Strangers and Freedom at BLMK Cottbus: Mona Höke and Kathrin Karras in Dialogue with Pückler
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Strangers and Freedom as a Sensory Art Experience at BLMK Cottbus
At the Brandenburg State Museum for Modern Art in the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus, the exhibition series Strangers and Freedom unfolds, bringing together painting, photography, and digital image production in a multifaceted dialogue. Mona Höke and Kathrin Karras confront the works of Prince Hermann von Pückler-Muskau and open a space for work contemplation, aesthetic experience, and art historical reflection. The exhibition runs in the summer of 2026 and shows how contemporary art can newly question a historical cosmopolitan. ([cottbus.de](https://cottbus.de/cb-events-test/strangers-and-freedom-pueckler-dialogue-about-a-cosmopolitan-mona-hoeke-and-kathrin-karras-8/))
Between Painting, Photography, and Literary Traces
Mona Höke is known for a visual language in which color fields, written traces, and painterly overlays merge into a poetic image order. In earlier works on Pückler and in the poetry-graphic folder the favor of the wave is spray, her interest in forms of dialogue, text-image relationships, and a painting that does not illustrate but transforms is evident. Kathrin Karras has been working for years with photographic layers; her works arise from superimposed image spaces that intertwine memory, place, and present. ([ostdeutsche-sparkassenstiftung.de](https://ostdeutsche-sparkassenstiftung.de/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/MonaHoeke.pdf))
Pückler as a Figure of the Cosmopolitan
The exhibition title refers to Hermann von Pückler-Muskau, whose travel writings, landscape thinking, and European perspective continue to resonate today. Especially in the context of BLMK, this theme gains particular depth: The museum has one of the most extensive collections of art from the GDR and the subsequent tradition lines and considers its exhibition work as art historical contextualization and cultural education. In this framework, Pückler appears not as a monument but as a projection surface for questions of strangeness, freedom, and openness to world relations. ([blmk.de](https://www.blmk.de/?utm_source=openai))
The Diesel Power Plant as an Atmospheric Place
The exhibition venue itself significantly shapes the art experience. The former industrial monument Diesel Power Plant combines architectural rigor with museal presence and creates a clear, concentrated spatial effect. Here, painting and photography do not appear decoratively but enter into contemplative tension with the historical structure. Those who walk through these spaces experience an exhibition that interlinks image, space, and memory. ([blmk.de](https://www.blmk.de/museum/architecture/?utm_source=openai))
Education, Opening Hours, and Visit
BLMK opens in Cottbus from Tuesday to Sunday; the exhibition rooms are accessible via elevators. The collection includes around 45,000 works, and the museum combines changing exhibitions with guided tours and art educational formats. This creates not just an exhibition visit for guests but a solid museum experience with mediation and orientation. ([blmk.de](https://www.blmk.de/?utm_source=openai))
Conclusion: Strangers and Freedom promises an exhibition with intellectual tension, visual density, and poetic openness. Anyone interested in contemporary art, photography, and painting in dialogue with cultural history should definitely experience this exhibition in Cottbus live. ([cottbus.de](https://cottbus.de/cb-events-test/strangers-and-freedom-pueckler-dialogue-about-a-cosmopolitan-mona-hoeke-and-kathrin-karras-8/))
Official Channels of BLMK:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/blmk.kunstmuseum/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/blmk.kunstmuseum
- YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Stadt_Cottbus_offiziell
- Website: https://www.blmk.de/
