Pinakothek Der Moderne, Barerstrasse 40, Munich (Germany)
The vernissage of Eccentric. Aesthetics of Freedom at Pinakothek der Moderne on 24 October 2024 was a large, well-attended opening — crowded rooms, wine, the noise of a crowd that had come to see something. Only the rooms given over to video works were dimmed. Everything else was lit.
The curatorial argument, developed by Eva Karcher and Bernhart Schwenk, was a deliberate reframing. Eccentricity here was not madness or decadence. It was presented as a driver of freedom and democracy — the Latin ex centro, the view from outside a fictitious centre, positioned as a social force against ideology and rigidity. Around 100 works by 50 international artists across five sections — Creatures, Exalted Cosmos, Transformative Technology, Hybrid Beauty, Fluid Bodies.
The Creatures section opened with Peter Fischli and David Weiss’s Winterhilfe — two large plush bears, one purple, one fluorescent yellow-green, facing each other in the room. Oversized and slightly absurd, they were also oddly affecting. Placed early in the show, they set the tone: eccentricity not as performance but as refusal.
Eva & Adele were present at the opening. The German artist duo — who have lived and presented themselves as an inseparable, identically dressed pair since 1991, their twinned appearance and life the work itself — moved through the rooms, available for conversation and photographs. In an exhibition arguing for eccentricity as a social motor for freedom and tolerance, they were the argument in person. Jeff Koons’ Amore — the porcelain teddy bear from his 1988 Banality series, bib reading “Amore”, heart held in one paw — occupied a nearby position: kitsch elevated to the point where the question of sincerity becomes irrelevant.
Among the sections, Philipp Fürhofer’s Eccentric Lounge — a space of semi-transparent curtains designed for reflection and decompression — contained two works that belonged there. His own Mirror Light Paintings, built from acrylic glass, two-way mirror film, LED lights and cables, function simultaneously as paintings and light boxes: when lit, their interior imagery becomes visible; when dark, they reflect the viewer back. A timer governs the alternation. Pia Maria Raeder’s Stardust Swimsuit — a sculpture mimicking the form of a vintage one-piece bathing suit, composed entirely of thousands of hand-placed glass beads and silvered elements — catches and refracts whatever light reaches it. The result is closer to a relic than a garment.
Further in, Julian Charrière’s And Beneath It All Flows Liquid Fire (2019) ran on a loop — a slow-motion video of a neoclassical fountain, fire where water should be, held in slow motion. Shot at the Antonio Bossi Fountain in Lugano. The room asked you to stay.
Taken together, Eccentric made a serious case for a concept that is easy to dismiss. Across five sections and fifty artists, Karcher and Schwenk showed that the refusal to conform — in body, identity, material, or method — is not peripheral to contemporary art. It is where a good deal of the most interesting work gets made.
Artène attended the vernissage of Eccentric. Aesthetics of Freedom, 24 October 2024.