Image: Kunstmuseum Bonn
Kunstmuseum Bonn has opened a new exhibition series with Hito Steyerl’s immersive installation ‘Animal Spirits’ (2022/2025). The presentation, which began on 30 April 2026, gives the artist an entire exhibition room and marks the first instalment of ‘ZOOM IN’, a format dedicated to individual artistic positions at the Bonn museum. No closing date is listed in the museum’s published programme.
‘Animal Spirits’ examines the interconnections of capitalism, technology and myths. According to the museum’s description, Steyerl’s multilayered filmic installation connects real and digital worlds with economic theories and spiritual ideas. The work is presented as an immersive spatial environment rather than as a conventional single-channel video display.
Steyerl, born in Munich in 1966, lives and works in Berlin and Munich. Kunstmuseum Bonn describes her as one of the most influential artists of her generation. Her practice, as represented by the installation’s stated themes, brings together moving image, digital technologies and critical reflection on contemporary systems of power and belief.
The ‘ZOOM IN’ series is structured around the presentation of one artist in one complete exhibition space. The museum’s collection display, ‘KRAFTFELDER: Neue Perspektiven aus der Sammlung’, identifies the series as a way of bringing individual artistic positions into focus. It also states that the presentations are supplemented by artist talks and other events. Steyerl’s installation is shown alongside the museum’s broader programme of exhibitions and collection-based presentations, but remains a distinct one-room project.
The museum has announced a public conversation with Steyerl for Saturday, 3 October 2026, at 11 a.m. The event forms part of the accompanying programme for ‘Animal Spirits’. Further details about the installation’s duration are not provided in the supplied programme material, which lists the presentation as running “since 30.04.2026.”
Kunstmuseum Bonn is located on Helmut-Kohl-Allee in the city’s Museumsmeile. Its 2026 programme includes the collection presentation ‘KRAFTFELDER’, which runs from 12 July 2026 to 11 June 2028, as well as exhibitions devoted to empathy, the GEDOK artists’ association, and Christopher Kulendran Thomas’s ‘Peace Core (surround)’. Steyerl’s ‘Animal Spirits’ is the first project announced within the museum’s new ‘ZOOM IN’ series.
