This work by Chris Ofili consists of a pencil drawing that represents a loop of mirror-symmetrical, concentric circles.

Sammlung Goetz

The Mystery of Painting

October 29, 2001 – April 5, 2002

Today, painting distinguishes itself by stylistic diversity, visual pleasure and its own intrinsic logic. For the group exhibition The Mystery of Painting, Sammlung Goetz has selected ten positions from its holdings of paintings.

With Ellen Gallagher, Toba Khedoori, Karen Kilimnik, Udomsak Krisanamis, Sarah Morris, Chris Ofili, Laura Owens, Lari Pittman, Neo Rauch and Matthew Ritchie.

Painting has often been declared dead. Despite this, it has maintained its vitality and diversity over the centuries as hardly any other medium. The ten artists in the group exhibition The Mystery of Painting are not related by a common style, but by a common attitude to painting. "What they have in common is that they do not paint a picture of the world, but about the world", explains Ingvild Goetz. They masterfully transcend traditional categories of 'representational' and 'abstract', look for points of departure in pop culture and folk art and do not shy away from close proximity to the decorative or to kitsch. Most of these artists belong to the younger generation. Their works were created in the late 1990s. Many of them are being shown in Germany for the first time.

The Mystery of Painting

192 pages, 91 ill., hardcover
German/English
2001, Kunstverlag Ingvild Goetz GmbH, Hamburg
ISBN 3-9805267-9-8
€ 15,00

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Cindy Sherman

March 17 – June 27, 2026 | Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster

The staging of female role models in photographic self-portraits is the predominant theme in the work of American artist Cindy Sherman. To this end, Sherman references stereotypes of collective visual memory in a media-driven world. The exhibition at the Sammlung Goetz /Schaufenster highlights works from Sherman’s fashion series, created between 1983 and 1994. Thanks to her passion for costumes and masquerade, the world of fashion has been an expansive playing field for her artistic exploration.

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.