Image: Kunsthalle Emden
The Kunsthalle Emden is presenting ‘GROSSE BUCHSTABEN, GRELLE FARBEN’, an exhibition examining the relationship between writing as a visual motif and art as a form of writing. Bringing together contemporary artists and graffiti writers, the show considers how letters, words and sentences operate within images—whether as quotations, supplementary elements or the principal subject. It is on view at the Kunsthalle Emden in Emden, Germany, from 15 August 2026 through 28 February 2027.
The exhibition asks what written language contributes to an artwork beyond its literal meaning, and how typography, legibility and visual distortion alter the relationship between signs and significance. The museum describes the works as occupying a productive tension between formal design and linguistic or symbolic content. The exhibition is co-curated by the artist MadC.
The presentation places graffiti in dialogue with contemporary painting and other forms of image-making. According to the Kunsthalle, graffiti developed from metropolitan centres into a global subculture from the 1970s, providing a vehicle for political, social, religious and sociological expression as well as for the artistic treatment of the writer’s own name. The creative transformation of letters has also made graffiti a defining presence in urban environments.
The exhibition connects these questions to art-historical developments since modernism. The Dada movement established important precedents for treating language as a visual and material component of art, while writing also became an essential element in later movements including Neo-Expressionism and the Neue Wilde, both represented among the Kunsthalle Emden’s collection interests. The works on view explore shared concerns across these practices, including readability, composition and the gap between a sign and what it signifies.
Artists listed by the museum include Norbert Bisky, Monica Bonvicini, Claudia Comte, Daim, Dare, Delta, Egs, Nadine Fecht, Shilpa Gupta, L’Atlas, Via Lewandowsky, L’Outsider, Stefan Marx, Olaf Metzel, Rero, Anselm Reyle, Thomas Scheibitz, Shoe, Fiete Stolte, Christian Thoelke and Erwin Wurm. The exhibition’s featured image is Christian Thoelke’s ‘Wall’ (2021), a two-part oil painting measuring 250 by 360 centimetres. Stefan Marx is represented by the large-scale work ‘I’ll be your mirror’, installed in the museum’s atrium.
The display coincides with ‘Hit the Trog’, a graffiti festival organised by the city of Emden from 14 to 16 August 2026. For the festival, more than 80 international graffiti artists were invited to work on a continuous 2,300-square-metre wall along the so-called Trogstrecke, creating a new cultural site in the city. The Kunsthalle recommends visitors also see the resulting Wall of Fame on the route at Am Tonnenhof.
Kunsthalle Emden, founded around the collection of Henri Nannen and the commitment of Henri and Eske Nannen, describes itself as one of northern Germany’s important art museums. Its collection spans 20th- and 21st-century art, and the museum is marking its 40th anniversary in 2026. The exhibition’s title is taken from the song ‘Füchse’ by Absolute Beginner featuring Samy Deluxe, released on the 1998 album ‘Bambule’.
