The Munich Brandhorst Museum tells a virtuosic account of flowering and decay.
The new exhibition "La vie en rose" is a feast for fans of Cy Twombly, Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol and Co.
You don't want to start with the weather again.
But this spring is really not making it easy for us.
So when you trudge through the puddles into the Brandhorst Museum on a cold, wet Tuesday, still feeling gray in winter, and just before the entrance, some guy’s much too fast, fat cart splashes the water out of the curb onto your clothes, you can’t speak of a good mood.
But then: the sun rises.
And the heart with it.
Museum director Achim Hochdörfer has prepared something very, very nice for us here.
"La vie en rose".
The title of the exhibition alone sets a carousel of associations in motion in the mind: Edith Piaf, the highest happiness in love.
But also the resonating melancholy of Piaf, because even the greatest happiness comes to an end.
Many artists have grappled with this dilemma over and over again.
And no matter what culture or faith they are and were from: they use and used flowers very often as a symbol for the contradictions of existence.
Blossoming and dying – and so much life in between.
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Flowery: During a corona lockdown, the American Amy Sillman painted a number of flowers (left)
© Marcus sleep
Achim Hochdörfer, who curated the new show, which can be seen from May 5, 2023, is still in the final preparations when you meet him for the preliminary tour.
He's wearing the matching sweater, and just looking at it makes you wonder whether it's still cool or already kitschy.
You decide on cool kitschy and are happy that someone in his person is making sure that blooming in Munich picks up speed.
It's finally high time.
Although the truth is that this city is in full bloom all year round.
That is what you realize during the tour: what a motley bouquet this art city of Munich is.
Because the majority of the works that now hang on the upper floor of the Museum Brandhorst are from the rich own collection or from one of the other houses of the Bavarian State Painting Collections.
And that's why the head of the museum didn't have to think long about how he and his team would participate in this year's Flower Power Festival, which runs in Munich and the surrounding area until autumn.
"My first thought was: We have the Rose Hall, we are part of the State Painting Collections.
Let's make something of it!"
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Claude Monet's "Water Lilies" (1915) can also be seen in the exhibition.
© Marcus sleep
They did.
Hochdörfer's house is home to 100 works by the painter Cy Twombly (1928-2011), one of the US artist's favorite subjects: roses.
Twombly created a cycle for this in 2008.
Six monumental pictures hang in the Rose Hall.
And as they radiate into the room with all their color and form, they look like oversized spotlights.
With full power, they illuminate the partition walls placed in the middle from all sides.
The works hanging on it, for their part, reflect the beam of light most beautifully back to Twombly.
Like busy little bees, the work mutually fertilizes one another.
And fans of the American suddenly see his roses in the confrontation with Gerhard Richter, Andy Warhol, Gabriele Münter with different eyes.
Hochdörfer has picked criss-cross in the garden of art history.
Always oriented towards the themes that Twombly tills in the monumental works.
Based on well-known poems from Rilke to Dickinson, Twombly negotiates memory and longing, death and grief, sensuality and eroticism, joie de vivre and redemption, freedom and loneliness.
Then there are the dark violet-black roses, one of which was brutally cut off on one side, opposite Gerhard Richter's "Flowers" (1994).
The flower heads bent towards the ground.
Red carnations, symbol of devotion and love.
That's probably over now.
Richter is said to have painted the picture at the time when he separated from Isa Genzken.
And Hochdörfer?
On the back wall of the same screen hangs an installation by Isa Genzken with the ringing title "empire vampire V" (2003).
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Pop Art meets Old Masters: three times Andy Warhol's "Flowers" and Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "Allegory of Spring" (bottom left).
© Marcus sleep
Or Warhol: the curator would also have had large-format works by the pop artist from the extensive Brandhorst collection at his disposal;
but consciously opted for the almost 13 by 13 centimeter small "Flowers" (1965).
There they hang, like dandelions floating in the landscape, between Giuseppe Arcimboldo's "Allegory of Spring" (1563) and "The Holy Family" (ca. 1620/23) by Jan Brueghel the Elder.
Ä.
and Pieter van Avont.
As if Warhol had plucked the little flowers directly from the phenomenal works of the old masters - and helped them to new, wild growth with modern fertilizer.
In short: you drag yourself out of the water into this show – and dance out again in a buoyant mood.
Like rain dance, only in reverse.
Until October 22, 2023 in the Museum Brandhorst, Tue.-Sun.
10 a.m.-6 p.m., Thurs. until 8 p.m.
