iNeues MuseumMitte
Dioscuri – The Given Day
Artist Michael Müller reworks the myth of the twins Castor and Polydeuces in the staircase hall, a meditation on time and mortality.
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Michael Müller painted each of the 24 canvases only at the hour it stands for, so the 3am section was made at 3am. Together they run about 86 metres around the Neues Museum's staircase hall, six metres high: 20 metres more than at the work's 2022 debut at the Städel.
The story is the Dioscuri. When the mortal Castor died, his immortal twin Polydeuces asked Zeus to take his immortality away, and the pair were allowed to alternate: one day on Olympus, one in Hades. The abstract painting follows that round from bright day down into dark. Two doorways painted into it lead to Hades and Olympus, and two real ones are how you walk on into the galleries. Until the Second World War, 5.5-metre plaster casts of the twins stood on this landing.
The show's page lists only the Neues Museum ticket (€14, concessions €7). Objects from the papyrus, coin and antiquities collections sit alongside, and a companion app shows how the work was made.
Look for
The 24 hours, in order
Look for the light changing as you follow the frieze round the hall, from bright day on Olympus down into the darkness of Hades.
The Hades portal
A doorway to the underworld painted into the frieze, taken from Müller's 2022 Hades series.
The Olympus portal
Its opposite number, a painted doorway that leads, in abstract, up to Mount Olympus.
Good for
- An Hour Or Less
- Locals Who've Seen It All
Skip if
You came for antiquities: the centrepiece is one contemporary abstract painting.
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Image credits
9
- Dioscuri – The Given Day© Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ägyptisches Museum und Papyrussammlung / Rendering: Studio Michael Müller
- Scandal! Hermione von Preuschen and the “Mors Imperator”© Alte Nationalgalerie, Mika Wißkirchen
- InterNationalgalerie 1: National Museum in Warsaw© Piotr Ligier / Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie
- Across Epochs: Gursky, Lucas, Miró, Warhol and the Art of the Long 19th Century© Nationalgalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin
- Neues MuseumFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Alte NationalgalerieManfred Brückels / Wikimedia Commons, Public domain
- PergamonmuseumHerrAdams / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Altes MuseumJean-Pierre Dalbéra / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Bode-MuseumThomas Wolf / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0