Look, the Eyes

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 brings together around 60 works from both the Lambrecht-Schadeberg Collection and the Contemporary Art Collection in eleven rooms and invites visitors to explore seeing and the gaze itself—in all its facets and across all media.

With works by Francis Bacon, John Baldessari, Miriam Cahn, Christian Falsnaes, Omer Fast, Lucian Freud, Bernhard Fuchs, Hans Haacke, Isaac Julien, Maria Lassnig, Sigmar Polke, Andrea Robbins/Max Becher and August Sander.

Curated by Ines Rüttinger, Jessica Schiefer, Christian Spies and Thomas Thiel.

Supported by the Peter Paul Rubens Foundation.