The start of the European Capital of Culture year Chemnitz 2025 marks the beginning of a new project by Chemnitz investor Udo Pfeifer and his family. The owner of the Hartmannfabrik and Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz developed a temporary exhibition project in the outdoor area of the Hartmannfabrik. Selected artists of international renown were invited to develop sculptures and artworks on the grounds and in the gardens of the Hartmannfabrik.

Atelier van Lieshout, Tatjana Doll, Franka Hörnschemeyer, Heike Mutter / Ulrich Genth and Lydia Thomas were initially invited. Further contributions are also being planned. The project was conceived by Sabine Maria Schmidt, curator at the Kunstsammlungen Chemnitz.

Without a predetermined theme, the exhibition offers an open space for current artistic debates and aesthetic questions that enter into a direct dialog with the visitors. Different approaches and strategies are represented, which are formulated in the context of issues relating to monuments, animal sculpture, figurative and abstract sculpture and painting, iconographic upheavals and pop culture.

The Hartmannfabrik is the information and reception center of the Capital of Culture Chemnitz 2025. It is one of the most frequented public venues of the Capital of Culture and therefore has a highly representative function. The hall, built in 1864, was once part of the globally successful engineering company of »locomotive king« Richard Hartmann. Just as it was a center of industrial progress back then, today the Hartmannfabrik is once again a place for creativity and innovation and a symbol of the city’s ability to change, which is characterized by many transformation processes. After a long period of vacancy, the listed building was renovated by the Pfeifer family in a successful public-private partnership, with additional funding from the federal government, the Free State of Saxony and the City of Chemnitz.