KAFKA: 1924

Opening hours: Tuesday to Sunday 11 - 18, first Friday of the month 11 - 22

To mark the 100th anniversary of the death of Franz Kafka (1883-1924) in June 2024, the VILLA STUCK Museum is holding a large-scale exhibition with contemporary artists to highlight the writer's boundless relevance and extraordinary impact. Kafka's work has not only influenced generations of writers worldwide, but has also entered numerous other areas of art and become part of the collective memory.

The exhibition presents positions in 20th and 21st century art that explicitly or implicitly refer to Kafka. Shame and many other themes associated with Kafka's work have indeed outlived the writer and, as „Kafkaesque“, have acquired a universally valid and everlasting independence. Wherever fear, despair, eerie and claustrophobic conditions, bureaucratic narrowness and abuse of power prevail, a mental bridge is often built to Kafka. Many of the artists at the center of the exhibition received important impulses from this.

The presentation is designed thematically and spatially in such a way that the works complement each other. New perspectives are constantly opening up, turning the tour into a space of experience. The exhibition goes beyond the bourgeois reception of Kafka and is aimed at a broad audience. Excerpts from the classic comic „Kafka for Beginners“ by Robert Crumb and David Zane Mairowitz provide an entertaining and informative introduction to the respective subject matter and show different facets of the individual protagonists from Kafka's writings.

Works by the following artists can be seen in the exhibition: Ida Applebroog, Louise Bourgeois, Berlinde De Bruyckere, Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller, David Claerbout, Robert Crumb, Robert Gober, Rodney Graham, Andreas Gursky, Mona Hatoum, Roni Horn, Teresa Hubbard and Alexander Birchler, Tetsuya Ishida, Sebastian Jung, Franz Kafka, Konrad Klapheck, Alfred Kubin, Maria Lassnig, Via Lewandowsky, David Zane Mairowitz, Margot Pilz, Paula Rego, Germaine Richier, David Rych, Anri Sala, Heidrun Sandbichler, Thomas Schutte, Chiharu Shiota, Michael Sommer, Ignacio Uriarte, Maja Vukoje, Jeff Wall, Franz Wanner, Cathy Wilkes.

Organiser: Villa Stuck