Flowers Forever at the Bucerius Kunst Forum, Hamburg

Flowers Forever. Flowers in Art and Culture

12.10.2024 — 19.1.2025

The exhibition Flowers Forever. Flowers in Art and Culture brings together a diverse array of paintings, sculptures, photographs, media art, along with objects from the fields of design and natural sciences. A captivating tour takes visitors on a journey through the cultural history of flowers,ranging from antiquity to the present day. Historical works of art and design engage in a fascinating dialogue with novel contemporary approaches. The exhibition highlights the important role of the flowers in culture, mythology, religion, politics, economy, ecology – while demonstrating the omnipresence of the flower as both a symbol and natural phenomenon. 

With their beauty and diversity flowers have always had the power to delight us. Their appearance can trigger deep emotions, because flowers have been rife with symbolic meaning throughout centuries of cultural history, resonating both personally and socially. Spanning different genres, eras and places of origin, the presentation in Hamburg illustrates deeply varying and curiously similar interpretations of flowers. Across the realms of politics and culture, mythology and religion, the evolving symbolism of flowers across different regions and eras reveals how people constantly attribute new meanings to flowers. Examples of this can be found in literature and politics: The exhibition contains works refering to the Carnation Revolution in Portugal and the protests against the Vietnam War. During these events among others the flower served as a symbol for resistance and protest. Its wide use in political and activist communication shows the flower’s timeless omnipresence. 

The enormous variety of shapes and colours makes the flower a popular source of inspiration for artistic endeavours. Art and science have always mutually enriched one another. The exhibition demonstrates this close connection between the two disciplines: While the natural sciences primarily make use of skilful and precise illustrations of flowers to convey research results, artists reflect on the relationship between art, nature, and science and celebrate the diversity of the flower. In most cases, artistic depictions go far beyond the scientific reality. 

The fact that flowers are not merely of symbolic significance is demonstrated by their classification as a product on today’s market. While flowers were coveted status symbols in past centuries, these days they are traded globally as a mass product. Consequently, flowers are currently moving into the spotlight as a fragile and indispensable part of the global ecosystem, both in financial and ecological terms. Accordingly, the exhibition brings together artworks that touch on these sociopolitical issues. The treatment of the flower as a commodity has prompted some of the artists to address consumer behaviour and the effects of human activity on the environment. At the same time, the works call into question humans’ relation to nature and their own role within it.  

The exhibition features works from international collections as well as installations specifically developed for the show. By bringing together a diverse range of exhibits from interdisciplinary and international contexts, the show lets visitors experience the multi-faceted history of the flower on different sensorial levels. Among the featured artists are Ai Weiwei, Jan Brueghel the Younger, Andreas Gursky, Hannah Höch, Kapwani Kiwanga, Walid Raad, and Kehinde Wiley. 

An exhibition of the Kunsthalle München, in cooperation with the Bucerius Kunst Forum.