The Collection of Bernhard and Margrit Sprengel

With ELEMENTARY PARTS, the Sprengel Museum Hannover is celebrating both the 50th anniversary of the donation of Bernhard and Margrit Sprengel and the 40th year of the museum’s existence. The exhibition as well as the catalog of the collection ELEMENTARY PARTS poses simple and obvious questions about art that nevertheless prove to be absolutely fundamental: What is art? What are works of art actually made of, which materials are used? Which formal languages do they employ? Which reality (or realities) do they refer to between the figurative, the abstract and the virtual? What is art about, what kind of narratives does it tell, and how does it reflect history? In ten thematic topics there is unfolded an impressive spectrum of the fundamental ways of expression. The topics are, amongst others, color, material, form/shape, ­realities, history/nar­ra­tives, natural and human ­shaped spaces, strong emotions and finally faces. This brings together a total of more than 150 works from Max Beckmann, Pablo ­Picasso, ­Fernand Léger and Paul Klee via Louise Bourgeois, Sean Scully, Bruce Nauman, Niki de Saint Phalle and Gerhard Richter to Marlene Dumas, Andrea Fraser, Julian Charrière, Julius von Bismarck, ­Christoph Girardet and Julia Schmid.

Exhibition:
since 13th April 2019