Guided Tour
Ivana de Vivanco – What does a snake sound like when it cries? (8. March – 7. June 2026)
Villa Merkel is organising the first solo museum exhibition of the Chilean-Peruvian artist Ivana de Vivanco (*1989 in Lisbon, lives and works in Berlin). In her works, she deals with the post-colonial heritage in Chile and Peru, religious and cultural practices, mythological themes, indigenous ways of knowing, sexuality and patriarchal power structures. She combines painting, video and sculpture with theatrical elements to unite historical research and fiction. The presentation at Villa Merkel focuses on the unique landscape of the Atacama Desert, lithium mining and the local living conditions. To this end, it uses the figure of the snake as a leitmotif, reinterpreting it from mythological, religious and visual-historical tradition and expanding it speculatively.
Anti Heroes - Jakob Collection x Grischa Hyazinth Kaczmarek
Even as a teenager, art collector Lukas Jakob (*1998 in Freiburg im Breisgau, lives and works there) found identification and inspiration for his own world view in the visual arts. In the exhibition, works from his collection relate this personal approach to art to the motif of the antihero. The exhibition thus takes a look at collecting from the perspective of Generation Z.
The presentation of the Bahnwärter scholarship holder Grischa Kaczmarek follows on the same floor in two rooms. He is also connected to the Jakob Collection through his exploration of post-heroic masculinity, queer identity and popular culture.
Artists: Grischa Hyazinth Kaczmarek, Joschua Yesni Arnaut, Fabio Baroli, Miriam Cahn, Boris De Beijer, Neckar Doll, Natacha Donzé, Marina Faust, Evgenij Gottfried, Jasmine Gregory, Katharina Grosse, Constantin Hartenstein, Roni Horn, Rindon Johnson, Aneta Kajzer, Julian-Jakob Kneer, Schirin Kretschmann, Erica Lambertson, Thomas Liu Le Lann, Annette Merkenthaler, Lucas Muñoz Muñoz, Michael Sailstorfer, Tobias Spichtig, Gabriella Torres-Ferrer, Raphaela Vogel, Jaime Welsh, Karla Zipfel.
