The exhibition at Museum Schloss Moyland runs from 13 July to 26 October 2025 and shows works by Marina Abramović in dialogue with the work of Joseph Beuys.
Image above: Marina Abramović 7 Easy Pieces, Performing Joseph Beuys, How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Hare (1965), Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, 2005 Foto: Attilio Maranzano, Courtesy of the Marina Abramović Archives
For the first time, the artist Marina Abramović and the Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) are entering into a direct artistic dialogue with the work of Joseph Beuys, an important representative of action art. It is also the first project in which the MAI and the participating artists have engaged with the holdings of a collecting institution over an extended period of time.
Back in 2005, Abramović presented a reinterpretation of Beuys’ performance “Wie man dem toten Hasen die Bilder erklärt” at the Guggenheim Museum in New York. The exhibition, which opens at Museum Schloss Moyland on 13 July 2025, shows the documentation of both performances in the context of sculptures, archive materials and drawings by Beuys from the collection.
In March 2025, a group of thirteen international performance artists took part in an interdisciplinary residency programme to explore Beuys’ artistic working methods and develop new site-specific performances for Museum Schloss Moyland.
During the exhibition period, these performances will be shown in the castle and the museum park.
The exhibition expands the thematic framework of the exploration of the artistic positions of Beuys and Abramović and establishes connections between performance, action art and archival research.
Marina Abramović meets Joseph Beuys – an artistic connection across generations
A central focus of the exhibition is on Joseph Beuys’ 1965 performance “How to Explain Pictures to a Dead Rabbit” and its re-performance by Marina Abramović. Beuys performed this action for the first time in Düsseldorf: Covered in honey and gold leaf, he moved the animal with his hands and teeth through the space of Galerie Schmela. Forty years later, Marina Abramović placed Beuys‘ work in a different context: in her performance series “7 Easy Pieces” (2005) at the Guggenheim Museum in New York, she reconstructed works of performance art – including Beuys’. The exhibition juxtaposes the two productions for the first time. While Beuys, as an artist from the German war generation, ‘explained’ the pictures to the hare, this action is now taken up by an artist of the post-war generation from the former Yugoslavia. The presentation makes it possible to view the symbolic meaning of the dead hare from two different perspectives in the museum’s newly opened exhibition hall.
A new generation of international performance artists
The interdisciplinary residency programme brings together thirteen performance artists from different regions to explore the work of Beuys and Abramović. The Marina Abramović Institute (MAI) is realising a residency at Museum Schloss Moyland for the first time, in the context of which new performances have been developed. Inspired by Beuys’ works, the collection and the archives, the artists have conceived works that are specially adapted to Museum Schloss Moyland and the surrounding park area. The performances take place daily during opening hours – eight hours a day, ten hours every third Thursday of the month.
Using different perspectives, cultural backgrounds and performative approaches, the participants will explore Beuys’ way of thinking and transfer key impulses into a contemporary context. This results in performances that incorporate the museum’s collection in new ways and enable direct interaction between art, location, space and audience.
With performances by:
Isaac Chong Wai (Hong Kong/Germany), Cristiana Cott Negoescu (Romania/Germany), Maria Stamenković Herranz (Spain/France), Sandra Johnston (Ireland), Rubiane Maia (Brazil/UK), Francesco Marzano (Italy/Germany), Virginia Mastrogiannaki (Greece), Michelle Samba (Friesland, Netherlands/Gabon), Luisa Sancho-Escanero (Spain/Germany), Evan Macrae Williams (Canada/Germany), Yan Jun Chin (Malaysia/Germany), Martin Toloku (Ghana/Netherlands) and Eşref Yıldırım (Turkey)
WHEN?
Opening: Sunday, 13 July 2025, at 2 p.m.
Exhibition dates: Sunday, 13 July – Sunday, 26 October 2025
WHERE?
Museum Schloss Moyland
Am Schloss, 4
47551 Bedburg-Hau
