Stuttgart's Kunstmuseum on the Kleiner Schlossplatz opened its doors to the public for the first time with a large-scale presentation of its own collection. The initial results of a current art historical survey on the museum’s holdings, the result of eight decades of collecting, were on display. Where are the caesurae, where the consistencies? Where do we find fascinating analogies involving content and form? The exhibition was characterised by four main emphases derived from the municipal collection’s some 15,000 works: ornament (in the case of Adolf Hölzel, René Straub, Ekrem Yalcindag for instance), political/social criticism (Otto Dix, Hermann Sohn, Björn Melhus, Markus Lüpertz, Rebecca Horn, Ben Willikens), subversive irony (Dieter Roth, Martin Creed, Simone Westerwinter, Georg Herold, Karin Sander) and the shifting boundary between »liberal« and »applied« art (Adolf Hölzel, Ida Kerkovius, Oskar Schlemmer, Willi Baumeister, Franco Grignani). to catalogue
	Between 1921 and 1933 Otto Dix (1891-1969) created a series of portraits of his mistress Martha, later to become his wife. 70 representative paintings, watercolours, drawings, and comic sketches depict Martha Dix in a variety of portrayals and roles: as a worldly emancipated woman, as mistress, muse and intellectual equal, as loving mother and focus of the family. The artist’s different attitudes to his model, which move from awe through intimacy to increasing alienation, are realised in a range of portrait types: this impression is emphasised by the titles which are sometimes emotionally charged, sometimes matter-of-fact. The same can be said of the motifs and the handwritten dedications with which Dix presented his wife over the years and which also form part of the exhibition. The Martha portraits don’t just illustrate the work of Otto Dix in all its facets and variants. They also provide a glimpse of the 1920s with its cosmopolitan style, established and revolutionary roles for the sexes, fashion, music, dance, and the quest for freedom in art and life. to catalogue
	Max Bill's work is founded on the belief that beauty is the result of an intellectual order rooted in scientific observation. Max Bill didn’t see a fundamental difference between the applied arts and the liberal arts. In striving for a universal design Max Bill produced a prodigious and diverse collection of works originating from a plethora of disciplines, from architecture, sculpture and design to painting, graphic arts and typography. For the first time in Germany since 1987 a comprehensive retrospective of over 200 pieces was open to the public, representing Max Bill works in all media. The exhibition included large-scale paintings centering around the themes of colour rhythms and colour quantums. Sculptural creations on display comprised the ribbons, the surfaces in space, the spheres and the circular segments. Graphic series included the pièce de résistance, 15 Variations on a Single Theme. Contemporary design objects such as watches, wall clocks and the noted Ulmer Hocker (in cooperation with Hans Gugelot) accent the panoply of creations from the field of applied arts. Various architecture projects, among them the College of Design in Ulm attested to Bill's affinity for "the mother of the arts". Numerous serial productions from the fields of advertising, typography, poster and book design rounded out the display. to catalogue
	The Kunstmuseum Stuttgart provides artists with an area of the Kleiner Schlossplatz as work space. Mariella Mosler, the first artist to be invited, had created a garden of sculptures: three amorphous seating groups on a mirrored surface tempted passers-by to linger. In their midst a four metre stylised bronze tree corkscrewed skywards. Its lurid orange red paintwork draws on airbrush designs from motorbike magazines - the shell and the core aptly illustrating the inherent conflict between trash and high culture. Mariella Mosler, professor at the Stuttgart Academy of Art since 2003, rose to international fame during the nineties for her ornament works using sand, hair and fruit gums.