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Exhibition

Long Story Short An Art History from the Brandhorst Collection from the 1960s to the Present

until
Das Bild zeigt einen großen, aufblasbaren Katzenkopf im Cartoon-Stil mit schwarzen Ohren, weißem Gesicht, großen runden Augen und breitem Lächeln. Der Hintergrund ist ein kräftiges Magenta.

“Long Story Short” tells a story of contemporary art from the 1960s to the present from the holdings of the Brandhorst Collection. Each room is an exhibition in its own right: from Arte Povera to monographic presentations, from formal-aesthetic discourses to socio-political topics. Works that have never been shown before and new acquisitions enter into a dialog with the museum's icons and open up new perspectives on the collection, which now comprises over 2000 works.

Exhibition info

Period

until

Location

Lower level

Curated by

Dr. Monika Bayer-Wermuth with Lena Tilk

Press release

Long Story Short. An Art History from the Brandhorst Collection from the 1960s to the Present

About the exhibition

Since its opening, the museum’s holdings have grown from 800 to over 2,000 works of art, weaving together multiple strands from contemporary and recent art. These works provide both focused and wide-ranging insights into artistic production over the past seventy years, especially in Europe and the United States. Rather than attempting to present a purportedly complete history of this period, the exhibition “Long Story Short” strings together selected movements, aesthetic concerns, and artistic positions from the 1960s to today, creating a sequence of individual art histories.

Eine Person steht vor einem großen, leuchtend blauen Gemälde an einer dunklen Wand in einem Museumsraum.

Art stories

Beyond formal developments and turning points, the exhibition considers how art responds to historical events, social changes, and technological innovations, and how it reflects them in artistic processes. What impact did the postwar economic boom have on artists’ engagement with materials? What did the politicization of society in the 1960s mean for artistic practice? In what ways has digitalization changed the production of art? Each gallery functions as an exhibition in its own right, narrating a specific art-historical moment in the context of its time or focusing on selected groups of works by individual artists. Beginning with the process-oriented material explorations of Arte Povera and the formal reduction of Minimalism, through the conceptual photography of the late 1970s and the intense engagements with body, gender, and identity in the 1980s, and culminating in the groundbreaking painting discourses of the 1990s, the result is a kaleidoscope of art-historical narratives of the recent past. The engagement with digital media and technologies reflects one aspect of artistic production today and forms an open-ended conclusion to the exhibition.

An einer weißen Museumswand hängen fünf gerahmte Zeichnungen in einer Reihe. In der Mitte steht ein weißes Podest mit einer bemalten Vase in einer Glasvitrine.
Ein Museumsraum mit schwarzen Wänden und hellem Holzboden zeigt eine große, aufblasbare schwarze Cartoon-Katze in der linken Ecke. In der Mitte führt eine breite Holztreppe nach oben, während an den Wänden farbige und abstrakte Gemälde hängen; im Vordergrund steht eine weiße Skulptur auf einer schwarzen Plattform.
An einer weißen Wand hängt eine Skulptur aus Zweigen, schwarzem Stoff und einem roten Objekt, kombiniert mit einem roten Neonlicht.
Ein heller Museumsraum zeigt vier abstrakte Formen an einer weißen Wand: zwei blaue, eine rote und eine weiße. Auf dem Boden steht ein silbernes, achteckiges Objekt.
Ein dunkler Museumsraum mit UV-Licht zeigt drei leuchtende abstrakte Gemälde in Orange, Grün und Blau.
Drei Personen betrachten gerahmte Schwarz-Weiß-Fotografien an einer weißen Galeriewand. Die Bilder zeigen städtische Szenen und Architekturdetails.

Long Story Short

For the first time since its opening in 2009, Museum Brandhorst is devoting itself with “Long Story Short” to a chronological presentation of its collection. This show brings together nearly eighty works by more than thirty artists from the Brandhorst Collection, making tangible the diverse forms of expression and aesthetic strategies of art as part of a larger historical fabric. It demonstrates that art does not exist in isolation but is always in exchange with its time—with political, social, and technological developments—reflecting them in a free and manifold way and thus forming an essential part of our society.

In dem Filmstill von der Videoarbeit 'DED' von Martine Syms ist eine computergenerierte Szene zu sehen: Eine Person springt mit ausgebreiteten Armen in einem leeren Raum.
In the Cosmos

Martine Syms: DED

until

Through unflinching imagery, Martine Syms’s filmic work “DED” (2021) explores themes of pain, isolation, the fragility of humanity, as well as self-empowerment and the refusal to remain trapped in suffering. As the most recent addition to the Brandhorst Collection, “DED” is presented for the first time as part of the exhibition “Long Story Short” in the COSMOS of Museum Brandhorst.

Learn more

With works by

Kerstin Brätsch, Victor Burgin, André Cadere, DAS INSTITUT (Kerstin Brätsch und Adele Röder), Walter De Maria, Wade Guyton, Georg Herold, Charline von Heyl, Jacqueline Humphries, KAYA (Kerstin Brätsch und Debo Eilers), Jannis Kounellis, Michael Krebber, Louise Lawler, Mark Leckey, Mario Merz, Marisa Merz, Albert Oehlen, Kayode Ojo, Laura Owens, Palermo, Giulio Paolini, Sondra Perry, Sigmar Polke, Seth Price, Amy Sillman, Frank Stella, Martine Syms, Niele Toroni, Rosemarie Trockel, Richard Tuttle, Cy Twombly, Franz West

Ein Museumsraum mit schwarzer Wand zeigt zwei große, vertikale Bilder mit Nahaufnahmen von menschlicher Haut. In der Mitte der Werke befindet sich eine schmale Türöffnung.
Ein heller Museumsraum zeigt zwei gerahmte Bilder an einer weißen Wand, eines mit einer schwarzen Blume. Durch die offene Tür sieht man eine große schwarze Cartoon-Katze im nächsten Raum.
Ein dunkler Museumsraum zeigt eine große Videoprojektion mit einer Person, die auf einer weiten Fläche kniet. Davor sitzen zwei Personen auf runden blauen Sitzmöbeln.
Links steht ein offener Holzschrank mit einem hängenden rosa Kleidungsstück. Dahinter sieht man einen weiteren Museumsraum mit zwei Gemälden an der Wand.
Ein dunkler Ausstellungsraum zeigt zwei große, helle Videoprojektionen an einer Ecke und ein farbiges Kunstwerk an der Seitenwand.

Galleries curated by

Dr. Monika Bayer-Wermuth, Chief Curator, Museum Brandhorst; Franziska Linhardt, Curator, Museum Brandhorst; Benedikt Seerieder, Curator, Museum Brandhorst; Lena Tilk, Research Associate, Museum Brandhorst; and Sabine Weingartner, Guest Curator; with the assistance of Dr. Katharina Fischer, Team Assistant, Museum Brandhorst.

Sound of the exhibition

Accompanying the exhibition Long Story Short, Julia Weigl and Christoph Gröner from Munich International Film Festival have curated a playlist. It takes visitors on a musical journey through seven decades of film history — from American Graffiti (1973) and Dazed and Confused (1993) to Lost in Translation (2003), Drive (2011), Barbie (2023), and many more.

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Program

To the calendar
Workshop

Workshop Silver Factory | Treasures in Everyday Life – Art Is Everywhere!

Dialogue guidance

Dialogue guidance AFTER WORK | Let’s Talk About Art… Long Story Short

Guided tour

Guided tour Long Story Short | Body, Image, and the Everyday: The 1980s and 1990s

Workshop Kids & Families

Workshop Kids Factory | Treasures in Everyday Life – Art Is Everywhere!

Workshop Kids & Families

Workshop Open Factory | Fluorescent Colors and Music

Workshop

Workshop Silver Factory | Fluorescent Colors and Music

Special

Special After Work at Kunstareal | Munich Expats

Guided tour

Guided tour OVERVIEW | Long Story Short. An Art History from the Brandhorst Collection from the 1960s to the Present

Guided tour

Guided tour Long Story Short. Arte Povera and Minimalism: The 1960s and 1970s

To the calendar

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