Exhibition program 2020

The new year starts with the exhibition Richard Jackson. Unexpected Unexplained Unaccapted (February 6–May 3, 2020), which assembles for the first time five of the artist´s characteristic “Rooms”—room installations based on the principle of automated painting. Inside, comic-like figures, animals, or objects become the protagonists in a unique process in which air compressors and pumps cause rich colors to flow through tubes and funnels, through ears, mouths, and other body orifices and spread them across the floor, walls, furnishings, and the protagonists themselves. By the time visitors enter the space, it is all over. They become the investigators of the previous spectacular painting act and voyeurs of bizarre scenarios.

One highlight is the major survey exhibition Fantastic Women. Surreal Worlds from Meret Oppenheim to Frida Kahlo (February 13–May 24, 2020). For the first time, the Schirn presents the contribution of women to Surrealism, whose participation in the movement was considerably larger than is generally known or reported. Featuring some 260 remarkable works by 34 international female artists, the exhibition reflects a diverse spectrum in terms of both style and content. Besides well-known figures like Louise Bourgeois, Claude Cahun, Leonora Carrington, or Frida Kahlo, numerous rather unknown, artists from more than three decades of Surrealist art such as Alice Rahon, and Kay Sage also await discovery. An exhibition of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in cooperation with the Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebæk. 

In summer, the Iranian artists Ramin Haerizadeh, Rokni Haerizadeh, and Hesam Rahmanian (May 28–August 23, 2020) realize their first solo exhibition in Germany. The trio’s expansive installations transport the viewer into a highly distinctive world. They are exuberant and almost baroque, nonetheless humorous, and full of allusions. The artists direct attention toward urgent contemporary political and social topics and question power mechanisms, as well as normative gender roles and the art world.

At the same time the Schirn dedicates the exhibition We Never Sleep (June 26–September 27, 2020) to the fascination of espionage as source of current artistic inspiration. With a multitude of strategies by artists such as Simon Denny, Rodney Graham, Gabriel Lester, Metahaven, Trevor Paglen, Noam Toran, Suzanne Treister and Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas as well as unexpected objects, the exhibition touches the “golden age” of espionage during the Cold War as well as the context of media super-exposure.

In autumn, major aspects of Canadian modern landscape painting will be presented in the exhibition Magnetic North. Imagining Canada in Painting 1910–1940 (Septem­ber 24, 2020–January 10, 2021). On the occasion of Canada being Guest of Honour at the 2020 Frankfurt Book Fair, the Schirn brings together principal works from major Canadian collections, which are on view in Germany for the first time. This comprehensive show will examine and critically review the works by artists around the “The Group of Seven.” An exhibition of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in cooperation with the Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto and the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. 

Also in 2020 national and inter­na­tional film and video artists will present in the Double Feature a work from their own oeuvre, followed by a film of their choice—on the last Wednesday of every month.

The overview of the exhi­bi­tion program 2020 ends with a preview of the exhi­bi­tion Marc Chagall. World in Turmoil (February 12–May 30, 2021), which sheds light on a so far little-known side of his oeuvre: Chagall’s works of the 1930s and 1940s, in which the artist’s colorful palette becomes darker. With more than 100 haunting paintings, works on paper, photos, and documents, the exhibition traces the artist’s search for a pictorial language in the face of expulsion and persecution.

You can find the complete annual program of the Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt here.

Director: Dr. Philipp Demandt
Press contact: Johanna Pulz (Head of Press/Public Relations):
presse [​at​] schirn.de / T +49 69 29 98 82 148
Press material: www.schirn.de (texts, images, and films can be downloaded under PRESS)