Image: Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst, Paris
The Brandenburgisches Landesmuseum für moderne Kunst (BLMK) is preparing to open 'Fremde und Freiheit. Mona Höke und Kathrin Karras' at the DIESELKRAFTWERK in Cottbus on 30 July 2026. According to the museum’s programme, the exhibition runs through 23 August and forms part of a three-part project built around a shared artistic engagement with Hermann Fürst von Pückler-Muskau.
The museum describes the show as an unusual artistic dialogue about freedom, identity and cultural encounter. It brings together the work of Brandenburg artists Mona Höke and Kathrin Karras, who are represented here not simply as artists responding separately to a theme, but as collaborators on some of the works themselves. The BLMK says that, for the first time, the two have not only exhibited together but also jointly made images, allowing photography, digital image production and unique painting to overlap within the finished works.
The exhibition is framed as a concentrated encounter with Pückler as a historical figure. On the museum’s website, he is presented through several lenses: as a world traveller, landscape designer and a figure marked by imagination and literary invention. The artists approach him with different emphases and perspectives, and the project uses those differences to structure the presentation. The museum says that collaboratively produced works will be shown alongside individually created pieces, with the shared images moving between painting, drawing and photography.
BLMK says 'Fremde und Freiheit' is the first part of a broader cycle. Two related exhibitions are scheduled to follow at other venues in Cottbus: 'Pücklers Orient in seinen Landschaften' at Schloss Branitz / Stiftung Fürst Pückler Museum und Schloss Branitz from 31 July to 1 November 2026, and 'Oh Lebenslust – Pücklers Tutti Frutti' at Galerie Ma/rie/mix 23 from 15 August to 31 October 2026. The museum’s newsletter presents these as complementary exhibitions rather than as a single venue-based programme.
The Cottbus exhibition will open on Thursday, 30 July at 18:00. The BLMK lists the venue as the DIESELKRAFTWERK, Uferstraße/Am Amtsteich 15, where opening hours are Tuesday to Sunday from 11:00 to 19:00. The institution notes that the exhibitions spaces, event hall and mukk. are accessible by lift.
The BLMK’s newsletter places 'Fremde und Freiheit' within a summer programme that also includes collection-based and solo exhibitions in Cottbus and Frankfurt (Oder), but the new project is presented as a distinct collaboration with its own run. The museum’s programme page says the artists’ visual concepts have merged in part of the series, creating works that oscillate between painting, drawing and photography until the exhibition closes on 23 August 2026.
