Name: Strangers and Freedom. Pückler - Dialogue about a Cosmopolitan. Mona Höke and Kathrin Karras
Start: 2026-08-12T13:00:00+02:00
End: 2026-08-12T21:00:00+02:00
Location: Dieselkraftwerk Cottbus

A dialogue about Pückler, freedom, and the art of open perspective

At the Diesel Power Plant Cottbus, the exhibition series Strangers and Freedom unfolds, intertwining art, biography, and cultural-historical reflection. Mona Höke and Kathrin Karras approach Hermann Prince of Pückler-Muskau as a multifaceted figure between travel culture, cosmopolitanism, and longing for expansiveness. The presentation leads painting and photography into a productive dialogue, opening an artistic experience that is both analytical and atmospheric.

Between Painting and Photography

The exhibition showcases a joint artistic engagement, where unique painting, photographic processes, and digital image production overlap. It is precisely this intersection that makes the exhibition intriguing: images are not only observed but experienced as fragile, multifaceted image spaces. The result is an examination of works that raises questions about identity, foreignness, and cultural movement.

Pückler as a Projection Figure of Modernity

Pückler appears here not as a monument but as a historically charged figure with international resonance. The cosmopolitan represents travel, landscape design, aesthetic self-staging, and the joy of crossing boundaries. In this context, the exhibition gains a special depth: it links art historical classification with contemporary perspectives on mobility, global orientation, and cultural openness.

Spatial Impact in the Diesel Power Plant

The Diesel Power Plant Cottbus provides the fitting backdrop for this. The industrial museum building enhances the tension between past and present, between raw architecture and precise visual language. Light, materiality, and arrangement shape the exhibition atmosphere, transforming the tour into an aesthetic experience that transcends mere seeing.

Cultural Education and Mediation

The three-part exhibition series invites close examination and is ideal for culture-interested visitors seeking context, discussion, and deeper engagement. Those interested in modern art, photographic art, painting, and curated thematic exhibitions will find here a convincing example of contemporary museum pedagogy and demanding cultural education.

Conclusion: Strangers and Freedom combines artistic experimental enthusiasm with art historical reflection and a strong spatial presence. Anyone wishing to experience Pückler, image art, and the question of foreignness in the familiar anew should definitely visit this exhibition live in Cottbus.