Portrait of a young, blond woman with 1920s make-up, a black net in front of her face and a ruff of red tinsel. Ulrike Ottinger, Sammlung Goetz Munich

Kunsthalle Munich

STAGED! Spectacle and role play in contemporary art

August 19 – November 6, 2016

Opera, theater and ballet have always had a special fascination for a multitude of visual artists, who have found inspiration in magnificent theater architecture, opulent sets, extravagant costumes and rousing performances. With nearly 90 works from the Sammlung Goetz, the exhibition in the Kunsthalle Munich demonstrates the continuing interplay between art and theater.

With Julien Audebert, Matthew Barney, Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller, Stan Douglas, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Nan Goldin, Asta Gröting, Andreas Gursky, Lothar Hempel, Candida Höfer, Barbara Kasten, Mike Kelley, Jürgen Klauke, Hans Op de Beeck, Ulrike Ottinger, Paul Pfeiffer, Markus Schinwald, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Jeff Wall, Gillian Wearing and Shao Yinong & Mu Chen

"All the world’s a stage" is a famous line by English poet William Shakespeare in the comedy As You Like It, which explores in a rondelay the trials and tribulations of love. The quote is often cited when the topic of the theater’s influence on other areas of life arises. All the world’s a stage presents the large-scale exhibition in the Kunsthalle Munich in cooperation with the Sammlung Goetz. It brings together ca. 20 artists who explore the techniques of stage and theater in their works. On view is the full range of artistic forms, from painting, sculpture and photography to video works and large-scale multimedia installations.

A similar perspective on the works from the Sammlung Goetz was already ventured in the exhibition All the world's a stage at the Fundación Banco Santander. With the selection of works in the Kunsthalle Munich, this notion will be continued and intensified.

Curated by Karsten Löckemann

INSZENIERT!
Spektakel und Rollenspiel in der Gegenwartskunst

160 pages, 83 ill., softcover
German
2016, Kunsthalle der Hypokulturstiftung, Munich; Hirmer Verlag, Berlin
ISBN 978-3-7774-2708-9
€ 19,00

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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.

Laurie Simmons. Dollhouse Photographs

June 25 – August 30, 2026 | Deutsches Theatermuseum

The American artist Laurie Simmons is known for her photographs featuring tiny dolls representing stereotypical female roles in domestic interiors. The exhibition, a collaboration between Sammlung Goetz, Deutsches Theatermuseum and Filmfest Munich, presents a selection of works by Simmons that cast a critical gaze at gender stereotypes in the American middle class.

Sterling Ruby

July 16 – October 24, 2026 | Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster

Los Angeles-based American artist Sterling Ruby is known for his cross-genre work, which ranges from ceramics and bronzes, collages and textiles, to enormous, spray-painted paintings. In his works, Ruby weaves together a variety of different autobiographical, art-historical, and sociological sources. Through deconstruction and reconstruction, he probes the idea of a non-hierarchical and borderless universe. The exhibition at the Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster provides insight into his multi-layered artistic practice.

Jeff Wall

November 17, 2026 – February 20, 2027 | Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster

Canadian artist Jeff Wall is one of the most influential photographers of our time. In his elaborately staged pictorial compositions, he combines the narrative of cinema with painting. Wall became known for his large-format lightbox images, which are formally more reminiscent of the world of advertising than that of fine art. With this technique, he revolutionized the medium of photography, elevating it to the height of painting and sculpture. The exhibition at the Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster presents a selection of his iconic lightbox images from the 1990s.