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until 15.06. | #4704ARTatBerlin | Galerie Schwind currently shows since 9th March 2025 the solo exhibition ‘Jenseits des Sichtbaren’ by the artist Michael Triegel.
Masterpieces in Aachen
The Suermondt-Ludwig Museum in Aachen is staging a retrospective exhibition featuring around 75 works by Michael Triegel (*1968, Erfurt).
Michael Triegel is regarded as one of the most prominent contemporary artists. His works – including altarpieces, portraits, still lifes and landscape watercolours – combine traditional painting techniques with a critical engagement with art history. He draws inspiration from the Italian Renaissance, Mannerism, and the Spanish Baroque. Triegel incorporates and interprets motifs from classical mythology, biblical salvation history, and cultural-historical sources. His glazing technique merges classical painting methods with modern subject matter. He describes his approach as follows: “My game is precisely to assert the Old Master at first glance – and then gradually undermine that initial impression.”
The exhibition spans Triegel’s work from large-scale pieces of the 1990s to his most recent painting Young Man from Procida (2025), which brings together medieval pictorial traditions, lived religious practice, and contemporary portraiture. The show offers an opportunity to explore the artist’s diverse body of work and to appreciate both his technique and his treatment of complex themes.
Watercolours and Still Lifes
Triegel’s watercolours of Italian and British landscapes follow in the tradition from Dürer to Turner. His still lifes contain both formal and conceptual elements that reference the transience of life and beauty.
Highlights of the exhibition include his portrait of Pope Benedict XVI (2010) and the design for the central panel of the Cranach Altar in Naumburg Cathedral (2022).
The proximity of the exhibition space to the museum’s permanent collection on the ground floor offers visitors new perspectives on the religious artworks of the Middle Ages housed in the museum.
Biographical Information
Michael Triegel was born in 1968 in Erfurt and grew up in the GDR without religious influence. From 1990 to 1995, he studied painting at the Academy of Fine Arts (Hochschule für Grafik und Buchkunst) in Leipzig under Arno Rink and Ulrich Hachulla. He gained formative experiences during his travels in Switzerland and Italy. One particularly influential moment for him occurred in the Church of Il Gesù in Rome.
From 1995 to 1997, Triegel undertook postgraduate studies with Ulrich Hachulla, completing his degree as a master class student in 1998. He is associated with the New Leipzig School. In 2014, he was baptised at the Dresden Court Church (Hofkirche).
The exhibition has been organised in close collaboration with the artist and Galerie Schwind. It has been made possible through generous loans from the artist himself, the gallery, as well as museums and private collectors from across Germany. A catalogue will be published by Hirmer Verlag.
Opening: Saturday, 8 March 2025 at 6 pm
Exhibition dates: Sunday, 9 March – Sunday, 15 June 2025
Image caption title: Courtesy by Michael Triegel and Galerie Schwind
Exhibition Michael Triegel – Galerie Schwind | Zeitgenössische Kunst in Berlin | Contemporary Art | Ausstellungen Berlin Galerien | ART at Berlin
