Image: Museum Giersch, Frankfurt am Main
The Museum Giersch of Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main will present ‘Einst war ich älter: Johannes Heisig im Dialog mit Wolfgang Hilbig’ from 2 to 18 October 2026. The exhibition focuses on the engagement of painter and graphic artist Johannes Heisig, born in 1953, with the work of writer Wolfgang Hilbig, who lived from 1941 to 2007.
Although Heisig and Hilbig never met personally, the museum describes a shared experience of the German Democratic Republic and German-German history. Their work is connected by sustained attention to questions of origin, memory and social change. The exhibition frames Heisig’s response not as a direct illustration of Hilbig’s writing, but as the development of an independent visual language from the writer’s literary themes and atmospheres.
The presentation will combine established groups of Heisig’s work with a new series created specifically for the project. The museum has not provided a full checklist or detailed account of the new works, but positions the series within a broader examination of the relationship between literature and visual art. Existing works will therefore be shown alongside material made in direct response to Hilbig’s writing.
Books, documentary material, and audio and film recordings will extend the exhibition beyond paintings and graphics. These elements are intended to provide additional perspectives on both artists’ practices and on the exchange between literary and visual forms. The museum’s published image credit identifies Heisig’s ‘Abfahrt – Blatt 1’ from 1995 as one of the works associated with the exhibition. The work is credited to DIE GALERIE, with copyright held by VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, for 2026; the photograph is by Lars Wiedemann.
The exhibition will also be accompanied by a programme connected with the Frankfurt Book Fair. The museum describes this as a varied supporting programme presented in the context of the fair, though the available announcement does not specify individual event titles, speakers or dates. The literary dimension of the project is consequently reflected both in its central pairing of Heisig and Hilbig and in its scheduled public programming.
The Museum Giersch of Goethe University is located at Schaumainkai 83 in Frankfurt. Its published opening hours are Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. The exhibition will be on view at the museum from 2 through 18 October 2026.
