Exhibition view with works exclusively in the colours black, white and grey. These are painted or printed canvases, a wallpaper, a drum set and wall objects. Martin Boyce/Alan Charlton/Wade Guyton/Reiner Ruthenbeck/Michael Sailstorfer, Sammlung Goetz Munich

Neues Museum, Nürnberg

When Now is Minimal. The Unknown Side of Sammlung Goetz

July 19 – October 20, 2013

This joint exhibition project was organized by the Neues Museum in Nuremberg, the Museion in Bozen and the Sammlung Goetz in Munich. It looks at how very different generations of artists have addressed the subject of Minimalism and implemented their ideas within the rich framework of contemporary modes of expression.

With Martin Boyce, Alan Charlton, Wade Guyton, Peter Halley, Imi Knoebel, Anthony McCall, Blinky Palermo, Gerwald Rockenschaub, Reiner Ruthenbeck, Fred Sandback, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rosemarie Trockel and Andrea Zittel.

Besides those positions that have played an important role in art discourse on Minimalism since the 1960s, the exhibition also presents the work of a younger generation of artists; they have taken the ideas of their predecessors and adapted them in a way that is often more informal, liberated and playful, as well as much less orthodox, thus producing their own individual artistic style.
The abundance of media selected from the Sammlung Goetz for this exhibition includes many works which have not been on show before, ranging from sketches to paintings, photographs, sculptures as well as wall and light installations. This reveals just how topical the theme has always been for the different generations and genres. The choice of works underlines the fact that the fundamental questions regarding concept and design as well as aesthetics and formalistic approaches that arose in the 1960s continue to be posed in contemporary art and are as relevant today as they ever were.

Curated by Karsten Löckemann and Angelika Nollert

Further stations of the exhbition:

Museion, Bozen: 23. November 2013 – 05. October 2014

When Now is Minimal. The Unknown Side of the Goetz Collection

240 pages, 263 ill., softcover
German/English/Italian
2013, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-3647-3
€ 30,00

learn more

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. Her series In and Around the House (1978/79) is exemplary for this set-up photography. The series is the centerpiece of the exhibition, with 56 black-and-white images showing a doll occupied with the mundane chores of a housewife in the cozy environment of a dollhouse. The exhibition “Laurie Simmons: Dollhouse Photographs”, a collaboration of Sammlung Goetz, Deutsches Theatermuseum and FILMFEST MÜNCHEN, 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.