Walter Dahn (1954–2024) was an important influence on a generation of artists often referred to as the Neue Wilde or New Fauves. A co-founder of the short-lived but significant Mülheimer Freiheit group and a pioneer of “Bad Painting,” he developed a way of painting that questioned the point of the medium. From the late 1980s, he continued his work in other media, screen prints in particular. His works, which have been described as a “synthesizing cultural anthropology,” insistently analyzed the visual ideologies of art and everyday culture.
Walter Dahn, Pilzschnecke, 2002
© Walter Dahn
© Walter Dahn
Walter Dahn
Have Love Will Travel. Works 1986–2024
Haus Mödrath, Kerpen
Through August 31, 2025
Walter Dahn’s solo exhibition Have Love Will Travel. Works 1986–2024 at Haus Mödrath provides a comprehensive insight into the artist’s work from 1986 onwards. As one of the protagonists of Mülheimer Freiheit in the early 1980s, Dahn became primarily known as a painter. Yet the exhibition deliberately begins after this period and sheds light on Dahn’s expanded concept of painting and his widely ramified system of references to (pop) culture as well as intellectual history. A central focus is on works with a clear reference to music. A catalog with texts by Diedrich Diederichsen and Oliver Tepel is published on the occasion of the exhibition.
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