In the fall/winter of 2024-25, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf will present the first major solo exhibition of Sheila Hicks across two cities. Comprising a total of 140 works from all creative periods, the collaborative presentation provides a comprehensive overview of the artist's multifaceted oeuvre for the first time in Germany.
Sheila Hicks’ unique practice unfolds in the interplay between material, color, and space: in large and small-format wall works, tapestries, reliefs, sculptures, and installations, the seemingly infinite possibilities of these three dimensions unfurl. “What can you do with thread?” is the question that the artist has tirelessly explored since studying with Josef Albers at the Yale School of Art in the 1950s. In her pursuit, she has developed a wide spectrum of techniques that constantly challenge and surprise our perception and our concepts of art and textile, color and structure, work and space.
Held jointly at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the exhibition will survey Hicks' entire oeuvre. The Josef Albers Museum presents a retrospective on the 700 square meters of the award-winning Gigon/Guyer extension building. It brings together works from the period from 1955 to 2024, including early paintings from Hicks' time as a student of Josef Albers that have never been shown. Early textile works, projects from her time in Chile, Mexico, and Morocco, designs for large architectural commissions and her more recent color-intensive wall objects, sculptures, and installations will also be on display, complemented by sketches and materials from the artist’s archive.
In the fall/winter of 2024-25, Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf will present the first major solo exhibition of Sheila Hicks (b. 1934) across two cities. Comprising a total of 140 works from all creative periods, the collaborative presentation provides a comprehensive overview of the artist's multifaceted oeuvre for the first time in Germany.
Sheila Hicks’ unique practice unfolds in the interplay between material, color, and space: in large and small-format wall works, tapestries, reliefs, sculptures, and installations, the seemingly infinite possibilities of these three dimensions unfurl. “What can you do with thread?” is the question that the artist has tirelessly explored since studying with Josef Albers at the Yale School of Art in the 1950s. In her pursuit, she has developed a wide spectrum of techniques that constantly challenge and surprise our perception and our concepts of art and textile, color and structure, work and space.
Held jointly at the Josef Albers Museum in Bottrop and the Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, the exhibition will survey Hicks' entire oeuvre. The Josef Albers Museum presents a retrospective on the 700 square meters of the award-winning Gigon/Guyer extension building. It brings together works from the period from 1955 to 2024, including early paintings from Hicks' time as a student of Josef Albers that have never been shown. Early textile works, projects from her time in Chile, Mexico, and Morocco, designs for large architectural commissions and her more recent color-intensive wall objects, sculptures, and installations will also be on display, complemented by sketches and materials from the artist’s archive.
The Kunsthalle Düsseldorf will subsequently present a more comprehensive view of Hicks’ current artistic production: large-format, partly site-specific installations and sculptures reveal their intense power in contrast to the Brutalist architecture of the exhibition spaces while also highlighting the artist’s latest experiments with materials and forms.
Both presentations are on view through February 23, 2025. An extensive educational and supporting program will accompany the exhibition. The exhibition will give occasion to the first comprehensive publication on Sheila Hicks in German.
Visit Josef Albers Museum Quadrat Bottrop and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf to learn more.