Image: Sammlung Goetz, Munich
The Deutsches Theatermuseum in Munich will present 'Laurie Simmons. Dollhouse Photographs' from 25 June to 30 August 2026, in a cabinet exhibition developed in cooperation with the Sammlung Goetz and the Filmfest München. The show focuses on the US artist’s staged photographs, in which dolls appear in domestic interiors and stereotypically feminine roles, turning the familiar setting of the house into a site of critical reflection. The museum lists the exhibition as a collaboration with the Sammlung Goetz, the Deutsches Theatermuseum and FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2026.
According to the exhibition text, Laurie Simmons is known for photographic tableaus that unsettle the ordinary by using puppets and miniature settings to construct artificial worlds. The artist’s work is described here as examining social role models in the American middle class. Rather than presenting dolls as passive objects, Simmons places them in puzzling situations that give them an uncanny independence and draw attention to the expectations attached to home, family and femininity.
The presentation also situates Simmons within the Pictures Generation, the loose circle of American artists active from the late 1970s who questioned mass media and consumer culture. The museum notes that while artists such as Richard Prince and Sherrie Levine often worked by directly copying images from advertising or art history, Simmons built her own miniature environments in order to deconstruct social imagery from within. That approach is visible in her early series 'In and Around the House' from 1978/79, which the exhibition identifies as a foundational body of work.
The museum’s description of 'In and Around the House' points to 56 photographs populated by interiors that seem to tell the diary of a housewife, but with a twist: the 1950s-style setting contains far more than an everyday domestic scene. The exhibition text also recalls Simmons’s 2000 commission to design a dollhouse for the commercial market. Working with architect Peter Wheelwright, she developed 'Kaleidoscope House' for the company Bozart, a modernist house with transparent colored sliding walls and furnishings by contemporary designers and artists. That house later became the basis for a matching photo series.
Another chapter highlighted in the exhibition is Simmons’s film 'The Music of Regret' from 2005/06, in which the dolls seen in her photographs become animated for the first time. Structured like a Broadway musical in three acts, the film is introduced by an overture and brings together themes from across her practice. The museum states that Simmons directed the production, wrote the lyrics and collaborated with numerous figures from the worlds of art, theater and film.
'Laurie Simmons. Dollhouse Photographs' is presented as a cabinet exhibition of the Deutsches Theatermuseum and the Sammlung Goetz, with FILMFEST MÜNCHEN 2026 listed as program partner. The exhibition is curated by Karsten Löckemann with Anna Reimnitz. The Deutsches Theatermuseum is at Galeriestr. 4a in Munich and gives its general visiting hours as Tuesday to Sunday, 11 am to 5 pm. The exhibition page lists evening and Sunday guided tours during the run, including Wednesday evening tours at 5:30 pm on 5, 12 and 19 August.
