In this exhibition, Katharina Sieverding engages in a dialogue with her former professor, Joseph Beuys. The exhibition focuses on Sieverding’s time at the Düsseldorf Art Academy. She examines aspects of Beuys’s teaching, such as participatory processes, and values such as freedom, equality and democracy. This is exemplified, among other things, by the 233-part photographic work Eigenbewegung from 1969, which the artist has reimagined as a film for the exhibition. Eigenbewegung features many protagonists of those years, including Joseph Beuys, Johannes Stüttgen, Imi Knoebel, Blinky Palermo, Chris Reinecke and Jörg Immendorff. 

Before her time at the Academy of Fine Arts, Sieverding designed costumes and stage sets as a student of Teo Otto and as a collaborator with, among others, Fritz Kortner at the Burgtheater in Vienna, placing them within scenic and thematic contexts. A selection of these drawings is on display in an exhibition for the first time. A dedicated exhibition area focuses on the media and fashion-based self-presentation of the two artists. Through minimalist, symbolically charged sartorial choices, Beuys and Sieverding created a striking visual identity with high recognition value. 

The aim of this comparison is to examine the political and social themes addressed by both artists and to explore the extent to which they utilise their public image to convey these themes whilst simultaneously achieving iconic status as artists. 

Curated by Alexander Grönert, Antje-Britt Mählmann, Orson Sieverding, Pola Sieverding & Diana Weis 

EXHIBITION OPENING
You are warmly invited to the exhibition opening on Sunday, 11 October 2026. Admission is free!