HAMBURGER KUNSTHALLE 'SCULPTURES EN MINIATURE'

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V29 2026 INDEX E-SYLUM ARCHIVE

The E-Sylum: Volume 29, Number 28, 2026, Article 14

Nicolas Maier alerted us to this interesting exhibition at the Kunsthalle in Hamburg, Germany focused on the museum's coins, medals and plaques. Thank you! -Editor

SCULPTURAL. The New Galleries is the first-ever large-scale presentation of the Hamburger Kunsthalle's sculpture collection, spanning multiple media and periods. Across an area of 1,500 square metres, over 500 sculptures, reliefs, paintings, works on paper and photographs as well as spatial and video installations from 2,500 years of art history will prompt some surprising comparisons – antiquity versus the present day, two versus three dimensions, miniature versus monumental.

A special focus is the museum's recently uncovered trove of sculptures en miniature, as the first director, Alfred Lichtwark, called these tours de force of numismatic art in the form of coins, medals and sculptural reliefs in gold, silver and bronze. These new discoveries will be exhibited alongside masterpieces in multiple media, such as larger-than-life sculptures by Auguste Rodin and Aristide Maillol, while antique portraits enter into a dialogue with contemporary photography, and reliefs by Käthe Kollwitz with body casts from the 1960s and video works by Marina Abramovic and others.

The presentation developed out of the research project From the second to the third dimension, for which around 6,000 coins, medals and plaques are for the first time being reviewed, restored, digitised and researched in their respective contexts. The first objects will be published online in April 2026.

The research and presentation are made possible by the Dorit & Alexander Otto Foundation, which is once again acting as a major sponsor. Other cooperation partners include the University of Hamburg, the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin and the Musée d'Orsay, Paris.

The sculptural forms suggest associations between dimensions and times based on themes such as the settings for art and the emotions and facial expressions in portraits and masks. While the museum's collection has to date focused on a span of 800 years, here it will be extended by further eventful centuries. Loans of prime works from the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and European private collections will complement the selection from the permanent collection on display in the new sculpture galleries. These extend from the classical columned hall, an architecturally imposing symbol of an early engagement with antiquity, to the rotunda, where a large site-specific contemporary work has been commissioned to conclude the exhibition circuit.