Museum BrandhorstKunstareal, Maxvorstadt
Carrying
This exhibition has ended.
A thematic show exploring ideas of burden, transport and support in contemporary art.
Museum websiteMore in Munich
In Cana Bilir-Meier's video Ein neues Wort, a Munich choir made up mostly of Turkish labour migrants rehearses a rewritten "Die Eisenbahn". The children's song is about taking Teddy on holiday. This version "finally wants to go to Germany", carrying words like "Gastkumpel" (guest buddy) from the 32,000 entries WDR received in 1970 when it asked for a new word for "Gastarbeiter".
The museum stands where the Türkenkaserne barracks used to be, named after Ottoman prisoners of war brought to Bavaria for forced labour in the late 1600s. Seven women artists work with that history upstairs, downstairs and outside. You walk out onto the grass by Türkenstraße to find a line of white bricks, and into the old Türkentor gate to find a disco ball hanging just above the floor.
Artline's Jürgen Moises called it inspiring and instructive, though you lose the thread a little moving between sites. Pick up the free booklet. It's the normal €7 ticket (€1 on Sundays), and Thursdays run until 8pm.
Look for
Ein neues Wort, in the Cosmos
Look for the choir rehearsing its rewritten railway song, with the 1970 replacement words for "Gastarbeiter" printed in bold in the lyrics.
Louise Lawler in the Türkentor
Beside Walter De Maria's Large Red Sphere, her disco ball Crazy hangs just off the floor, its light meant to recall footage of remote air strikes in the 1990/91 Iraq war.
No Drones (adjusted to fit)
In the same gate, Lawler's photograph of Gerhard Richter's 1964 fighter-plane painting Mustang-Staffel is stuck to the wall as vinyl film.
Kate Newby's 1,000 white bricks
Outside on the grass by Türkenstraße, they run in two lines like gutters, a nod to the Türkengraben canal that was never finished.
Hêlîn Alas's Ottoman soldier
Look for the soldier "type figure" pieced together from found fragments, standing in the museum's entrance area.
Good for
- Cheap Culture
- Evening Visits
- Locals Who've Seen It All
- Nerding Out
Skip if
You want one gallery to walk through: the works are scattered indoors, on the lawn and in the Türkentor.
With kids
Under-18s get in free, and the Open Factory runs drop-in art workshops on Sundays from 1 to 4pm.
Also at Museum Brandhorst
On now nearby
Nearby
Image credits
8
- Between and Beyond: Interspaces and Transitions in Art since 1960Foto: Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Sibylle Forster © Estate of Dan Flavin / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
- Klarenbeek & Dros: Design of the UnusualPhoto: Klarenbeek & Dros
- Robotic WorldsCourtesy of Pinakothek der Moderne
- Museum BrandhorstMartin Falbisoner, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Pinakothek der ModerneRufus46, CC BY-SA 3.0
- Alte PinakothekChronox-A / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0
- State Museum of Egyptian ArtFred Romero / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0
- Munich Documentation Centre for the History of National SocialismRaimond Spekking, CC BY-SA 4.0