MANNHEIM.- How can an ephemeral moment become art when it vanishes almost as soon as it comes into being? This is the central tension explored in DANCE!, a new exhibition opening at the Kunsthalle Mannheim on November 13. Covering more than 150 years, the exhibition explores how visual artists have drawn inspiration from the ever-changing movements of dance, using them as a starting point for new forms of artistic expression.

Conceived by Johan Holten, the Kunsthalle’s former director – who was once a dancer at the Hamburg State Opera– the exhibition explores the dynamic interplay between visual art and choreography. It reveals how artists from the modernist era to the present day have continually reinterpreted the dancing body as an expression of freedom, identity and social change.

At its heart lies a timeless question: how can art capture a moment that disappears even as it unfolds? Bringing together works from different periods and across a range of media, DANCE! is a cross-disciplinary, transhistorical exhibition that invites visitors to discover choreographed movement in art. It features works by artists including Auguste Rodin, Oskar Schlemmer, Alexandra Exter, Isamu Noguchi, Yvonne Rainer, Haegue Yang, Isaac Chong Wai and Tino Sehgal.

Edgar Degas, for example, observed dancers at the Paris Opera as they rehearsed, warmed up and performed on stage. His paintings and sculptures turn ephemeral moments into subjects of art. Building on this legacy, DANCE! traces a trajectory from the international avant-garde to the present day, revealing how artistic approaches to dance have evolved over time. Increasingly, the depiction of the dancing body has given way to an exploration of movement, rhythm and space, as well as the relationship between the body and society.

A particular focus is on the new forms of expression that emerged through modern dance. Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, for instance, drew inspiration from the dancer Gret Palucca. In Oskar Schlemmer’s Triadic Ballet of 1922, stage design, costumes, colour, form, sound and movement merge into a Gesamtkunstwerk – a total work of art – that also reflects the growing mechanisation of everyday life. In the 1960s, the basement of New York’s Judson Memorial Church became a hub for experimentation, bringing dancers and visual artists together in new ways. Choreographers such as Yvonne Rainer, Simone Forti and Trisha Brown collaborated with artists including Robert Morris and Robert Rauschenberg. Dance broke free from traditional stage conventions, moving into everyday life and public spaces.

The exhibition also features works created specifically for DANCE! by international artists. These include new productions by Eva Helene Pade and Rajni Perera, as well as Isaac Chong Wai’s performance installation Songs to Protect Us (2026), which explores the body within systems of power and repression.

Tino Sehgal’s performance This Entry (2023), presented in the Kunsthalle’s atrium, offers a particularly distinctive experience. Dance movements emerge through artistic cycling, violin playing and freestyle football. The boundaries between dance, play and choreography dissolve, as the interplay of these different disciplines gives rise to a work that continually reinvents itself. Following presentations in Japan, South Korea and the United States, This Entry is being shown in Germany for the first time. Within DANCE!, the work brings the exhibition full circle, returning to its central question: how can an art form capture a movement that is, by its very nature, ephemeral?

The exhibition features works by: Emma Amos, Rudolf Belling, Antoine Bourdelle, Trisha Brown, Isaac Chong Wai, Edgar Degas, Noah Eshkol, Alexandra Exter, Jean-Louis Forain, William Forsythe, Simone Forti, Greta Freist, Lise Gujer, Katharina Heise, Camille Henrot, Ferdinand Hodler, Rebecca Horn, Pierre Huyghe, Ernst Ludwig Kirchner, Georg Kolbe, Marie Laurencin, Robert Morris, Gabriel Moses, Vaslav Nijinsky, Isamu Noguchi, Chana Orloff, Eva Helene Pade, Fernand Pelez, Rajni Perera, Robert Rauschenberg, Ludwig Reutterer, Auguste Rodin, Oskar Schlemmer, Lavinia Schulz, Tino Sehgal, Milly Steger, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Haegue Yang

Catalogue

A comprehensive catalogue accompanying the exhibition will be published by Hatje Cantz, edited by Johan Holten, Julia Katharina Thiemann and Dirk Luckow. Featuring numerous illustrations of the artworks, the catalogue also includes texts by a range of contributors. It will be available at the museum shop.