Exhibition archive

Martin Creed – I don’t know what art is

Dates: October 21, 2023, to March 3, 2024

The MKK presented a major exhibition by British artist Martin Creed (* 1968 in Wakefield, UK), who ranks among the most internationally successful contemporary artists and was awarded the Tate Britain’s Turner Prize in 2001.

Creed created an immersive installation within the museum building responding to the architecture. His work *Half the air in a given space* transformed the ground floor into a sea of yellow balloons through which visitors moved. The piece *Piece for a * was also performed in the building, while *Work No. 3348, floor marking tapes* introduced new lines and structures into the space with colorful floor markings.

Creed’s works oscillate between playfulness and seriousness, conceptual art, and surprising openness. Works such as Work No. 960, an ongoing series of cacti, or the video piece Sick Film unsettled visitors and deliberately raised the question: What is art?

24! Questions on the Concrete Present

Duration: March 23 to September 22, 2024

The exhibition explored the question of what significance Concrete Art holds for contemporary artists: What influence do its origins and historical developments have on today’s artistic positions? Are its principles still relevant—and do they apply just as much to its name?

The term “Concrete Art” is attributed to the Dutch artist, architect, and theorist Theo van Doesburg (1883–1931), who is believed to have first coined it in 1924. Roughly 100 years later, this anniversary provided an opportunity to ask a young generation of artists about their relationship with this art movement.

24! Questions on the Concrete Present emerged as a collaboration between the Museum of Concrete Art (MKK) in Ingolstadt and the Museum im Kulturspeicher (MiK) in Würzburg. 

A total of twenty-four artists were presented at the dual exhibition—twelve at the MKK and twelve at the MiK.

Participating artists (MKK Ingolstadt):

Carsten Beck • Anna-Maria Bogner • Martim Brion • Lena Ditlmann • Vladiana Ghiulvessi • Dave Grossmann • Toulu Hassani • Marile Holzner • Silvia Inselvini • Fiene Scharp • Marco Stanke • Jonas Weichsel

Participating artists (MiK Würzburg):

Banz & Bowinkel • Nina Brauhauser • Sebastian Dannenberg • Fabian Gatermann • Charlotte Giacobbi • Erika Hock • Patrizia Kränzlein • Schirin Kretschmann • Sali Muller • Cătălin Pîslaru • Virginia Toma • Amalia Valdés Mujica

Back to the Beginning! The Gomringer Collection and 30 Years of the Museum of Concrete Art

Dates: March 26 to September 24, 2023

With the exhibition Back to Square One! The Gomringer Collection and 30 Years of the Museum of Concrete Art, the MKK looked back on its beginnings in the 1980s and 1990s with a touch of humor and play. The focus was on the art collection of Eugen Gomringer (1925–2025), which once formed the core of the museum’s collection. It includes significant works of Concrete Art, among others by Josef Albers, Max Bill, and Verena Loewensberg. The works, acquired in 1981 by the city of Ingolstadt from the estate of the 

Bolivian-Swiss writer and pioneer of Concrete Poetry, formed the foundation of the museum, which opened in 1992.

At the same time, the exhibition paid tribute to the building on Tränktorstraße as a long-standing exhibition venue and generated anticipation for the new museum building on the former “Gießereihallen” site. Thus, Back to the Beginning! was conceived not only as a retrospective but also as a signal for the museum’s journey into the future.

Reflections / Mirror Worlds

Duration: October 9, 2022, to March 5, 2023

The exhibition Reflections / Mirror Worlds focused on reflective materials in art. What is now almost indispensable in our everyday world—such as shiny facades or gleaming car paint—had already found its way into the visual arts as early as the 1950s. Artists such as Christian Megert, Heinz Mack, and Getulio Alviani established reflective surfaces as independent materials and conceptual anchors for their works.

Drawing on works from the collections of the Museum of Concrete Art and the Foundation for Concrete Art and Design, the exhibition presented sculptures, paintings, photographs, and large-scale installations by approximately thirty artists. On display were works by the pioneers of Concrete and Kinetic Art as well as contemporary artists.

Participating artists:
Getulio Alviani • Werner Bauer • Hans Berchtenbreiter • Victor Bonato • Hellmut Bruch • Bettina Bürkle • Erich Buchholz • Christoph Dahlhausen • Günter Dohr • Rolf Glasmeier • Hermann Goepfert • Dieter Hacker • Hubertus Hamm • Rudolf Kämmer • Imre Kocsis • Camill Leberer • Walter Leblanc • Adolf Luther • Heinz Mack • Christian Megert • Vera Molnár • Sali Muller • Timo Nasseri • Julia Schewalie • Jan Schmidt • Anton Stankowski • Joël Stein • Gerold Tagwerker • Bill Thompson • Timm Ulrichs • Albert Weis • Claudia Wieser • Ludwig Wilding • Peter Vogel

The Other Side of Design

Anton Stankowski and the Next Generation

Duration: May 15 to September 25, 2022

The exhibition was organized as part of the “Year of Science 2022” proclaimed by the City of Ingolstadt and highlighted Ingolstadt as both a museum and a research hub. Design students from the Technical University explored the work of Anton Stankowski, one of the leading figures of Concrete Art, who also had a considerable influence on graphic design.

In collaboration with the Foundation for Concrete Art and Design, the Museum of Concrete Art exhibited not only paintings but primarily Stankowski’s drawings, which revealed a previously little-known aspect of his creative work.

The students adopted this approach by presenting not only finished results but also hidden aspects of the design process: drafts, experiments, and failures. In doing so, the exhibition focused on a side of design and scholarly work that usually remains invisible.

Hanging in the Balance. Art with an Open End

Duration: January 16 to May 1, 2022

The exhibition Hängepartie. Art with an Open End assumed the term “Hängepartie”(deadlock)—originally from adjourned game in chess—as a metaphor for situations of uncertainty. Against the backdrop of the pandemic, which also placed the art and culture scene in a state of waiting, the show explored the creative potential of such liminal states.

The Museum of Concrete Art deliberately reinterpreted the term in a positive light, because: An exhibition is always a “Hängepartie”—a slice of the art world that is hung up and thus brought into view. In keeping with the subtitle Art with an Open End, the MKK presented works from its own collection as well as pieces by invited artists that evoked various associations with tension, uncertainty, and open-ended developments.

Participating artists:
René Acht • Nevin Aladağ • Hartmut Böhm • Monika Brandmeier • Afra Dopfer • Marcel Duchamp / John Cage • Karl Duschek • Knopp Ferro • Ceal Floyer • Franziska Furter • Camille Graeser • Edgar Gutbub • Dieter Hacker • Stef Heidhues • Vanessa Henn • Gregor Hildebrandt • François Morellet • Hannah Rath • Alf Schuler • Jesús Rafael Soto • Timm Ulrichs • Heike Weber • Sebastian Wickeroth • Ludwig Wilding

Space — Light — Time

Inge Dick / Susa Templin

Duration: May 1 to December 5, 2021

With the artists Inge Dick (*1941) and Susa Templin (*1965), the Museum of Concrete Art and the Foundation for Concrete Art and Design explored photography as a Concrete Art medium. Both artists see themselves less as photographers and more as those using photography as an artistic tool. Each occupied a separate floor of the museum and explored the relationship between space, light, and time in diverse ways.

In her work, Inge Dick explores the effect of sunlight on monochromatic surfaces. In photographic and film series, she reveals color changes that occur on a white surface depending on the time of day and season.

Susa Templin develops site-specific installations from photographic images. With her Spatial Abstractions—spaces composed of images of spaces—she responded to the architecture, light, and temporality of the museum. The two exhibitions demonstrated how the medium of photography merges with contemporary Concrete Art.

Bernhard Lang. By Far the Most Beautiful

Duration: February 15 to April 6, 2021

During the museum closures of the pandemic, the Museum of Concrete Art quickly moved exhibitions into public spaces. Under the title Most Beautiful at a Distance, twenty-five large-format displays featuring fifty photographs by aerial photographer Bernhard Lang were presented throughout the city of Ingolstadt.

The images (measuring up to 2 × 2.40 meters) highlighted Lang’s award-winning aerial views: beach umbrellas on the Adriatic, tulip fields in the Netherlands, fish farms in the Mediterranean, or solar farms in the USA. Viewed from the air, the images reveal patterns, grids, and swaths of color that initially evoke works of Concrete Art. At the same time, they reveal the human-made structures of the Earth’s surface.

The title of the exhibition alluded both to the perspective of the aerial photographs and to social distancing rules during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Mind the Gap! Between Familiar and New Spaces

Duration: September 6, 2020, to June 6, 2021

For the exhibition Mind the Gap! Between Familiar and New Spaces, twelve artists were invited to engage intensively with the architecture of the former Donaukaserne and to develop site-specific, large-scale installations.

In the process, the familiar museum spaces took on a fresh look: familiar perspectives were altered, spaces were reimagined, and unusual interactions between the artistic works were created. The exhibition also celebrated the distinctive architecture of the former Danube Barracks on Tränktorstraße and offered a glimpse of the future museum as a place for creativity and innovation.

Participating artists:
Annegret Bleisteiner • Marco Casentini • Jacob Dahlgren • Vanessa Henn • Katharina Hinsberg • Erika Hock • Markus Krug • Karim Noureldin • Jan van der Ploeg • Marleen Sleeuwits • Esther Stocker • Thomas Trum