Fritz Winter (1905 - 1976) is viewed as one of the most important figures in post-war German art. After studying under Oskar Schlemmer, Wassily Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus school in Dessau, Winter made his first attempts at abstract painting around the year 1930. He produced a diverse Oeuvre over the next few decades, a wealth of dramatic pictures always using the natural world as his subject: plant growth and mineral formations, microrganisms and stellar constellations. Winter's works on paper particularly illustrate his thematic openness, his love of technical experimentation and the pictorial composition of his series. Around 250 of his works were on display at the retrospective in Stuttgart: monotypes, collages, gouaches, oil paintings and pencil, brush, chalk and marker drawings. The visitor was treated to a surprisingly varied collection of previously unseen work of remarkable quality and topicality. The work displayed in the exhibition was taken from the substantial holdings of the Konrad Knöpfel-Stiftung Fritz Winter, which has been housed in the Kunstmuseum Stuttgart since 1994. The project was supported by numerous institutions and private collectors who have contributed significant loans. These include Fritz-Winter-Haus in Ahlen, the Fritz-Winter-Stiftung in Munich, Staatlichen Museen Kassel, Folkwang Museum in Essen and the Graphische Sammlung der Staatsgalerie Stuttgart. to catalogue
	Polylit – is that some kind of plastic? No! It's a sculpture, made of reflecting glass and almost 10 m high, which responds to electromagnetic radiation by emitting light and sound. This luminous polyhedron is like a monumental crystal. Designed by the well-known young German artist Carsten Nicolai and executed by Werner Sobek, an internationally renowned architect and engineer for innovative structures, the new sculpture on the Kleiner Schlossplatz explores the boundary zones between nature, art and technology. One thing is certain: starting May 21, cell phones and wireless LAN computers will not be able to communicate at the Kleiner Schlossplatz without producing artistic effects. That's because Carsten Nicolai's sculpture project is interactive and reacts to its environment. The rest you'll have to find out yourself. With kind support of »Staatliche Toto-Lotto GmbH Baden-Württemberg«
	As night falls over Stuttgart, the Kunstmuseum's new building lights up. This striking feature of the cityscape is the ideal location to document the history of architectural lighting design. The exhibition »Luminous Buildings: Architecture of the Night« took a detailed look at architectural illumination. Architects experimented with illumination for the first time during the great world fairs of the 19th century. For example, Paris's Eiffel Tower, built in 1889, was lit up at night. But it was not until the 1920s that architectural illumination began to fascinate architects looking for avant-garde city design concepts. The exhibition told the story of European and American architectural lighting design using illuminated models, photographs, paintings, visionary designs and architectural light sculptures. A large section was devoted to recent blueprints and buildings with unusual light features. The current debate on ways to accommodate commercial and aesthetic demands in lighting concepts for city centres was also a focus. to catalogue
	Parallel to the exhibition »Pictograms – The Loneliness of Signs«, the Kunstmuseum presented pictogram-flags by Matt Mullican. The show was hosted for the first time by Stuttgart airport. In this unique exhibition location, which is by its very nature full of pictograms giving instructions of where to go and what to do, the question posed by the special exhibition in Stuttgart will be even more apparent: what happens when a pictogram that has been created with the goal of easy and quick comprehension is transferred to art?
	Fire exit signs, arrows, no smoking signs - modern humanity is surrounded by pictograms. Essential elements of a universally understood code, they naturally occupy a central position in any discussion surrounding the role of signs in art. In fact, as early as the beginning of the 20th century artists were already working on the development of an international language which went beyond the written or spoken word. Using some 350 exhibits from Germany and abroad, the exhibition »Pictograms - the loneliness of signs« traced the previously little explored art history of the pictogram right up to the present day. At the end one is faced with the fascinating question: what happens when an artist takes the mundane sign, intended to be read quickly, intuitively and unambiguously, and throws it into the arena of art where everything is open to interpretation? The exhibition was sponsored by the Federal Cultural Foundation (Kulturstiftung des Bundes). to catalogue