Exhibitions

The exhibition contrasts works by Bonn-based artist Jan Karczewski with historical musical instruments from the Zimmermann Collection.

Jan Karczewsk’s objects thrive on the transformation of used items, which are combined with various materials and thus reinterpreted. The old perfection is hereby replaced by a new aesthetic, and the sculptures seem at once strange and yet oddly familiar. Only upon closer inspection does something curious or funny reveal itself in their appearance. The musical objects shown here are not instruments that produce sounds; rather, they invite a playful engagement and view.

In contrast, all the historical instruments gathered by the Düren-based collector Josef Zimmermann (1881–1976) are actually playable. After his death, the collection initially became a permanent loan to the Beethoven-Haus but was then donated in 1981. It contains a number of instruments that were already being played during Beethoven’s time. We are exhibiting particularly elaborately manufactured and, to us today, sometimes peculiar individual pieces that harmonise in wondrous ways with Jan Karczewski’s sculptures.