Astrid Klein
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain
Michael & Eleonore Stoffel Foundation – nw9, Cologne
October 31, 2025–February 28, 2026
Public Reception: October 31, 4–7pm

The Michael & Eleonore Stoffel Foundation is pleased to present the exhibition I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain by Astrid Klein – a title referring to a passage of Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus. The central element of the exhibition is a brand new carpet sculpture that forms a compelling unity with the surrounding works. It engages with the interplay of text and image, interweaving sources from literature and music, both classic and contemporary. In this context, the exhibition reflects Astrid Klein’s practice, which is defined by a multidisciplinary approach resisting confinement to a single medium. The Michael & Eleonore Stoffel Foundation features the work of the artist and holds several of Astrid Klein’s works in its collection.

Seriously.
Curated by Nana Bahlmann
November 21, 2025–January 31, 2026
London

Monika Sprüth and Philomene Magers are pleased to present Seriously., a group exhibition curated by Nana Bahlmann, featuring over a hundred conceptual photographs, print media, and select films ranging from the 1960s to the present, which expose the absurdities of our world and its representations…

Astrid Klein
January 13–March 9, 2024
New York

Astrid Klein, one of Germany’s most distinguished conceptual artists, has played a crucial role as a European counterpart to the American Pictures Generation since the late 1970s and is considered a female pioneer of large-scale photography. Underpinned by the formal and aesthetic principles of collage, Klein’s practice examines, deconstructs, and renews the relationship between image and text to question prevailing power structures and modes of perception and representation. In her multilayered works, she combines artistic source material drawn from philosophy, literature, political discourse, and film to establish fresh links of meaning. Sprüth Magers is pleased to present Astrid Klein’s first solo exhibition in New York, which focuses on two historical bodies of work: early “photoworks” (1979) alongside canvases from her White Paintings (1988–93) that together showcase the core ideas of her alluring and complex oeuvre.

Eau de Cologne
Marlene Dumas, Jenny Holzer, Astrid Klein, Barbara Kruger, Louise Lawler, Cindy Sherman, Rosemarie Trockel, Kara Walker
March 27–April 12, 2019
Hong Kong

Astrid Klein
CUTs
February 1–April 6, 2019
Berlin

At the heart of Astrid Klein’s work is a reflection on mechanisms of representation, (visual) stereotypes and power structures that guide and determine both our perception and our thinking. She combines existing visual material with equally important text fragments drawn from an in-depth examination of philosophical, aesthetic and scientific theories.

Astrid Klein
La Société du Spectacle
January 25–February 23, 2013
Berlin

The artist’s second solo show at the Berlin gallery will showcase work produced in the 1980’s, alongside a new series of collages. The title of the exhibition is taken from a work of philosophy and Marxist critical theory by French philosopher and artist Guy Debord. Published in 1967, the text focuses on ideas surrounding the degradation of human life, mass media and commodity fetishism, and comparisons between the role of religion and mass media marketing. Debord's critical view on social functions, values and structures of behavior are frequently repeated themes in Astrid Klein's work.

Astrid Klein
Broken Heart
September 3–October 23, 2010
Berlin

The painter and sculptor Astrid Klein has been working at integrating text into her paintings for over three decades. In 1972, before she had even started her degree in Cologne (1973-77), she began to write several texts which she later printed onto hand-made paper. The topics of her own texts, as well as her later use of other textual sources, bear witness to her thoughts on literary, aesthetic, philosophical and scientific writings. In a fragmented and concealed way these various sources are incorporated into her Schriftbilder (text paintings) which make up the large majority of the exhibited works in Berlin.

Astrid Klein
Les tâches dominicales
April 1–May 3, 2008
London

Born in 1951 and trained as a painter and sculptor, Klein is a manipulator of the photographic medium. Her photographs, paintings and installations contaminate, deconstruct and revive the relationship between the photographic image and text and can be interpreted as a metaphor for the estranged personal self and its representation in society. Like the work of Barbara Kruger and Cindy Sherman, Klein’s art is an expression of the burgeoning media culture of Western society in the 1970s.

Astrid Klein
May 18–July 29, 2006
Munich

Photography has played a key role in Astrid Klein’s œuvre since the mid 1970s. Her approach to photography differs from the traditional documentary use of the medium: Astrid Klein uses photographic material taken from film, TV, advertising and journalistic texts, which she manipulates. She inverts colours, layers images, adds fragments of texts to the images or overexposures them.

Astrid Klein
April 29–July 16, 2005
Cologne

Astrid Klein
Neue Arbeiten
January 26–April 13, 2002
Cologne

Astrid Klein
Neue Arbeiten
September 4–October 31, 1998
Cologne