Cutting the Puppeteer’s Strings

Artists: Saâdane Afif, Nathalie Djurberg & Hans Berg, Marcel Dzama, Antoni Fałat, Valérie Favre, Hans-Peter Feldmann, FORT, Rochelle Goldberg, Dan Graham, Jos De Gruyter & Harald Thys, Leila Hekmat, Lili Huston-Herterich, Jella Jess, Ruprecht von Kaufmann, Anna K.E., Eva Koťátková, Friedrich Kunath, Lap-See Lam, Rosa Loy, Florian Meisenberg, Laure Prouvost, Hedda Schattanik, Wael Shawky, Mikołaj Sobczak, Andreas Schmitten, Emma Talbot, Kara Walker, Günter Weseler, Dardan Zhegrova, among others.

The Philara Collection is pleased to present Cutting the Puppeteer’s Strings, an extensive group exhibition spanning across 1.700sqm focusing on marionettes and marionette theatre, shadow plays and puppetry, and associated aspects of staging, display and characters in contemporary art - where the traditional craft of puppet theater is currently receiving special attention. The exhibited works pose questions, sometimes in a humorous way, about our possibilities for action at both private and political levels as well as provide approaches for rethinking. At the same time, they shed light on our innermost desires, wishes and feelings. The exhibition brings together works from the Gil Bronner collection, loans and new works created specially for the exhibition, which are complemented by a cooperation with the Marionettentheater in Düsseldorf.

Exhibition curators: Julika Bosch, Hannah Niemeier, Dana M. A. Bulic