Future exhibition

Once upon a time. Vill passiert sickher. Manfred Boecker, Rainer Gross, Wolfgang Niedecken

09.03.2025 – 18.05.2025

In Cologne in the 1970s, Manfred Boecker, Rainer Gross and Wolfgang Niedecken met in the Südstadt, in the immediate vicinity of the Cologne Werkschulen. During their studies at the city’s creative center for fine arts, architecture and design, they became close friends and found – by founding an artist collective – a suitable platform to express themselves artistically. Humorous collaborative works influenced by Fluxus and Happening are created under the label “Schizzo”. They experiment carefree with music and painting and are openly critical of the art market. In doing so, they draw on various levels of reality of the images reproduced in the mass media and create Dada objects with Cologne-style titles.

While Manfred Boecker and Wolfgang Niedecken increasingly made music, even playing together for a time in the Cologne rock band BAP, founded by frontman Niedecken, Rainer Gross accepted an invitation from the American painter Howard Kanovitz to come to New York in 1973. He still lives here today, works internationally in various exhibition projects and takes part in numerous biennials. Wolfgang Niedecken, like Rainer Gross, also lived in New York for a few years and was temporarily the assistant of the well-known painter Larry Rivers. He also played in rock bands, so they all not only met in the art scene, but also discovered their connection through art.

The current exhibition is based on a first presentation at the Museum Villa Zanders in Bergisch-Gladbach and focuses on the painterly work of the three artists, whose multifaceted works are presented anew.