Im Schatten des Surrealismus. HR Giger, Beksiński, Ruppert, Lynch

Preview: written before the show opened

The man who designed the Alien monster hangs here beside a Polish painter he never shared a show with. This is the first time HR Giger's biomechanical pictures, Zdzisław Beksiński's fantastic realism and Sibylle Ruppert's recently rediscovered erotic drawings have been brought together.

You move through chapters marked by quotations from David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Twin Peaks, which the museum uses as signposts through the irrational and the deviant. Giger and Ruppert, born in Switzerland and Germany, face Beksiński, who worked in communist Poland, so two political systems put their nightmares side by side. The museum's own Surreale Welten collection, with Bellmer, Ernst, Kubin and Goya, is in the same building.

Expect dark, often disturbing work rendered with very fine painting technique. It runs 18 December 2026 to 2 May 2027, Wednesday to Sunday 11:00 to 18:00, on the standard €10 ticket, and the building is fully wheelchair accessible.