The Lenbachhaus owes its worldwide renown to its unrivaled collection of “Blue Rider” art with works by Marc, Klee, Kandinsky, Münter and others. In addition to the Munich School of painters, treasures of Art Nouveau and works of the New Objectivity, the museum also showcases vital tendencies in international contemporary art and influential artists working today.

The exhibition BODY CHECK. Martin Kippenberger – Maria Lassnig ventures an unexpected encounter: it is the first to confront the works of these two influential protagonists of twentieth-century painting with each other. Both artists undertake a searching painterly examination of their own physical existence. The frail and fragmented body serves them as a metaphor for social and psychological conflict. Pain and suffering, absurdity and humor are inextricably interwoven in these studies of the flesh.

For close to fifty years, Senga Nengudi (b. 1943) has shaped an oeuvre that inhabits a specific and unique place between sculpture, dance and performance. In the 1960s and 1970s, Los Angeles was the capital of an African-American artistic avant-garde with Nengudi as one of its pivotal figures. Her iconic R.S.V.P sculptures, exhibited for the first time in 1976, are made from pantyhose combined with natural materials such as sand and stone.

BODY CHECK. Martin Kippenberger – Maria Lassnig
Curated by Veit Loers with Matthias Mühling and Elisabeth Giers
21/05/19 - 15/09/19

Senga Nengudi
Curated by Stephanie Weber and Anna Straetmans
17/09/19 - 19/01/20