MUNICH.- Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung presents new exhibition and opens its additional art space BlackBox FirstFloor.

The Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung is showing the exhibition Love, Maybe—Intimacy and Desire in Contemporary Art from 7 February 2025 in the BlackBox and the BlackBox FirstFloor. The title is based on the eponymous poem by African-American writer Audre Lorde from 1970. The exhibition is dedicated to the possibilities and challenges of depicting love in contemporary art. What ideas and prejudices shape our understanding of love and intimacy? Which images are missing from collective memory, especially with regard to empathic forms of togetherness?

The group exhibition shows some 240 photographs, multimedia installations and five large contemporary sculptures using the medium of glass by 24 international artists from 13 different countries. The exhibition is divided into four chapters, whose colorful staging is based on the feeling of closeness and security and which address intimacy, regimes of the gaze and care in the BlackBox as well as queerness in the new BlackBox FirstFloor. The sense of space in the individual chapters is supported by the voices of the artists talking about their works, who visitors can listen to using a QR code for selected works.

The show is complemented by a richly illustrated catalog published by Distanz-Verlag with a foreword by Dr Eva-Maria Fahrner-Tutsek, chairwoman of the board of the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung, an essay by Dr Jana Johanna Haeckel, a text by journalist and writer Minna Salami and a conversation between the artist Paul Mpagi Sepuya and the curator.

BlackBox and BlackBox FirstFloor

For the first time, the exhibition occupies two floors at the Alexander Tutsek-Stiftung: Love, Maybe opens the new 200 square metre BlackBox FirstFloor. With the same award-winning lighting design and contemporary, minimalist elegance as the BlackBox on the ground floor, the exhibition space has doubled to 400 square metres, strengthening the foundation’s reputation as a distinctive, international art venue in the north of Munich.

Podcast

The exhibition Love, Maybe is accompanied by an eponymous four-part podcast. It explores the many facets of love in contemporary art and offers new perspectives on intimacy, desire and care in times of social upheaval. Together with the exhibition’s artists, curator Dr Jana Johanna Haeckel and other guests, the podcast invites to question traditional notions of love.

Artists: Akosua Viktoria Adu-Sanyah, Bianca Baldi, Monica Bonvicini, Christina Bothwell, Oliver Chanarin, Alex Huanfa Cheng, Talia Chetrit, Eli Cortiñas, Matthieu Croizier, Nan Goldin, Ren Hang, Karla Hiraldo Voleau, Libuše Jarcovjáková, Lea Kunz, Karen LaMonte, Gabby Laurent, Silvia Levenson, Liang Xiu, Pixy Liao, Boris Mikhailov, Paul Mpagi Sepuya, Dayanita Singh, Kiki Smith, Alec Soth.

Curator: Dr Jana Johanna Haeckel