Käthe Kruse

The exhibition begins with the large-scale installation Die Tödliche Doris on Wallpaper (2025). Kruse has covered a 35-meter-long wall with a variety of colorful wallpaper patterns on which she arranges works by Die Tödliche Doris, such as paintings, pillows, lamps, and costumes, as well as her first independent work The Ordered State (1986). Kruse was a member of Die Tödliche Doris from 1982 to 1987, and her artistic practice is still influenced by this period. The decorative wallpaper is a reference to the group, which used the material as a backdrop for their performances or simply threw it onto the stage. In Die Tödliche Doris on Wallpaper, Kruse is primarily interested in a relaxed, non-museum-like approach to her own past. Instead of presenting the works of Die Tödliche Doris as “dusty relics,” she transforms them into a new work of art.

The first room of the exhibition also focuses on the Die Tödliche Doris itself. Recordings of the group’s performances and concerts are juxtaposed with Kruse’s video The Contract (2013), which shows the artist sitting naked at a table reading the contract Die Tödliche Doris drew up a few years after their breakup. For Kruse, the work is an important exploration of her own artistic beginnings. As a solo artist, Kruse’s approach has remained both strictly conceptual and experimental. This is also evident in her Annual Color Stripe Pictures, which are based on the personal color system she has been creating over the years.

Music plays a central role in the artistic work of Käthe Kruse, who was already playing drums and singing during her time with Die Tödliche Doris. To this day, her works are the product of a close connection between music, performance, and object art. Many of her installations are complemented by music or spoken text. Performances in which she sings or speaks with musical accompaniment are a fundamental part of her art. The highlight in the main exhibition space is the installation In Leather (2023), which consists of Kruse’s drum kit from her time with Die Tödliche Doris as well as all of the group’s other instruments wrapped in leather.

Already Kruse’s earliest works reveal a keen interest in rigorous concepts. The theme of order provides the recurrent basis for many of her works. In 48 Colors, Kruse uses the 48 standard colors of polyester yarn to sew row after row on A4-sized sheets of paper. In this and other works, Kruse always accepts a certain degree of irregularity and imperfection. In contrast to many other conceptual artists, she is not interested in perfection or in rendering the artistic process invisible. Instead, small errors demonstrate the challenges of a painstaking working process.

In the last room of the exhibition, Käthe Kruse explores the question “How Are You Now?” and the answer “It’s All Good Now.” She uses various materials such as wood, paper, and oil paint to visualize the text, which comes from Die Tödliche Doris’s fourth and sixth albums (Our Debut and Six). As the exhibition title, “It’s All Good Now” also stands for Käthe Kruse’s positive assessment of her oeuvre to date.

Live performances have been part of Käthe Kruse’s artistic work since the beginning, and the exhibition pays tribute to this important aspect. In the performance Concert in Leather, Käthe Kruse and her musician friends will play all the leather-covered instruments from Die Tödliche Doris for the first time (10 April). Visitors can also experience the well-known works 3927 Words and War on 8 May and 22 May respectively.

Participating artists: Sophia Bicking, Danielle de Picciotto, Myriam El Haik, Alexander Hacke, Edda Kruse Rosset and Alma Neumann