My Dear Swan: New Exhibition of the Collection

What is the new collection exhibition at the Sprengel Museum Hannover about?

“My dear swan!”—an exclamation of surprise, wonder, and admiration. Under this title, the Sprengel Museum Hannover presents its collection in newly designed galleries: some 400 works, ranging from Classical Modernism to the present day, are on display in a more comprehensive presentation than has been seen in the past ten years.

As part of the exhibition, works long hidden away in storage are being shown for the first time, while key highlights of the museum’s collection are being presented in a new light. Rarely seen exhibits offer fresh perspectives and reveal the diversity and depth of the collection. Here, works from the 20th and 21st centuries come together: Max Beckmann and Käthe Kollwitz, Max Ernst and Pablo Picasso, Isa Genzken and Georg Baselitz, Bruce Nauman and Boris Mikhailov, Laure Prouvost and Michel Majerus—in numerous, sometimes unusual constellations, new perspectives on modern and contemporary art emerge. A separate room is dedicated to Niki de Saint Phalle.

Curated by Inka Schube, with assistance from Katharina Herrmann

What does the title “My Dear Swan” mean?

The title references a work by the Hannoversche artist Christiane Möbus and evokes curiosity, wonder, and appreciation. “Mein lieber Schwan” builds on the exhibition “Adventure Abstraction,” which has been on view in the museum’s basement since 2023, offering insights into the development of abstraction in 20th- and 21st-century art.