With Elisabeth von Samsonow, the Heidi Horten Collection is dedicating a major solo exhibition to an artistic and philosophical perspective that transcends narrow disciplinary boundaries. This is the first time that Elisabeth von Samsonow’s multifaceted body of work has been presented on this scale, showcasing its artistic breadth and intellectual depth.

The exhibition is conceived as a powerful, narrative-rich solo show—a dynamic journey that incorporates early works as well as recent series. Sculptures, paintings, drawings, films, and a site-specific installation bring to life an astonishing body of work characterized by performative thinking, formal diversity, and an interdisciplinary approach.

At the heart of Samsonow’s artistic practice lies an intensive engagement with the earth as the bearer of history, life, energy, and collective memory. Her works take up motifs from cultural history and translate them into a contemporary formal language. Movement—both physical and psychological—is a central element here: Samsonow’s work poetically and playfully transcends the boundaries drawn by rational orders and opens up spaces between art, philosophy, anthropology, and political thought.

Sculptural installations and series of images play a special role; they revolve narratively around the Gaia myth and explore fundamental questions of origin, the body, birth, value, and transformation. Many of her wooden sculptures are crafted from entire tree trunks, including works made from a thousand-year-old linden tree, whose materiality makes growth and time immediately tangible.

Samsonow’s visual worlds appeal to the collective unconscious, specifically where it intersects with nature. They draw on fragments of dreams and experimental patterns of perception that lie somewhere between diagrams and archetypal forms, inviting viewers to reconsider and reinterpret familiar images. Her works open up spaces of possibility for alternative interpretations of history, physicality, and community.

The exhibition also makes deliberate connections to the Heidi Horten Collection. Works by Egon Schiele and German Expressionists are integrated and placed in relation to Samsonow’s long-standing scholarly and artistic engagement with these movements. A specially designed area for creative activities by young and adult visitors is planned as an integral part of the exhibition and underscores the open, dialogic nature of the presentation.

A catalog will be published to accompany the exhibition.
Curated by: Rolf H. Johannsen and Hana O. O. Haas