Museum Villa Stuck, Munich

Street Life & Home Stories. Photographs from the Goetz Collection

June 1 – September 11, 2011

The Street Life & Home Stories exhibition brings together the work of 25 artists represented in the photographic holdings of the Sammlung Goetz, featuring life stories documented on camera referencing social and political themes beyond the constraints of the purely subjective moment captured in the scene itself. Thoroughly contemporary takes on life were juxtaposed with works by long-established artists, providing, for the first time, a wide-ranging view of the collection of some 1300 photographs.
The concept behind the exhibition is to show the interaction between various era and approaches, without being didactic or strictly chronological, and to put the focus firmly on the city, the street and the domestic environment as the main stage on which social and political issues are played out.

Wiht Francis Alÿs, Nobuyoshi Araki, Diane Arbus, Stan Douglas, William Eggleston, Michael Elmgreen & Ingar Dragset, Ed van der Elsken, Walker Evans, Hans-Peter Feldmann, Nan Goldin, Paul Graham, Evelyn Hofer, Candida Höfer, Sven Johne, Steve McQueen, Robin Rhode, Daniela Rossell, August Sander, Cindy Sherman, Laurie Simmons, Thomas Struth, Wolfgang Tillmans, Jeff Wall and Tobias Zielony.

The concept behind the exhibition is to show the interaction between various era and approaches, without being didactic or strictly chronological, and to put the focus firmly on the city, the street andthe domestic environment as the main stage on which social and political issues are played out.
Among the works in this cross-generational exhibition, the photographs by Evelyn Hofer and Tobia Zelony’s images of the US town of Trona provided compelling portrayals of the interaction between the individual and the environment, while at the same time showing places that symbolise a certain way of life and even destiny. The juxtaposition of such important photographers from both past and present – such as August Sander and Wolfgang Tillmans – provided an insight not only into the differences but also into the similarities of artistic approaches to photography across the ages. Post-feminist positions by Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin remind viewers of the boundaries of identity and society, and the limits of convention and freedom.
The urban environment in all its ambiguity – inside and outside, street and home – become the face, the symbol and ultimately the stage of economic decline, human destiny and abject tragedy.

Concept: Michael Buhrs, Ingvild Goetz, Verena Hein und Karsten Löckemann

Curated by Verena Hein und Karsten Löckemann

Street Life & Home Stories.
Fotografien aus der Sammlung Goetz

224 pages, 256 ill., hardcover
Separate German and English edition
2011, Hatje Cantz Verlag, Ostfildern
ISBN 978-3-7757-2782-2
€ 30,00

learn more

Imi Knoebel

Sammlung Goetz

Autumn/Winter 2021

The Sammlung Goetz honors the artist Imi Knoebel on the occasion of his 80th birthday with a retrospective exhibition. The entire spectrum of Knoebel’s artistic oeuvre will be presented, starting with his black and white photographs from the 1960s to his collages made of multicolored paper and his objects cast in concrete and ending with his most recent paintings in acrylic on aluminum. The presentation also includes Knoebel’s geometrical, minimalist works as well as his expressive paintings from the 1980s, which have rarely been shown until now.

Barbara Kasten. Works

Sammlung Goetz BASE 103

Autumn/Winter 2021

The American artist Barbara Kasten has created an impressive artistic oeuvre over her career spanning from the 1970s to the present. At the center of Kasten’s work are her abstract, geometric color photographs from the 1980s, which explore the interplay of light and dark and afford new spatial experiences. The Sammlung Goetz, which has extensive holdings of works by Kasten, is mounting the artist’s first solo exhibition in Europe in cooperation with the Kunstmuseum Wolfsburg. A selection of the extensive retrospective will be on view in the Sammlung Goetz in Munich.