TRIBUTE: Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Film, Video, Sound

The Ringier Collection was initiated by Swiss publisher Michael Ringier and spans a wide range of contemporary art, including photography, video, painting, drawing, sculpture, and installation, with works dating back to the late 1960s. The collection focuses on acquiring extensive groups of works by its represented artists and showcasing them in rotating exhibitions within the company’s spaces. Many of its works and groups are featured in national and international exhibitions, ensuring broad and ongoing visibility for diverse audiences.

By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Langen Foundation Archive

Langen Foundation presents an extensive selection of works from the Swiss Ringier Collection, marking its first major exhibition in Germany. The exhibition features approximately 500 works, offering an overview of one of the most relevant collections of contemporary art. Spanning works from the late 1960s to the present day, it documents Michael Ringier’s 30 years as a collector and key developments in the art world. Titled “Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Film, Video, Sound”, the exhibition showcases works across nearly all forms of artistic media. Together, these pieces form a rich and layered portrait of Michael Ringier, a Swiss publisher and media entrepreneur, whose collection of art is deeply intertwined with his personal and professional life, as well as the identity of Ringier, a media company active in 19 countries across Europe and Africa. Ringier’s integration of art into its corporate culture is a defining characteristic of the company. Since 1997, the company has invited international artists to design its annual reports, granting them complete creative freedom. These collaborations have resulted in creative and intelligent explorations of the role of a media publisher today and its engagement with audiences. Renowned artists including Fischli/Weiss, Maurizio Cattelan, and Sylvie Fleury have contributed to these reports, as has Wade Guyton, whose report featured a one-to-one reproduction of one of his paintings printed in high-resolution detail across hundreds of pages. When compiled, these pages recreate the work in its original dimensions. The exhibition’s subversive title highlights how traditional artistic media continues to inspire new interpretations—both by challenging their conventional boundaries and through intentional artistic ambiguity. “Drawing, Painting, Sculpture, Photography, Film, Video, Sound” reexamines the expectations surrounding what defines a medium and how it shapes our perception. The connection to a global media company like Ringier is evident: from its beginnings in publishing and printing to its evolution into a digitized and diversified corporation, the company has been shaping the relationship between content and medium for over 190 years. Wade Guyton, too, challenges the concept of the medium of painting—whether through his large-format printed works or the strategic use of digital technologies, he questions what a medium can be and how it shapes the art it conveys. Through these explorations, the exhibition invites viewers to see the collection not merely as a compilation of works but as a dynamic narrative that constantly opens up new perspectives. This approach reflects Michael Ringier’s view of art as a living, integral part of both his entrepreneurial and cultural engagement.

Works by: Vito Acconci, Kai Althoff, Kai Althoff & Robert Elfgen, John M. Armleder, Ed Atkins, Lutz Bacher, John Baldessari, Iain Baxter, Alighiero Boetti, Kerstin Brätsch, Angela Bulloch, Valentin Carron, Clegg & Guttmann, George Condo, Keren Cytter, René Daniëls, Verne Dawson, de Rijke / de Rooij, Philip-Lorca diCorcia, Peter Doig, Trisha Donnelly, Stan Douglas, Lukas Duwenhögger, Marcel Dzama & Raymond Pettibon, Michaela Eichwald, Nicole Eisenman, Jana Euler, Urs Fischer, Peter Fischli, Fischli/Weiss, Sylvie Fleury, Lee Friedlander, Katharina Fritsch, General Idea, Isa Genzken, Liam Gillick, Jack Goldstein, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Douglas Gordon, Rodney Graham, Andreas Gursky, Guyton / Walker, Wade Guyton, Richard Hawkins, Georg Herold, Lynn Hershman Leeson, Jenny Holzer & Lady Pink, Anne Imhof, Cameron Jamie, Larry Johnson, Mike Kelley, Karen Kilimnik, Barbara Kruger, Tetsumi Kudo, Sean Landers, Louise Lawler, Sherrie Levine, Klara Liden, Sarah Lucas, Mathieu Malouf, Helen Marten, Allan McCollum, Lucy McKenzie, John Miller, Mark Morrisroe, Matt Mullican, Cady Noland, Albert Oehlen, Laura Owens, Philippe Parreno, Philippe Parreno & Pierre Huyghe, Manfred Pernice, Raymond Pettibon, Richard Phillips, Jack Pierson, Seth Price, Richard Prince, Nick Relph / Oliver Payne, Ugo Rondinone, Thomas Ruff, Wilhelm Sasnal, Jean-Frédéric Schnyder, Jim Shaw, Steven Shearer, Cindy Sherman, Avery Singer, Andreas Slominski, Josh Smith, Haim Steinbach, Sturtevant, Walter Swennen, Paul Thek, Wolfgang Tillmans, Rirkrit Tiravanija, Rosemarie Trockel, Eugene von Bruenchenhein, Peter Wächtler, Kelley Walker, Rebecca Warren, Franz West, T. J. Wilcox, Christoper Williams, Sue Williams, Jordan Wolfson, Martin Wong, Heimo Zobernig

Photo: Kai Althoff / Robert Elfgen, Das Floss, 2004, Mixed media, 340 x 380 x 490 cm, © Kai Althoff / Robert Elfgenm Courtesy the artist and Gladstone Gallery and Sprüth Magers

Info: Curators: Beatrix Ruf and Wade Guyton, Langen Foundation, Raketenstation Hombroich 1, Neuss, Germany, Duration: 13/4-5/10/2025, Days & Hours: Tue-Sun 10:00-18:00, https://langenfoundation.de/