The Ernst Barlach House in Hamburg is one of those special places where art is not only viewed but experienced. Founded by Hermann F. Reemtsma, the museum continues to follow his programmatic idea of "art that concerns me": exhibitions should move, provoke, inspire—and constantly reopen the dialogue between past and present. In concentrated exhibitions, the museum focuses on 20th-century artists as well as contemporary positions, setting unusual accents and often discovering names whose significance has been underappreciated until now. Each exhibition is created in close interaction with the Barlach Collection, eliciting new facets from it in carefully staged parcours. Praise of the Shadow invites visitors on a journey into intermediate worlds – where art, theater, and memory open up new spaces in a fascinating interplay of light and darkness.
From February 22 to June 7, 2026, the Ernst Barlach Haus will present an impressive exhibition by renowned artist Ulla von Brandenburg entitled Lob des Schattens (In Praise of Shadows). Her works are known for their extraordinary theatrical power: using painting, sculpture, textiles, film, and performance, she transforms museum spaces into stages of poetic realities in which memory, ritual, and mystery merge.
Ulla von Brandenburg: Kakémono V, 2024–2025, courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris; Galerie Meyer Riegger, Berlin/Karlsruhe; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London; Produzentengalerie Hamburg © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026; photo: substancemat
The starting point for the exhibition is Brandenburg's intensive stay in Kyoto, where she explored Japanese culture and aesthetics during a scholarship at Villa Kujoyama. She is particularly fascinated by the traditions of figure and puppet theater, festival culture and its rituals, textile dyeing techniques, and the world of yōkai—those dazzling spirits and demons that oscillate between friendliness and menace. Japanese architecture, with its transitions, thresholds, and interstitial spaces, also becomes a resonance chamber for her artistic research.
The exhibition title refers to Jun'ichirō Tanizaki's famous essay In Praise of Shadows (1933), which celebrates twilight and the beauty of the unspoken. This aesthetic connects in many ways with Brandenburg's work, for example with her film Un bal sous l'eau (2023), which takes up elements of shadow theater and is now being presented in Hamburg together with numerous works created in Japan.
A special highlight is the opening with the shadow play Wir werden wieder Raum haben und nicht bloß Fläche (We will have space again and not just surface), a quote from Ernst Barlach that also builds a bridge to the Expressionist master: Barlach was also a theater person, an artist of the ambiguous and the supernatural. The exhibition is complemented by a film version of the performance and the free magazine 11, which continues Brandenburg's publication series.
February 22 to June 7, 2026
www.barlach-haus.de
Ulla von Brandenburg: Un bal sous l’eau (An Underwater Ball), 2023 (still), courtesy of the artist and Art : Concept, Paris; Galerie Meyer Riegger, Berlin/Karlsruhe; Pilar Corrias Gallery, London; Produzentengalerie Hamburg © VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn 2026
