Group Exhibition: ELEMENTARTEILE, Sprengel Museum Hannover, DE

From 13 April 2019 - September 2025, Sprengel Museum Hannover, Germany

Shinkichi Tajiri’s Made in USA (1964), part of the museum’s collection, is featured in the exhibition ELEMENTARTEILE (ELEMENTARY PARTS).

Left: Shinkichi Tajiri, Made in USA, 1964, Collection Sprengel Museum Hannover

Right: ELEMENTARTEILE exhibition room form/shape.

The exhibition explores essential yet profound questions about art: What is art? What are artworks made of—what materials are used? What visual languages do they speak? What realities—figurative, abstract, or virtual—do they represent? What stories do they tell, and how do they reflect history?

Spread across nine thematic rooms, ELEMENTARTEILE presents a compelling overview of the fundamental components of artistic creation: material, form, and expression, along with their layers of meaning.

The exhibition's central themes include color, material, form/shape, realities, history and narrative, natural and human-shaped environments, strong emotions, and, finally, the human face—an ultimate mirror of our own image. Bringing together over 150 works spanning painting, sculpture, drawing, printmaking, and film/video installation, the exhibition showcases highlights from the Sprengel Museum Hannover’s collection and long-term loans.