The Stuttgart Art Museum is in a large glass cube building on a busy, central square in the Germany city.

In 2025, the museum is celebrating two anniversaries: 20 years since this building was opened, and 100 years since its collection was first displayed - having been given as a gift to the city from the Marchese Silvio della Valle di Casanova the year before.

These anniversaries are being marked with a large exhibition over several floors, with the intriguing name 'Double Cheese Platter'. (It takes its name from a Dieter Roth artwork of maturing / decaying cheese).

Having visited recently, I've selected 5 (100÷20) artworks from this art buffet to highlight here.

The museum has many portraits by German artist Otto Dix. I chose this - one of many portraying his daughter Nelly - for its fun, bright colours and slightly creepy vibes. Nelly's bright pink bow seems as big as her head, and, apparently, old photographs of her show that she did indeed have a bow this large.

This is one of the first paintings displayed in the exhibition, and one which was in the Marchese's original collection. He collected many landscapes by artists from the Stuttgart region. This evokes a peaceful, calm and meditative energy where nature helps bring clarity of mind.

This is the cover image for the exhibition, a colourful collection of converging geometric patterns. It derives from a logo that the artist Anton Stankowski made for a company, Standard Elektrik Lorenz. This is displayed in a room with many other examples of abstract, geometric art - known as ‘Concrete art’. Elsewhere in the exhibition, a label shares the words of American conceptual artist Joseph Kosuth: ‘Art is not what we see, but the meaning we give it’.

Hanne Brenken was born in Duisburg and lived in the USA for many years. This geometric and patterned artwork resembles perfectly proportioned soundwaves. A nearby installation allows you to adjust the shape and size of the elements, playing with the balance and harmony of the image.

I love a city landscape painting like this, because it's not only a wonderful painting full of well-observed details, but also for what it can tell us about a place's social history. Even if the artist has taken license and left out or made up some details, it can be interesting to think about why.

The installation mentioned in the Hanne Brenken artwork is part of ‘From the work to the display’, a research project which has developed new, experimental approaches to communicating about art digitally. New digital interpretations of 22 artworks were created, aiming to bring to life some of the themes of those works - not just recreating label texts. You can also access some of these online here - https://vom-werk-zum-display.art/Meta/artists

Thank you for reading + until next time,