With three retrospective exhibitions, the Barbara Gross Galerie is celebrating its 30th anniversary, looking back at more than 180 exhibitions. For each of the three presentations, guest curators are being invited to newly arrange a selection of works that were on view at the gallery in the course of its history. This view from the outside delineates the gallery’s programmatic guidelines and shows the works in new constellations.

In Part 1, the curators Michaela Melián (an artist represented by the gallery since 1988) and Tonio Kröner (artist and former curator at the Museum Brandhorst) direct our attention to the gallery’s early years. With a focus on the production of international women artists, its program was exceptional in the 1980s and 1990s and contributed fundamental pioneering efforts in Germany on their behalf. The gallery work of Barbara Gross was characterized by an interest in promoting the visibility and awareness of women artists who have significantly influenced the contemporary discourse in terms of both form and content, and in introducing their works into important collections.

Starting with different positions of feminist art of the 1960s and 1970s, a close collaboration with Nancy Spero and Maria Lassnig developed at the beginning. From the outset, the program sought to point up the diversity of women’s art production, to set their work into relationship with one another, and to precisely convey the uniqueness of each.

The exhibition presents this complex network of aesthetic practices in a selection of artworks from the gallery’s first decade, including works by Nancy Spero (1926), Ida Applebroog (1929), Anna Oppermann (1940), Valie Export (1940), Katharina Sieverding (1944), Ana Mendieta (1948), Miriam Cahn (1949), Ulrike Grossarth (1952), Kiki Smith (1954) and Silvia Bächli (1956). At the time, these women artists were largely unknown, not only to the Munich audience. That they are now an indispensable part of the contemporary art canon is also thanks to the ongoing work of the Barbara Gross Galerie.

Participating artists: Ida Applebroog, Silvia Bächli, Louise Bourgeois, Miriam Cahn, Hanne Darboven, Valie Export, Ulrike Grossarth, Maria Lassnig, Michaela Melián, Ana Mendieta, Anna Oppermann, Friederike Pezold, Ulrike Rosenbach, Niki de Saint Phalle, Sarah Schumann, Katharina Sieverding, Kiki Smith, Nancy Spero, Jana Sterbak and Rosemarie Trockel.

The exhibition Part 2, curated by Karin Sander and Ayşe Erkmen, and Part 3, curated by Bethan Huws and Christian Ganzenberg, are planned for the beginning of February 2019 and mid-March 2019.