Be creative

Artist Kerstin Brätsch sticks American coins in the shape of a large X onto the colored clouds, which comprise pigment, acrylic and oil on paper. They represent a real value. The fact that the paper is actually unsuitable to support the heavy coins and that coins keep falling off is of no concern to Brätsch, however. She likes the fact that her paintings thus become “wishing wells”—as if you could seal your happiness with a few cents.

The museum building with its long, two-story rectangular structure and multicolored facade of 36,000 vertical ceramic rods was designed by Sauerbruch Hutton Architects and is located in the Kunstareal in Munich's Maxvorstadt district. 23 different colors can be counted and assigned to three color families: pastel shades, bright colors and darker nuances. The rainbow-like color scheme was inspired by the colors of the existing facades in Maxvorstadt.

In layers, Cy Twombly has applied oil paint, wax crayon, and handwritten text to this three-piece wooden support. Four dark purple shapes, reminiscent of floating boats, come to the fore. But there is no horizon or clearly defined landscape. Rather, the image consists of overlapping strokes, drops, and lines.

“Faux Shop” is a sculptural installation and at the same time a shop window for a fashion collection. The shop window mimics a women's clothing store. Lucy McKenzie painted the marbled parts of the installation herself in an illusionistic manner. Like moving ghosts, the clothes were either pinned to the walls, placed in the display, or suspended dynamically from wires. The clothes are from Atelier E.B, a collaborative fashion label and research studio that Lucy McKenzie runs with designer Beca Lipscombe.

The work on paper is composed of several layers of images: the print based on a portrait photo, a transparency, colored paper and tape. Andy Warhol assembles the portrait of an unknown person using a so-called collage technique. The figure looks at us with captivating eyes in a strong pose.

The title of this large diptych by Andy Warhol, almost 4 x 3 m in size, refers on the one hand to the photographs used and on the other hand to the color of the two canvases. Densely printed motifs of violence stand next to a mustard-yellow void. Here, as in many of his works, Andy Warhol combined the techniques of painting and silkscreen.

The photograph is part of the series “Recollections in America” by the US- American artist David LaChapelle. In this photo, a lively party seems to be in progress. But the celebration gets out of hand: a child is given the coffee liquor Kahlua in a flask. A gun and a grenade are lying on the dresser. Is the photo staged or did the photographer take a snapshot of a bizarre party?

Andy Warhol’s first silkscreens, made in early 1962, took the front and back sides of one- and two-dollar bills as their motif. In this version, the artist prints the front of a one-dollar bill he drew himself onto the canvas. He colors the background green with diluted watercolor, and stains the main motif with blood-red paint.

The “Lepanto” cycle is one of Cy Twombly’s major works and consists of twelve paintings that are exhibited permanently in a separate room at Museum Brandhorst. Vibrant hues in a broad palette of yellows, reds, turquoise and aquamarine define the drama of the monumental paintings. The action on the canvases intensifies, all the artist’s painting tools and painterly gestures are used expressively.

Four boxes, nails, cardboard written in felt-tip pen, white plaster dried mid-flow and a mystical-sounding title. The lower part of the sculpture is made of wood, while three round steps resting on it, somewhat reminiscent of a cake, are made of cardboard. The object is about a meter high and cast with a mixture of plaster, which in turn resembles a kind of glaze.

Amy Sillman’s painting “Fatso” shows in a cartoon-like style, in bright green, the massive, shapeless body of a grim looking figure. We can't tell if the figure is male or female.

Dripping, flowing color, energetic yellow-orange-red squiggles combined with delicate, spidery handwriting. Four large-scale roses in bloom fill the wooden panels. Only on closer inspection do we notice the many details, especially the poems written by the artist on the canvases. The are part of a series of paintings that Cy Twombly dedicates to the rose.

Jacqueline Humphries’ Black Light Paintings shy away from brightness. They need the darkness and create the light themselves. Fluorescent paints are applied with a spray gun, which squirts the paint in large quantities onto the canvas. The more fluorescent paint Jacqueline Humphries and her assistant applied to the canvas, the brighter it became in the studio.

Each of the photographed boxes is covered with a Plexiglas sleeve, protecting it from possible exposure. Louise Lawler’s photograph of packaging is applied as wallpaper in the museum, matching the proportions of the particular wall on which it is seen. The resulting distortion of the image draws the focus not only to the contents, but also to the space. The photograph thus shows what we usually disregard when looking at pictures: the wall and hence the frame in which art is presented.

The photo of the singer Elvis Presley in the role of a gangster is the basis for this work. Andy Warhol repeated the same motif three times on a silver canvas. This repetition was made possible by the silkscreen technique, in which Andy Warhol saw many advantages for his artistic work. The pale figure of Elvis stands out against the metallic background as if in an old film or fog.

Four headless mannequins are lined up in a row, one behind the other. Artist Alexandra Bircken has sewn parts of used motorcycle clothing directly onto the plastic bodies with filler cotton and silk tights. The abrasion from accidents on the motorcycle clothing, as well as the hand stitching, act like scars on sculptures. Reuse of already used materials occurs frequently in Alexandra’s works.

Mark Leckey's large installation offers an unusual look at the history of technology. Here, objects from different times and contexts intersect. What's the first thing that strikes you?

Arthur Jafa points the camera directly at his mirror image. He stares at us with his penetrating gaze. The artist developed the photo at human scale, thus confronting the self-portrait even more directly with the person viewing it. What is notable for his photography is his work on developing sensitive techniques for representing black and dark tones on film. Throughout the image, black and white flow into one another.

Wade Guyton took a screenshot, edited it digitally, and then had it printed on his inkjet printer: on a white primed canvas. Sometimes the ink nozzles got clogged, streaks and drops appeared, smudged, and in the end the printer pushed the wet canvas across the floor of the studio.

Alex Katz paints his wife Ada in a fashion classic—the black cocktail dress. Like a photo shoot, she is shown in six different poses and from changing perspectives; only the dress remains the same. The painted image looks flat, as if the artist wants to put the surfaces in the foreground. He succeeds in this with his recognizable painting style, where there is not one brushstroke too many.

Numerous objects are arranged around three metal scaffolding poles: kettle grill, beer cans, burger buns, American flag, chips and a Marlboro garbage can, plus some insignia of rural America, such as horse saddles and blankets. But the scaffolding poles that frame everything create an unsettling, even aggressive mood and seem to prevent any free movement.

The work “Fresh Aufhebung” consists of 170 canvases, which always have the same format of 50 by 40 centimeters. The paintings were created over the course of a year, with the artist Jutta Koether never painting more than one picture from the series per day. In the museum, the canvases, painted with black acrylic paint, are hung close together on the walls of a room. On display are pale streaks, compositions of dots and circular shapes, or somber swirls.

The dryness of the dark gray picture looks like a slate, its size resembles that of a school blackboard. On it are irregular white lines and light-gray splashes of color. The lines in “Untitled (New York City)” run directly from the left to the right edge of the picture. Each single stroke registers that the artist has walked along the canvas, and how. We can see when he slows down, when the pressure of the chalk eases or intensifies, how short interruptions during the stride create kinks and loops, and how the lines approach each other, touch, and diverge again.

The untitled diptych by Laura Owens in the Brandhorst collection is based on layouts from the “Los Angeles Times” from 1942. Sometimes impasto brushstrokes overlay the texts and delicate drawings. The shadows of some brushstrokes are printed, newspaper articles and pictures have been edited and partly replaced by information of a more recent date.

In the more than eight-meter-long mirrored shelf, 27,639 tablets are lined up, placed carefully next to each other in precisely defined positions. If you take a closer look at the pills, you can’t help but risk a glance in the mirror yourself: Do we also believe that we can treat every illness and every ailment with a suitable pill?

A painted mannequin is at the center of this picture. She is placed in an interior full of specially-designed objects. Marble, wooden and silky materials. A book about the dramatic staging of fashion. And a map of Glasgow, Lucy McKenzie’s birthplace, which is hung as wallpaper.

For his “Subway Drawings,” Keith Haring used empty advertising spaces, on whose dark background he drew the outlines of his main motifs in one go with white chalk. On the right side of the image are the outlines of two human figures in comic pose and a frieze of crawling babies. Next to the drawing is the poster that was originally pasted beside it: a promotional poster for a 3-D movie entitled “The Man Who Wasn’t There.”

Almost life-size, the artist Cady Noland transfers a photo of a young woman onto an aluminum display by means of silkscreen. Holding a machine gun in her hands, the figure stands in our way. The photo comes from a newspaper, the caption becomes a pedestal.

This room represents an exact replica of the Buchholz & Buchholz Gallery, where Wolfgang Tillmans exhibited his photographs in 1993. Here the artist tested a form of presentation in which photographs, photocopies, and reproductions of magazine pages stand side by side on an equal footing and are distributed throughout the room.

In this work, Cy Twombly’s “doodles” with chalk, crayon, and pencil almost look like writing. We even believe we can read individual letters and words from the lines—for example the names Cy and Nini. But the curved lines do not reveal any message.

Jean-Michel Basquiat combined symbols, words, letters and drawings in his picture. The painting is untitled, but because of the unique mixture of recognizable signs and traces you can read much from it as a viewer. With oil paint and oil pastels, the artist painted restlessly diverse references ranging from European cultural history to African-American counterculture.

Seth Price goes toe-to-toe with privacy: the artist uses linen and printed cotton lining, which he sews together to make envelopes. The 1.22 x 2.43 m “soft sculpture” is torn open. In fact, it is so soft that it can be folded like a garment and displayed again and again in a new form.