The exhibition can be seen from 24 November 2024 to 9 June 2025 in the Graphic Room on the first floor of the Kunstmuseum.
Zille & Spribille. Ansichtssachen continues an exhibition series that presents works by the artist Heinrich Zille (1858 to 1929) from the Themel Collection at the Kunstmuseum Mülheim an der Ruhr in dialogue with another artist. The dialogue is inspired by socially relevant themes and issues that make the works appear just as relevant in a contemporary context as they were at the time of their creation. As a keen observer of conditions, Zille's hand drawings, prints and photographs take a caricature-like, detailed, humorous and ironic look at the microcosm of the metropolis of Berlin at the beginning of the 20th century. In doing so, he also reflects the social circumstances of a world undergoing great upheaval.
Like Zille, Werner Spribille (1928 to 2000) was someone who took a close look and used his trenchant drawing style to depict visual exaggerations and exuberant socio-political stories. He was part of Mülheim's urban society and used a pen and etching needle to create targeted ‘engravings’ that described local events in narrative depictions with handwritten comments and puns. As if in a kaleidoscope, the facets of the ‘Mölmchen’ everyday world with all its absurdities, visions, political debates and social challenges of the post-war period are bundled together. As a co-founder of the ‘Mothers’ Night’ group, Werner Spribille also reflected on being an artist himself and intervened in public discussions about art and cultural life in Mülheim in the 1970s and 1980s with actions and the “Manisch-Depressive Schrift für kulturvolle Geister”.
