When the European Fluxus group disbanded in 1964 after two eventful years, Tomas Schmit (1943-2006), who had participated in the group's actions as a performer, gradually withdrew from performing. From 1966 he devoted himself primarily to writing and drawing. But the idea of the stage as a place where an action is performed in front of and with an audience did not disappear from his art. From then on, Schmit staged "the performance of drawing" on paper. The close interlocking of performance and drawing practice that characterizes Schmit's entire oeuvre will be brought into focus for the first time in the exhibition of the Kupferstichkabinett, which will take place in the fall of 2021, and in the accompanying catalog. At the same time, the project reflects the manifold spectrum of Schmit's nearly 40 years of comprehensive drawing and language art.

The history of monochrome painting goes back more than a century. Since Kazimir Malevich revolutionized the art world in 1915 with his "Black Square," which was based on a single colour surface, this artistic form of expression has taken many different paths and never lost its fascination. The distinctive works of Norwegian painter Thomas Pihl join this tradition: they do not tell a story about a motif, but nevertheless, occupy the physical and mental spaces that surround them. They invite the viewer to interact, provoke thought, and give rise to discussion. In his works, Pihl applies the colours to the canvas in many layers, allowing a view of the traces of the working process. The resulting visual world, which in its play of light and colour shows us the nature of perception, is now summarized for the first time in a comprehensive publication.