Emilio Vedova – More than Movement for Its Own Sake Touring solo exhibition

With this exhibition, the Kunsthaus Dahlem in Berlin, the Museum Lothar Fischer, and the Emil Schumacher Museum in Hagen are dedicating a show to the Venetian artist Emilio Vedova (1919–2006) that focuses on his time in Berlin. On display are 30 works from the years 1963 to 1965, an important phase in the painter's career in which he broke new artistic ground. In November 1963, he moved to Berlin for eighteen months on a scholarship from the US Ford Foundation and worked in the former state studio of the sculptor Arno Breker, now the Kunsthaus Dahlem. He consciously took a critical look at the Nazi era and the country's recent history, creating works of great artistic and socio-critical relevance. These include his well-known Plurimi, movable picture panels with which he opens up painting into space. These multi-viewable spatial sculptures, with their dynamism, mutability, and expressiveness, are based not only on a “theory of movement,” but also on an examination of the political tensions of the “island city,” as he called Berlin. A key work is his Absurdes Berliner Tagebuch '64 (Absurd Berlin Diary '64), which was presented as a seven-part installation at documenta III in Kassel and which the artist bequeathed as a gift to the Berlinische Galerie in 2002. Instead of this frequently exhibited complex of works, the exhibition series focuses on the less frequently shown works of those years. In addition to the Plurimi and selected models with which the artist formally prepared them, collages and works on paper are also on display. The latter demonstrate how Vedova traced the former Berlin artists, both Expressionists and Dadaists.

Entitled “More than movement for its own sake,” the exhibition takes up a quote from the artist: “My work is anything but a gimmick, movement for its own sake, quite the contrary...” and thus refers to his central concern of understanding movement not as an end in itself, but as an expression of social, political, and human experiences. The exhibition is a passionate plea for freedom, critical thinking, and artistic independence—themes that are more relevant today than ever.

The exhibition is touring the Kunsthaus Dahlem, Berlin (21 November 2025 – 8 March 2026), the Museum Lothar Fischer (22 March – 14 June 2026), and the Emil Schumacher Museum, Hagen.