Five Friends. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly

Press preview: 8 April 2025, 11 a.m.
Opening: 9 April 2025, 7 p.m.
Duration: 10 April 2025 until 17 August 2025

You are warmly invited to a press preview on Tuesday, April 8, 2025 at 11 a.m.

Please obtain accreditation by no later than 11 a.m. on April 7, 2025 at presse@museum-brandhorst.de.

Program
Introduction | Achim Hochdörfer, Director, Museum Brandhorst
Introduction | Yilmaz Dziewior, Director, Museum Ludwig

Following the introductions
Opportunity for questions to the curators
Guided exhibition tour
Opportunity for film and photo recordings in the exhibition

With the exhibition “Five Friends. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly,” Museum Brandhorst is showing a circle of artists who had a decisive influence on music, dance and art in the post-war period. In an intensive exchange, Cage, Cunningham, Johns, Rauschenberg and Twombly created unique connections between the artistic genres and media. With over 180 works of art as well as scores, stage props, costumes, photographs and archival material, the exhibition provides an insight into the interaction between the five artist friends.

“All of us worked totally committed, shared every intense emotion and I think performed miracles, for love only.” Robert Rauschenberg

They decisively shaped the art of the 20th century: the musician and theorist John Cage (1912–1992), the choreographer and dancer Merce Cunningham (1919–2009) and the painters and sculptors Jasper Johns (*1930), Robert Rauschenberg (1925–2008) and Cy Twombly (1928–2011). But this is not all that connects the five artists; they also shared unique friendships that were characterized by artistic collaborations, intensive debates, intimate love affairs and painful separations. Their similar interests formed the basis for this connection. All five artists were in search of new forms of expression and were concerned with similar themes: with silence and chance, with technology and progress, with tradition and radical innovation.

In the 1940s and 1950s, the five friends got to know each other in various constellations and formed a creative and intimate network in which theme, ideas and inspirations circulated. This is where the exhibition begins: At the legendary Black Mountain College, Cage and Cunningham developed their concept of stillness and chance in direct exchange with the younger artists Rauschenberg and Twombly; after an extended trip to Italy and North Africa, the latter couple developed their “signature style”: Rauschenberg his Combines—a mixture of paintings and sculptures into which he also integrated drawings and photographs—and Twombly his allusive strokes reminiscent of graffiti. Jasper Johns joined the circle of artists in 1954 and created his own pictorial concept with his flags and targets. In the course of their international breakthrough in the late 1950s and early 1960s, the five friends became pioneers of Happening, Fluxus, Pop Art and Minimal Art.

The collaborative spirit of the artists found its clearest expression in the dance performances of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company (MCDC). The central room on the lower level of Museum Brandhorst is therefore decorated entirely in black. While Cage was the musical director of the MCDC, Rauschenberg and Johns designed many of the costumes and stage sets. Highlights of these collaborations can be discovered in the exhibition.

The political context of the Cold War permeated the artists’ works. Rauschenberg cultivated an almost obsessive approach to American (power) symbols; Johns’ most famous works are appropriations of the American flag and targets that refer to US state policy and the military; and Twombly’s supposedly enraptured references to antiquity in the paintings of the 1960s often refer to specific political and historical events such as the assassination of John F. Kennedy or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Twombly and Rauschenberg in particular reacted to the evolution of space travel in their artistic work. Rauschenberg’s project “Stoned Moon” (1969-1970) was even commissioned by NASA. In 1968, Twombly created the painting “Orion III,” which alludes to a NASA rocket system that was to be powered by nuclear energy.

The Cold War between the USA and the USSR, which came to a head in the late 1940s, was also waged on an ideological level. The politician Joseph McCarthy unleashed a veritable witch-hunt on alleged communists and queer people. Rauschenberg’s romantic relationships with Twombly and Johns, as well as that between Cage and Cunningham, must also be seen against this historical background. Communication about queer desire was only possible through hidden hints and codes. The five friends repeatedly refer to this game of concealment and revelation in their works. Jasper Johns’ Targets can thus also be read as a commentary on the targeting of queer people.

Silence, emptiness and absence are at the heart of many of the five friends’ works. They invite us to focus our attention on sounds, objects and movements that are not immediately perceptible, not predictable and also not controllable: random events in the room, footsteps, a clearing of the throat, the light of the sun or the patterns of shadows on the wall, the structure of a primed canvas. The art created by the five friends encourages us to pause and be mindful. By no means do they withdraw into an ivory tower. Their concept of silence is not a place of retreat, but of openness. In view of current political developments such as the growing popularity of authoritarian forms of government and the sheer endless stream of images and news, the five friends’ art seems highly topical. It is a journey through time to the roots of contemporary issues: the fear of war, dealing with social repression and the confrontation with mass media and technological revolutions.

The exhibition spans three decades—a period in which the interweaving of art, friendship, competition and affection became a decisive impulse in the work of the five artists. Many of the works—especially in the 1950s—were created side by side and in direct interaction. In this exhibition, they can be experienced for the first time in their original production context: iconic key works as well as works that have rarely or never been shown before.

The extensive exhibition has only been possible thanks to the close cooperation between Museum Brandhorst and Museum Ludwig: while Museum Brandhorst houses the most extensive European collection of works by Cy Twombly, no other museum in Europe has as many major works by Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg as the Ludwig Museum in Cologne.

Curated by

Achim Hochdörfer, Yilmaz Dziewior with Arthur Fink and Anna Huber

Exhibition design

Florian Pumhösl and Walter Kräutler

An exhibition by Museum Brandhorst in cooperation with Museum Ludwig, Cologne

Opening on April 9, 2025 
On the opening evening, the multidisciplinary artist Jean-Biche will perform a DJ set and set the musical mood for the exhibition and for the time the “Five Friends” spent together. Jean-Biche is resident DJ at Le Georges in Paris, plays on the rooftops of the Centre Pompidou, hosts a show on Kiosk Radio and runs the cabaret Bas Nylon.

Festival Five Friends: Music, Dance & Performance in the Roses Gallery 
The exhibition will be accompanied by the “Five Friends Festival” with dance performances, concerts and a reading in Cy Twombly's Roses Gallery, which will focus on the works of Merce Cunningham and John Cage.

In cooperation with⁠
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra
Gärtnerplatztheater ⁠
Residenztheater
Sabine Liebner⁠
Filmfest München
All dates can be found in our calendar on the website.

Catalog 
The exhibition is accompanied by an extensive catalog that examines the diverse exchange of ideas between the five friends. In their contributions, Ilka Becker, Daniel Callahan, Yilmaz Dziewior, Achim Hochdörfer, Helen Hsu, Alex Kitnick, Nick Mauss, Carrie Jaurès Noland, Kenneth E. Silver, Deborah Solomon and Trajal Harrell question and expand the hitherto mostly monographic view of the five artists.
German edition: ISBN 978-3-8296-1042-1
English edition: ISBN 978-3-8296-1043-8

Young Night x Kunstarealfest on June 27, 2025 
To mark the opening of the Kunstarealfest, Museum Brandhorst’s Young Night will take place on June 27, 2025 in cooperation with FILMFEST MÜNCHEN – CineYou and the Blitz Club. The museum will open the exhibition rooms, offering free admission to “Five Friends. John Cage, Merce Cunningham, Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Cy Twombly,” and will enliven the area between Museum Brandhorst and Pinakothek der Moderne with open-air concerts, sound installations, workshops, food trucks and drinks stands. The joint party will once again be accompanied by visuals from FILMFEST MÜNCHEN.

Education program 
“Five Friends” workshops 
Creative workshops in the Factory | outdoors in good weather
Silver Factory and Jugendclub
Alternating Thursdays | 5.30 – 7.30 p.m. | 14 years old and above
Kids Factory
Saturday | 2 – 4 p.m. | for kids and families
Open Factory
Sunday |1 – 4 p.m. | for everyone

“Five Friends” guided tours 
Saturday | 3 p.m. | 4.30 p.m. (English)
Thursday | Art information |5.45 – 7.45 p.m. | Dialog in the exhibition
After Work Talks | 08.05. | 05.06. | 10.07. | 31.07. | 6 p.m.
Inclusive tactile tours | 24.04. | 22.05. | 17.07. | 14.08. | 6 p.m.
Family tours | Every second Saturday | 2.30 p.m.

We look forward to your coverage.
#MuseumBrandhorst