graphic artist—the first in Germany in twenty-five years—thus providing an in-depth and surprising overall picture of his work.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "Lyonel Feininger: Retrospective"

26.10.2023 | Here you can read the wall panels of the exhibition"Lyonel Feininger: Retrospective".

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SCHIRN 3D PARCOURS

03.07.2023 | On the occasion of the exhibition "Plastic World," the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents, for the first time, the new digital education format SCHIRN 3D PARCOURS.

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SEBASTIAN BADEN IS THE NEW DIRECTOR OF THE SCHIRN

01.07.2022 | Dr. Sebastian Baden will begin his work as director of the renowned institution in Frankfurt on July 1, 2022.


Sebastian Baden is the new director of the Schirn

30.06.2022 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt has a new director. Dr. Sebastian Baden will begin his work as director of the renowned institution in Frankfurt on July 1, 2022.

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Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, General Information

16.06.2020 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt was officially opened on February 28, 1986. Since then, the Schirn has presented about 250 exhibitions on roughly 2,000 m² of floor space – and welcomed over 9.5 million visitors. The Schirn is not only one of the most prestigious and internationally recognized art institutions in Europe, but also a constant in the cultural life of the city of Frankfurt – a place of encounter where interested citizens, patrons and partners, young and established artists, dedicated friends and people from all over the world come together.

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THE SCHIRN MAG IN A NEW DESIGN

06.04.2020 | The SCHIRN MAG has established itself as an important medium in the contemporary art and culture scene in the ten years since its launch.

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Wall Panels of the exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

25.09.2019 | The exhibition “Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos” brings together twenty-five monumental tapestries by the Swedish-Norwegian artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) and thus provides an in-depth insight into her oeuvre.

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Wall Panels of the exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

25.09.2019 | The exhibition “Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos” brings together twenty-five monumental tapestries by the Swedish-Norwegian artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) and thus provides an in-depth insight into her oeuvre.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Lee Krasner"

29.08.2019 | The artist Lee Krasner (1908–1984) is a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. For the first time in more than 50 years, her work will be on view in a major European retrospective. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting paintings, collages, and drawings as well as films and photographs, and will tell the story of one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Lee Krasner"

29.08.2019 | The artist Lee Krasner (1908–1984) is a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. For the first time in more than 50 years, her work will be on view in a major European retrospective. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting paintings, collages, and drawings as well as films and photographs, and will tell the story of one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Lee Krasner"

29.08.2019 | The artist Lee Krasner (1908–1984) is a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. For the first time in more than 50 years, her work will be on view in a major European retrospective. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting paintings, collages, and drawings as well as films and photographs, and will tell the story of one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Lee Krasner"

29.08.2019 | The artist Lee Krasner (1908–1984) is a pioneer of Abstract Expressionism in the United States. For the first time in more than 50 years, her work will be on view in a major European retrospective. The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting paintings, collages, and drawings as well as films and photographs, and will tell the story of one of the most remarkable artists of the twentieth century.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

22.08.2019 | With her monumental tapestries the artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. Working from a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, through her artworks she launched attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini, and made strong statements of support for the victims of fascism and National Socialism.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

22.08.2019 | With her monumental tapestries the artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. Working from a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, through her artworks she launched attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini, and made strong statements of support for the victims of fascism and National Socialism.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

22.08.2019 | With her monumental tapestries the artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. Working from a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, through her artworks she launched attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini, and made strong statements of support for the victims of fascism and National Socialism.

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Press Information on the Exhibition "Hannah Ryggen. Woven Manifestos"

22.08.2019 | With her monumental tapestries the artist Hannah Ryggen (1894–1970) created a powerful, politically inspired oeuvre. Working from a small self-sufficient farm on the west coast of Norway, through her artworks she launched attacks on Hitler, Franco, and Mussolini, and made strong statements of support for the victims of fascism and National Socialism.

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NEW MANAGEMENT IN THE PRESS AND PR DEPARTMENTS OF THE STÄDEL MUSEUM, THE LIEBIEGHAUS SKULPTURENSAMMLUNG AND THE SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT

18.03.2019 | On 15 March 2019, Pamela Rohde took over as Head of Press and Online Communication of the Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung. Johanna Pulz takes over as Head of Press/PR of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

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NEW MANAGEMENT IN THE PRESS AND PR DEPARTMENTS OF THE STÄDEL MUSEUM, THE LIEBIEGHAUS SKULPTURENSAMMLUNG AND THE SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT

18.03.2019 | On 15 March 2019, Pamela Rohde took over as Head of Press and Online Communication of the Städel Museum and the Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung. Johanna Pulz takes over as Head of Press/PR of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt.

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PEDAGOGICAL CONCEPT, ARCHITECTURE, AND TARGET GROUPS OF THE MINISCHIRN

01.03.2019 | An artistically designed space for experience, the MINISCHIRN offers its young visitors a secure haven where they may give free rein to their urge to move and their passion for discovering things.

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MINISCHIRN. General information

01.03.2019 | Since December 2014, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt offers a space of creative experience for children from the age of three to primary school age: the MINISCHIRN.

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Wall panels of the Exhibition "Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg. A Journey through Mud and confusion with small glimpses of air"

27.02.2019 | Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg create animated worlds with sculptures, sound, and moving images, capturing inner states—the deepest darkness, the wildest euphoria. The films show us feverish daydreams about roleplay and desire, full of comedy and darkness and set to hypnotic music. They overturn any notions of normality as well as our understanding of memory, time, and space. Djurberg uses stop motion, a laborious animation method in which a series of stills gives the illusion of movement. It is a process without a script, carried out in close dialogue with Berg, whose music adds layers of meaning.

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Wall panels of the Exhibition "Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg. A Journey through Mud and confusion with small glimpses of air"

27.02.2019 | Nathalie Djurberg and Hans Berg create animated worlds with sculptures, sound, and moving images, capturing inner states—the deepest darkness, the wildest euphoria. The films show us feverish daydreams about roleplay and desire, full of comedy and darkness and set to hypnotic music. They overturn any notions of normality as well as our understanding of memory, time, and space. Djurberg uses stop motion, a laborious animation method in which a series of stills gives the illusion of movement. It is a process without a script, carried out in close dialogue with Berg, whose music adds layers of meaning.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "Bruno Gironcoli. Prototypes for a new species"

12.02.2019 | Bruno Gironcoli’s aesthetic of excessiveness and opulence, which has always generated outgrowths and embellishments, has inspired innumerable young artists. Today, the Austrian is regarded as one of the most important sculptors of his generation. In the early 1960s, using his very personal imagery and inventively insatiable, he began creating an extremely unconventional oeuvre. Gironcoli succeeded in finding a novel, surprising language with each of his ever-new groups of works. One after the other, he produced wire sculptures, hollow-body forms, polyester objects, and unsettling environments. At the same time, his artistic work focused on human beings with their abysses.

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Wall panels of the exhibition "Bruno Gironcoli. Prototypes for a new species"

12.02.2019 | Bruno Gironcoli’s aesthetic of excessiveness and opulence, which has always generated outgrowths and embellishments, has inspired innumerable young artists. Today, the Austrian is regarded as one of the most important sculptors of his generation. In the early 1960s, using his very personal imagery and inventively insatiable, he began creating an extremely unconventional oeuvre. Gironcoli succeeded in finding a novel, surprising language with each of his ever-new groups of works. One after the other, he produced wire sculptures, hollow-body forms, polyester objects, and unsettling environments. At the same time, his artistic work focused on human beings with their abysses.

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SCHIRN SHORTCUTS

09.01.2019 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt has launched a new moving-picture format for art education: the SCHIRN SHORTCUTS.

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HOW WE ACT TOGETHER – SCHIRN PRESENTS INTERACTIVE ONLINE PERFORMANCE

02.12.2016 | For Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt, US American artists and programmers Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald developed an interactive performance project entitled How We Act Together (2016) that can be accessed starting today, November 29, 2016, online at www.schirn.de/hwat. Individuals can participate via the website from their own PC with a webcam. In addition, visitors to the Schirn can join in the project via an installation in the foyer. How We Act Together is a communal performance in the form of a video stream. The focus is on gestures as the most elementary forms of social interaction. Participants are asked to repeat one of four gestures ¬¬– nodding, screaming, greeting or eye contacting – until exhausted in front of their webcam. As soon as an algorithm programmed by McCarthy and McDonald recognizes the gesture, a video recording begins. The performance aims to be a competition and endurance is rewarded. Indeed, if a user performs the respective gesture longer than the person with the greatest stamina before them, their recording is included in the video stream and becomes part of the accumulated performance. The result is a collective sequence of videos choreographed by software featuring identical gestures by different people. This creates an asynchronous interaction within a group divided both spatially and temporally. The artists Lauren McCarthy and Kyle McDonald comment as follows: “With our project How We Act Together, which we conceived for the Schirn, we aim to show people how even the slightest gestures influence social interactions. The subject of interpersonal relationships has interested us both for a long time now – especially in the context of digital communication, which is often characterized by divided attention and the loss of real social connections. Drawing on the technological possibilities of facial recognition software, we visualize the discomfort that we sometimes encounter in social interactions in the wild.”

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GIACOMETTI–NAUMAN

27.10.2016 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting a major exhibition of works by Alberto Giacometti and Bruce Nauman from October 28, 2016 until January 22, 2017. The show brings together two artists from different generations with totally different backgrounds. Giacometti (1901–1966) is regarded as one of the most important classical modern European sculptors. Nauman (*1941) and his multifaceted oeuvre represent the radical upheavals in contemporary art since 1960 and a concept of sculpture liberated from traditional concepts. Featuring some 70 works in all, this is the first exhibition ever devoted to both, Giacometti and Nauman. Sculptures and paintings by the Swiss artist engage in a fascinating dialogue with videos, sculptures, drawings, photographs, and spatial installations by the US multimedia artist. Giacometti is represented by works from nearly all of his important creative phases, Nauman primarily by his early oeuvre from the 1960s and early 1970s, which followed immediately on the heels of Giacometti’s works. Although the two artists never met and never referred explicitly to each other, they have a great deal in common. Both revolutionized the concepts and traditions of sculpture from the perspective of their respective times—Giacometti during the first half of the twentieth century, and Nauman from the 1960s to the present. Both are regarded as individualists who worked consistently from a position of self-imposed isolation and loneliness that has left an indelible imprint on their uncompromising art. Both represent utterly radical artistic standpoints, and both have created works of shocking immediacy that pose lasting challenges for viewers. Giacometti and Nauman have ventured with their oeuvres into uncharted regions of art and perception. Their search for artistic truth is a quest, the outcome of which is often manifested in the creative process itself rather than in finished works. The two artists have elevated failure, the absurd, the fragmentary, and the unheroic to the status of essential elements of their art. The art of both Giacometti and Nauman revolves around the human being. Giacometti was concerned consistently and almost exclusively with the human figure in his sculptures and paintings, and he developed an original human image of his own with his unmistakable style of figuration, especially during the years after 1945. Bruce Nauman’s work during the 1960s and 1970s was focused above all on the human body (primarily his own), which he took as the point of departure for an investigation into fundamental questions about human nature and the conditions governing human existence. The exhibition enhances our grasp of the oeuvres of two outstanding representatives of the art of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Giacometti becomes recognizable as a pioneer who paved the way for important developments in art after the 1960s and regains certain aspects of his original radical artistic position, whereas Nauman’s outstanding importance as a sculptor is made clear and historically comprehensible in a different way. The exhibition at the Schirn presents works from leading museums and collections in the United States and Europe, including the Guggenheim Museum in New York, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, D.C., the Tate in London, the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Fondation Alberto et Annette Giacometti in Paris, the Fondation Marguerite et Aimé Maeght in Saint-Paul de Vence, the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art in Humlebæk, the Fondation Beyeler in Basel/Riehen, the Lehmbruck Museum in Duisburg, the Neue Nationalgalerie in Berlin, and the Hamburger Kunsthalle.

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ULAY

12.10.2016 | From October 13, 2016, to January 8, 2017, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting the first-ever major survey exhibition of works by the exceptional artist Ulay. Ulay describes himself rather self-deprecatingly as the “most famous unknown artist”. For almost half a century, he has been radically merging art and his own life. His concept of transformation enables Ulay to constantly create new identities. His medium of choice is analog photography and, in particular, Polaroids, which form an essential part of his artistic practice. To this day, his body remains the object of his research; it is marked by various influences and can be read like a canvas. How is identity expressed within the body, and which strategies might alter identity? These are questions Ulay seeks to answer in his work. Skin is of particular significance. The artist sees it as the surface of both the body and the photograph. By shaping the skin, piercing it, or adorning it with symbols, he tells confrontational stories about identity and the transgressions to which it is exposed. In addition to numerous individual actions of performative photography and Body Art, Ulay has also realized a great number of performances and projects with other artists: he created photographic series with his former muse Paula Françoise-Piso in which he intensified self-analysis until the complete dissolution of the self; with the artist Marina Abramovi?, he managed to further evolve performance art, setting the standard to this day. In addition, he developed a number of participatory works with people from marginalized groups. Ulay defines photography and performance art in a distinctive and very personal way. The notion of “Identity through change” remains central to his work and allows him to elude any fixed attributions of identity. The retrospective exhibition at the Schirn brings together his remarkable oeuvre from 1970 to 2016. On show are more than 150 works, including photographs, films, project documentations, objects, and sculptures, as well as works on paper. The public will be presented for the first time with a number of works that the artist previously held back due to his absolute need to be present, and his skepticism of the art world. On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition at the Schirn, Ulay will present his performance “Who am I?”.

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PHILIPP DEMANDT TAKES OFFICE AS NEW DIRECTOR IN FRANKFURT AM MAIN

29.09.2016 | The Städel Museum, Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and Liebieghaus Skulpturensammlung have a new director. On 1 October 2016, Dr Philipp Demandt will begin his work at the head of the three cultural institutions of Frankfurt. The art historian was chosen within the framework of an intensive national and international search for a successor to Max Hollein. He was previously the director of the Alte Nationalgalerie, a museum of the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Preussischer Kulturbesitz. At the press conference held today on the occasion of his assumption of office, Demandt (b. 1971) was introduced by Prof Dr Nikolaus Schweickart, chairman of the Städel Museum administration, and Dr Ina Hartwig, deputy mayor in charge of culture of the city of Frankfurt am Main.

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ROSA BARBA. BLIND VOLUMES

26.09.2016 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting Blind Volumes, an installation realized by Berlin based artist Rosa Barba (*1972), from September 23, 2016 until January 8, 2017. In this work created specifically for the Schirn, in which she responds to the openly accessible public setting of the rotunda, Barba combines the artistic media of film and sculpture. Inside the rotunda, she has erected an expansive, geometrically intricate steel construction consisting of some 80 serial framework elements. The work is twelve meters tall and nearly fills the entire lobby of the Schirn. The complex structure, which resembles a building skeleton and calls to mind the Constructivist visions of the early twentieth century, confronts visitors with a wealth of possible associations. Rosa Barba uses the installation as the stage for a dynamic choreography combining visual imagery, light, and sound. The artist also cites a selection of her own works, which are presented here in a new constellation. In addition to the film-based sculpture entitled One Way Out (2009) and Conductor (2014), a rhythmically pulsating sound object, the Schirn is also showing two new works by Rosa Barba in conjunction with the Blind Volumes exhibition: In White Museum – Live (2016), 70-mm and 16-mm film projectors appear as actors in an acoustically controlled light show. This work originated in a live performance of the same title presented by Barba in collaboration with the well-known US drummer Chad Taylor at MoMA PS1 in New York last spring. It represents a continuation of the White Museum series she first introduced in 2010, in which a film image is projected as a rectangular field of light into outdoor space from museum buildings. About the Plate and Receiver (2016), a 16-mm film also featured in the installation, is a poetic reflection on space and time, the autonomy of technology, and the limits of human knowledge accompanied by electronic music. It is an outgrowth of one of Barba’s most recent installations in the White Museum series, a work she realized at the Hirsch Observatory of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. The various film and sculptural works will be presented continuously in the Schirn rotunda in an arrangement conceived by the artist.

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ART FOR ALL. THE COLOR WOODCUT IN VIENNA AROUND 1900

05.07.2016 | This exhibition is a first. The woodcut is one of the oldest printing techniques known and reached its zenith during the Middle Ages with Albrecht Dürer. Over the centuries the technique was increasingly forgotten, only to be rediscovered quite suddenly throughout Europe in a trend-setting development at the beginning of the 20th century. This was also the case in Vienna, where numerous artists, including a remarkable number of women, breathed new life into the color woodcut. From July 6 to October 3, 2016 the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is dedicating a major, long overdue exhibition to this previously largely neglected phenomenon. Some 240 works by over 40 artists – also employing related techniques such as linocut and block printing – give an impressive overview of the subject and demonstrate for the first time the full extent of the aesthetic and social achievements of the color woodcut in Vienna around the turn of the last century. The presentation examines the remarkable enthusiasm with which not only established painters, but also newcomers devoted their attention to the color woodcut during a short but all the more intensive golden age between 1900 and 1910 in Vienna. Among them were members of the Vienna Secession whose names are still familiar today, such as Carl Moll and Emil Orlik, as well as artists who have been almost forgotten like Gustav Marisch, Jutta Sika, Viktor Schufinsky and Marie Uchatius. The latter were all students of the Wiener Kunstgewerbeschule (College of Applied Arts), which was particularly popular among talented young artists. They were fascinated by the technical and formal possibilities of the traditional printing technique, which offered the artistic imagination tremendous freedom. It considerably influenced the emergence of a modern pictorial language at the beginning of the 20th century with its characteristic outline drawings and its stylizsed planar representational style. Moreover, thanks to its affordable prices even for original prints, the color woodcut opened up the previously elitist art market to a broad public. Within the social reformist movement “Kunst für Alle” (Art for All) it encouraged a lively discussion about authenticity and originality on the one hand as well as encouraging artistic creativity beyond the so-called “ivory tower” on the other – topics which have lost nothing of their relevance to this day. The extent to which the color woodcut contributed to a concept of art which aimed to encompass all aspects of life, can be seen in this exhibition. It is assembled in cooperation with the Albertina in Vienna and includes numerous loans from Viennese museums and institutions as well as from estates and private collections.

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PIONEERS OF THE COMIC STRIP. A DIFFERENT AVANT-GARDE

22.06.2016 | Spectacular, large and colorful – this is how comic strips captivated their audience, beginning back in 1897. The middle classes, working classes, and a host of immigrants were equally fascinated by the unfamiliar visual experience they encountered in American newspapers. From June 23 to September 18, 2016, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting the first extensive thematic exhibition on the “Pioneers of the Comic Strip,” who—progressive and eager to experiment—set the artistic and content-related standards of the early comic strips. The exhibition features six outstanding, primarily American illustrators who shaped the cultural history of the comic strip: Winsor McCay, Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, Cliff Sterrett, George Herriman, and Frank King. Unforgotten are Herriman’s absurd humor in Krazy Kat (from 1913), the Surrealist and Expressionist visual worlds of McCay (from 1904) and Sterrett (from 1912 onwards), Feininger’s comic strips for the Chicago Tribune (1906-7), or the comic strip Gasoline Alley by King (from 1921) told in real time over a period of three decades. With Forbell’s synthesis of the arts Naughty Pete (1913), the Schirn enables visitors to the exhibition to rediscover a forgotten illustrator.

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PETER HALLEY. THE SCHIRN RING

11.05.2016 | From May 12 to August 21, 2016 the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting the installation The Schirn Ring by the American artist Peter Halley (*1953). Halley has developed a multi-part installation, using the architecture and spatial conditions of the Rotunda and the Schirn Kunsthalle as his starting point. Halley’s installation begins in the exterior space of the Rotunda, then extends into the interior of the Schirn, employing the two ring-like galleries that surround the Rotunda as well as the adjacent exhibition space on the second floor. Across an area of some 450 m² Halley has designed an atmospheric, spatially complex, inventively coded environment that draws on both current and older elements of the artist’s oeuvre. Halley achieved notable fame in the 1980s with his Day-Glo geometric paintings that challenged previous assumptions about abstract art through his insistence that geometry is always tied to social realities. Today he is considered to be one of the most influential artists and art theorists in the United States. Since the mid-1990s he has also been creating site-specific installations for art galleries and public spaces in Europe, America, and Asia. Peter Halley’s installations are always grounded in his understanding of the cultural and architectural context of the spaces for which they are made. Thus, the development of The Schirn Ring was preceded by an intensive study of the architectural and conceptual context of the Schirn Rotunda. Halley sees the architecture of the Rotunda as loaded with cultural associations: the Rotunda’s form echoes that of the nearby historical, Neo-classical Paulskirche. At the same time, it is on axis with the adjacent Frankfurt Dom. From there, Halley went on to explore analogous elements in the architecture of the Schirn Rotunda and the design of the CERN Large Hadron Collider in Geneva. He imagined the Rotunda itself as a high-energy collider full of explosive energy bathed in yellow light.

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Max Hollein leaves post at the Städel Museum, Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt

23.03.2016 | After more than fifteen years in Frankfurt am Main, Max Hollein is resigning as head of the Städel Museum, Liebieghaus Sculpture Collection and Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt. As of 1 June 2016, Hollein will serve as director of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (FAMSF), the largest public art institution in Northern California and, with 1.6 million visitors in 2014, the fourth most frequently visited museum in the U.S.

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ME

09.03.2016 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting self-portraits by contemporary artists in the thematic exhibition “ME” from March 10 to May 29, 2016. The show features 40 international positions in painting, photography, video, sculpture, and performance art, including works by artists such as John Bock, Eberhard Havekost, Alicja Kwade, Mark Leckey, Nam June Paik, Pamela Rosenkranz, Rosemarie Trockel, and Erwin Wurm.

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THE SCHIRN TURNS THIRTY

25.02.2016 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt was officially opened on February 28, 1986. Since then, the Schirn has presented more than 220 exhibitions on roughly 2,000 m² of floor space – and welcomed over eight million visitors. The Schirn is not only one of the most prestigious and internationally recognized art institutions in Europe, but also a constant in the cultural life of the city of Frankfurt – a place of encounter where interested citizens, patrons and partners, young and established artists, dedicated friends and people from all over the world come together. In the first highlight of its anniversary year 2016, the Schirn is presenting the exhibition entitled “Joan Miró. Painting Walls, Painting Worlds“. The grand Schirn Summerfest will also be part of the thirtieth-anniversary celebration.

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JOAN MIRÓ. PAINTING WALLS, PAINTING WORLDS

15.02.2016 | Joan Miró (1893–1983) once famously declared that he wanted to “assassinate” painting. Today he is widely regarded as one of the greatest artists of the 20th century. From February 26 through to June 12, 2016 Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt presents an until now little discussed aspect of his oeuvre in a focused solo exhibition: Miró’s preference for large-scale formats and his fascination with the wall. In his painterly practice, the wall was the starting point – both as an object to be depicted and as an inspiration for the textural quality of his works. Miró distanced himself from the simple reproduction of reality and equated the picture plane with the wall. He explored the structure of its surface and aimed to dissolve the boundaries of the image space. His particular approach with the wall explains the care with which he selected and prepared the materials and the grounds of his pictures at every stage of his career. Miró’s paintings hereby gained the haptic qualities and textures of wall surfaces. The artist used whitewashed canvas, coarse burlap, Masonite (hardboard), sandpaper and tarpaper in order to create unique visual worlds of outstanding materiality. The exhibition at the Schirn covers over half a century of Miró’s oeuvre, beginning with his emblematic painting The Farm / La Ferme (1921/22), continuing with his iconic dream paintings of the 1920s, his key work Painting (The Magic of Colour) / Peinture (La Magie de la couleur) from 1930, his works and frieze formats painted on unconventional grounds in the 1940s and 1950s and ending with the artist’s late works, such as the monumental triptych Blue I–III / Bleu I–III (1961) and the extraordinary Painting I–III / Peinture I–III (July 27, 1973). The Schirn exhibition brings together around 50 works from important museums and public collections across the world, including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C., the Museo Reina Sofi?a, Madrid, and the Centre Pompidou, Paris, as well as important private collections, and aims to present a new approach to Miró’s art.

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THE SCHIRN KUNSTHALLE FRANKFURT'S NEW WEBSITE

27.10.2015 | The Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt is presenting its new website at www.schirn.de/en. Besides a fundamentally altered design, the new web presence is based on a pioneering concept: to offer visitors a digital companion—before, during, and after visiting an exhibition. In doing so, the Schirn is responding in an innovative way to the demanding and changing use behavior of its visitors. The new website was developed based on the needs of all groups of visitors. It focuses on extensive information about the exhibitions as well as the overall Schirn program with its wide range of educational and communication opportunities. An intelligent technical set-up enables the display of individualized as well as differentiated contents and information about the Schirn depending on the respective device in use, the day of the week, and the time of access. Within only a few months, the Schirn designed and implemented this new website in collaboration with the Frankfurt-based digital agency Henne / Ordnung. It features a slender main navigation; a clear, dynamic visual language; a dual distribution of text, image, and video contents at the central axis; as well as a semantic search, consistently carrying on the Schirn’s corporate identity. The site is responsive, which means that it is viewable on all popular screen sizes—from the smartphone and the tablet to the desktop computer—without restrictions. Besides the Schirn website, the visuals of the Schirn Magazine www.schirn-mag.com were also fundamentally altered. For the purpose of reinforcing its magazine character, a different typography was selected than for the new website. The text, image, and video elements have more space, can be displayed larger than ever before, and in doing so facilitate reading ease.

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FREE WIFI IN THE SCHIRN AND THE STÄDEL

02.02.2015 | Starting with the new exhibition year 2015, the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt and the Städel Museum offer free-of-charge WiFi throughout their premises; visitors of both art institutions will have free access to the Internet as of February 05, 2015. The Schirn and the Städel are the first two venues of this size in Germany, which provide free-of-charge and unlimited WiFi in all their exhibition areas. During their visit, users will be able to communicate online, inform themselves about contents and subjects of the presented shows, exchange views in the social media, for instance, as well as capture special experiences and share them directly and rapidly. In addition, visitors may download digital educational offers such as the digitorials, apps, and audio guides for specific shows and collections successfully used by both institutions, and run these offers on their own devices. In addition, articles and videos from the Schirn magazine, the Städel blog, and the YouTube channels of both houses are easily accessible for use online during visits of the Schirn and the Städel. The Schirn’s WiFi will be available with the start of the exhibition “Poetry of the Metropolis. The Affichistes” from February 05, 2015. The Städel’s WiFi can also be used as of February 05, 2015.

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