Pia Fries
Pia Fries | ZKM Center for Art and Media
A New Look at the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe's Collection
29 April 2023
Pia Fries, fahnenbild 11, 2010, oil and silkscreen on wood, 220 x 170 cm
© VG Bild-Kunst
The main building of the Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe has been closed for extensive renovation. However, significant parts of the collection are now accessible to the public again – as the guests of the ZKM | Karlsruhe.
The Kunsthalle shows paintings and sculptures from the late Middle Ages to the present on around 2,000 square meters of floorspace – a cross-section of its collection featuring popular major works by the following artists: Matthias Grünewald, Hans Baldung Grien, Rembrandt, Rubens, Chardin, Cézanne, Gauguin, Beckmann, Max Ernst, René Magritte, Joan Miró, Gerhard Richter, Pia Fries, and Karin Sander.
The change of context is also an opportunity for a change of perspective: the familiar museum presentation will appear in a new and different guise in the ZKM galleries designed by the exhibition architects Merz+Merz (Berlin/Stuttgart). The Prologue will be a cinematic "threshold space" by Anna Henckel-Donnersmarck (Berlin), a multichannel projection about the actual home of the artworks, the main building of the Kunsthalle on Hans-Thoma-Strasse that is currently vacant.
New highlights of the exhibition tour are a high-ranking donation of paintings and a freshly restored major artwork from the early modern period, excerpts from a new photographic collection, and rarely exhibited graphic works from the Kunsthalle's collection of prints and engravings. The presentation is conceived as a flexible offer to the public for discussion, to which the presentations in the Orangerie and the Junge Kunsthalle in Hans-Thoma-Strasse will prospectively be added in 2023.
In addition, there will also be opportunities to get to know the Kunsthalle's collection and its works, or to rediscover old acquaintances in a new way in a program of events. Whether a short intellectual snack at the art snack bar or a themed guided tour, a musical art journey or creative tracing of ideas and motifs, a wide range of events and learning activities will provide the appropriate access for visitors of all ages.