Programme Preview 2025
Look, the Eyes
–15.6.25
Eyes gaze at us from images, and we gaze back. What are the eyes in the drawings, paintings, photographs, and films looking for? Are they compelled by a vague longing, or are we, the observers, the ones being looked at?
Seeing and being seen are reciprocal. When we see something, we are also looked at and touched. The eyes play a key part when it comes to generating and questioning emotions, power relations and social constructs because things are ordered and fixed in the gaze. In a world that is largely centred on the sense of sight, as well as in artistic practice, seeing takes centre stage as a matter of course. Because things are organised and fixed in the gaze. Something shows itself and simultaneously withdraws, so that what is seen and visible also creates a trace of the absent and invisible.
The exhibition with around 60 works from both the Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection and the Contemporary Art Collection invites visitors to explore seeing and the gaze itself – with all its facets and across all media.
Supported by the Peter Paul Rubens Foundation
For the Birds
4.7.– 9.11.25
Birds have a powerful attraction for people, epitomising as they do freedom, transcendence, speed and power. Monarchs of the skies, they have been honoured by many peoples as heavenly messengers. There has always been religious, economic, political or scientific interest in the world of birds. Today, they provide us with deeper insights into our world, environmental pollution and climate change. Birds connect habitats and are part of biological processes. They contribute to the ecosystem, and their simple presence in public spaces enhances human well-being.
On the basis of artistic positions and works held by the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen, “For the Birds” examines the significance of birds in various contexts. It is an exhibition to both see and hear. Incorporating a wide variety of media, the works on display link ecological, philosophical, social and political issues. The exhibition is dedicated to birds and their cultural relevance in contemporary artistic narratives.
Supported by Kunststiftung NRW (Arts Foundation of North Rhine-Westphalia) and the Peter Paul Rubens Foundation
Giorgio Morandi
Resonances
28.11.25– 23.3.26
Giorgio Morandi (*1890, †1964 in Bologna) is known for his still-life works and landscape paintings. Throughout his life, Giorgio Morandi devoted himself to depicting simple, everyday objects such as bottles, jugs, vases and bowls. On the canvas, he repeatedly created new arrangements with the vessels, so that no two pictures are the same despite the similarity of the objects. They immediately reveal a concentrated calm and reduction to essential forms and delicate colours. Morandi's pictures are simple, almost minimalist depictions.
“Giorgio Morandi. Resonances” at the Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen starts with the comprehensive Morandi group of works in the Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection and expands it with numerous loans from German and European collections in favour of a comprehensive view of the entire oeuvre of the painter from Bologna. At the same time, the exhibition adopts Morandi's principle and places the works in dialogue with older and more recent works by other artists. The exhibition will create resonances between individual motifs and images by visualising connections between similarities and allowing differences to speak for themselves.
Supported by the Peter Paul Rubens Foundation
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