iLenbachhausMaxvorstadt / Kunstareal
Shifting the Silence
Inspired by Etel Adnan's last book, 83 works by over 40 international artists probe how visual art can reach beyond the limits of language.
More in Munich
Three dishwasher baskets stand loaded with pots, bowls, plates and cups from several centuries, and Nicole Wermers balanced the lot without glue. Elsewhere lie the German grammar notebooks of Cana Bilir-Meier's mother, a former guest worker, corrections included.
You start with three small, colour-rich paintings by Etel Adnan, whose last book gives the show its title, and she gets a room of her own. After that come 83 works by more than 40 artists, many new to the collection, sometimes up to four to a room, running on into the historic rooms of Lenbach's villa. If you still guess der, die or das at the Bäckerei, those notebooks will look familiar.
It is a quiet show: the Mittelbayerische Zeitung found no loud videos and no din. The Abendzeitung's critic praised Mirga-Tas and Mivekannin but found it overly cerebral in places. Entry is the €10 museum ticket (€6 reduced, free under 18), Thursdays run to 8pm, and the Long Night of Museums on 17 October runs until 1am.
Look for
Nicole Wermers' dishwashing sculptures
Look for three dishwasher baskets stacked with pots, bowls, plates and cups spanning several centuries, held in place by balance alone, with no glue.
Małgorzata Mirga-Tas' Out of Egypt
Bright fabric collages of Romani women cooking over fire and at home with children, reworking racist 17th-century etchings; some hung in Poland's Venice Biennale pavilion.
Cana Bilir-Meier's grammar notebooks
Her mother's German exercise books from her years as a guest worker, with the corrections still on the page.
Roméo Mivekannin's Homme Inconnu
A portrait of an unknown man from about 1830 to 1840, painted over by Mivekannin to take Orientalism apart; the Abendzeitung found it especially striking.
Samia Halaby's Sound Paintings
Computer-generated geometric abstractions from 1986 onwards, shown on monitors rather than canvas.
Good for
- Evening Visits
- Going Solo
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You find concept-heavy contemporary art tiring: the Abendzeitung's critic called parts of it overly cerebral.
With kids
Under-18s get in free, and the museum publishes an introduction to the show in Leichte Sprache (easy German).
Free in the same building
Plan a visit to LenbachhausAlso at Lenbachhaus
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
7
- Shifting the Silence© VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2025
- Collecting with Style: Caroline Murat, Ludwig I and AntiquityCourtesy of State Collections of Antiquities
- LenbachhausBurkhard Mücke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- GlyptothekDaderot, Public domain
- State Collections of AntiquitiesDiego Delso, delso.photo, CC BY-SA 4.0
- Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National SocialismRaimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0
- State Museum of Egyptian ArtFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0