This painting shows in delicate colors a boat with a person in it, floating lonely on a stretch of water close to the land. Veron Urdarianu, Sammlung Goetz Munich

Sammlung Goetz

Imagination Becomes Reality. Part II: Painting Surface Space

October 17, 2005 – January 14, 2006

"Space and architecture have always been important topics in painting, and they still are today, particularly in the vigorous dialogue between architecture and painting and probably even more in our changed attitude to the connection between space and time and ‘imaginary‘ space. Unlike the sciences and philosophy, the fine arts treat these topics either in the context of purely formal discussions or with reference to human beings in space, their existential orientation and position in space." (Ingvild Goetz)

With Julian Göthe, Eberhard Havekost, Lothar Hempel, Teresa Hubbard / Alexander Birchler, Frank Nitsche and Veron Urdarianu.

Painting Surface Space, the second exhibition in the Imagination Becomes Reality series, focused on architectural and spatial concepts in contemporary art. This exhibition provided an opportunity of contemplating both the individual portrayal and the subjective perception of space by way of example of new works by contemporary artists – not only exploring imaginary spaces, but also addressing the relationship of the viewer to their visual realities.
Art has long since broken free of the dictatorship of the gaze in which the viewer sought only conventional and familiar spatial dimensions. Our own spatial perceptions have also shifted in the course of the centuries and have radically changed in the past few decades. Scientific concepts of space and time were always far ahead of contemporary perceptions. Sketches, drawings, geometric constructions, diagrams and models have always been produced to convey highly abstract theoretical constructs of space and time. Painting and drawing have often been used in an effort to produce a recognizable illusion of three-dimensionality within a two-dimensional medium. Today, these archaic aids to visual perception have been replaced by complex and sophisticated computer simulations. A number of young artists have taken this one step further. They have realized that each and every perception of space and time is actually constructed within the imagination, in the realm of the mind’s eye, and they have taken this as a license to develop and construct their own individual, imaginary visual spaces in their art.

Imagination Becomes Reality
Part II. Painting Surface Space

152 pages, 50 ill., hardcover
German/English
2005, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
ISBN 3-9808063-6-7
€ 15,00

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Imagination Becomes Reality
(Special limited slipcase edition)

On the occasion of the exhibition at the ZKM | Museum of Contemporary Art in Karlsruhe, a limited special edition has been published in a slipcase. It comprises all five exhibition catalogues of the exhibition cycle Imagination Becomes Reality, shown in the Munich rooms of the Sammlung Goetz, the sixth catalogue of the Karlsruhe exhibition, and a graphic work specially produced and signed for this edition.

Available graphic works (312 KB)

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Artist editions

André Butzer

Ohne Titel
2006
Woodcut
23,5 x 16,5 cm
Limited edition of 77

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Thomas Helbig

Wilder
2006
Lithograph/etching
23,5 x 16,5 cm
Limited edition of 77

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Markus Selg

Die Expedition
2006
Digital print
23,5 x 16,5 cm
Limited edition of 77

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Tal R

Inn
2006
Etching
23,5 x 16,5 cm
Limited edition of 77

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Veron Urdarianu

Die Rückkehr des Verlangens
2006
Litograph
23,5 x 16,5 cm
Limited edition of 77

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Cyrill Lachauer. The Sunset Route

June 20 – September 27, 2026 | Kunstpalais Erlangen

feat. Mike Brodie, Mouse Green, Rhyw, Mia Justice Smith, Moritz Stumm

In the exhibition The Sunset Route, on view at the Kunstpalais Erlangen and created in collaboration with the Sammlung Goetz, Cyrill Lachauer presents works from 2020 to 2025, a period during which he traveled on freight trains through the USA, Mexico, and Bosnia. In the spirit of poetic ethnography, he created photographs and films that are now being shown together for the first time. They all explore questions of freedom, self-determination, and resistance, as well as colonization, exclusion, and exploitation.