Special exhibitions

"This is the picture of the world that is considered the best"

A series of exhibitions organized by the Office for Academic Heritage Scientific and Art Collections in cooperation with the Teaching and Research Collections of TU Dresden
Cabinet, Gallery of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections in the Görges Building, TU Dresden

#3 Andrea Grützner: RASENSTÜCKE

In cooperation with the Herbarium Dresdense and the Botanical Garden as well as with teaching objects from forest zoology and forest science
A double exhibition with the exhibition space bautzner69 (April 16 to June 13, 2026)
March 27 to June 27, 2026

When Albrecht Dürer created his watercolor The Great Piece of Turf in 1503, he focused on the seemingly insignificant: a piece of meadow. In the precise study of dandelions, plantain and various grasses, the profane vegetation itself becomes the object of concentrated observation. Among the plants we can also make out the common meadow grass(Dactylis glomerata), a widespread meadow grass that still characterizes our landscapes today.

Andrea Grützner continues this tradition of close observation of nature with her show Rasenstücke. Based on the series Arkadia (from 2022), which is also on display and in which the artist transforms meadow landscapes into kaleidoscopic pictorial spaces using shimmering dichroic foils, the focus in Dactylis glomerata (2026) is on the variety of forms of pressed tussock grass. The starting point is all 79 herbarium specimens of this species from the Herbarium Dresdense, collected between 1796 and 2014. Grützner shows the digitized specimens in a mirrored negative: stalks, panicles and roots shine out of dark surfaces as blue, filigree structures. Attention is also drawn to the mounting of the documents with adhesive tape. Here, Grützner dissects the prints and organically folds the strips into the surface. The installation is also reminiscent of the early photographic process of the cyanotype and a sign language, without omitting references to archiving and digitization processes. Between scientific collection object, photographic trace and graphic structure, an open pictorial space is created in which observation of nature, collection material, human intervention and artistic transformation overlap.

Further information and the program of events can be found in the flyer.

From April 16 to June 13, 2026, the Dresden exhibition space bautzner69 is presenting the work complex Erbgerichtby Andrea Grützner. The focus here is on a place of social memory and transformation. In both presentations, photography becomes an experimental medium that makes processes of change visible.

Mariechen Danz: CIRCUITS

With machines and models from the Historical Electrical Machines Collection and the High Voltage Technology Collection of TU Dresden and loans from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden
Gallery of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections in the Görges Building
A double exhibition with the Kunstverein Dresden
April 27 to July 10, 2026
Opening: April 24, 2026, 5 pm (TU Dresden) and 8 pm (Kunstverein Dresden)

The internationally renowned artist Mariechen Danz (*1980 in Dublin, lives in Berlin) explores the relationship between the body, technology and knowledge systems in her work. The artist's sculptural and installation works enter into a dialog with historical machines and models from university teaching and research collections as well as with loans from the Deutsches Hygiene-Museum Dresden. In this way, the material infrastructures of scientific knowledge come into focus, as do the interactions between technical apparatus, models and our ideas of the human body.

The double exhibition "Circuits" is realized in cooperation between the Gallery of the Office for Academic Heritage, Scientific and Art Collections in the Görges Building of the TU Dresden and the Kunstverein Dresden.