Sperling

Sperling Sperling is a Munich based gallery for contemporary art.

Last days before the gallery’s summer break (you can still visit the exhibition by appointment during August. Just write...
30/07/2026

Last days before the gallery’s summer break (you can still visit the exhibition by appointment during August. Just write us a DM or email to [email protected] with your preferred dates to visit and we will respond).

Mathew Hale’s 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 drawings “are a series of spontaneously generated images made by an adult in relation to their childhood. Emptying his head, the artist begins to draw, and this is what has appeared; not truth, or innocence, but beautiful and disturbing surprises grown in the soil of truth and innocence.
 
To quote the artist Bruno Schultz: “To you I can reveal the secrets of these drawings. I always doubted that it was I who drew them. Sometimes they seem like unintentional plagiarisms. Something that was whispered to me, that reached my ear … as though a stranger had used my inspiration for purposes unknown, for I confess I have discovered the ‘real thing’.” “ [from the press release]

A publication entitled FACTS OF LIFE: Drawn from forgetfulness by Mathew (and Mummy), featuring texts by Rye Dag Holmboe and Julie Mehretu, is forthcoming from X Artists' Books (Los Angeles/Berlin).

Julie Mehretu will come to Munich for a conversation with Mathew Hale in the exhibition on 2 September, 2026. More details soon!

Mathew Hale , photos by Sebastian Kissel

Now online: Mathew Hale, 𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦)The full documentation of the exhibition is now available...
23/07/2026

Now online: Mathew Hale, 𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦)

The full documentation of the exhibition is now available on our website, including installation views and a selection of the almost 400 individual drawings from Mathew Hale’s 𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦 series.

The show will be on view until September 5, 2026. A conversation between Julie Mehretu and Mathew Hale is planned for Wednesday, September 2. More details coming soon!

Summer break: August 5–29. During this time, the gallery is open by appointment only. Please contact us at [email protected] to schedule a visit.

all photos by Sebastian Kissel

In summer 2026, , in collaboration with and – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft, presents an ambitious group exhibition titl...
22/07/2026

In summer 2026, , in collaboration with and – Albrecht Dürer Gesellschaft, presents an ambitious group exhibition titled 𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑑. Bringing together 30 international positions in contemporary painting, the exhibition offers a multifaceted perspective on current approaches to the medium.

The title 𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑑. – in Latin for “in the same place” – refers to a shared point of departure: the time spent by the participating artists in in Nuremberg as part of the Marianne Defet Painting Scholarship over the past 15 years. Through their encounters with the city, its architecture, people, and histories, each artist has developed a unique dialogue that continues to resonate within their works.

The exhibition builds on these connections, creating both a collective space of resonance and a forward-looking overview of diverse painterly perspectives in contemporary art. 𝑖𝑏𝑖𝑑. is on view until October 3, 2026.

at Kunsthalle Nürnberg with his works ꜱᴛᴏʀɴᴏ ᴘʟᴇᴀꜱᴇ, ɴᴇᴜʟɪᴄʜ ᴇɪɴꜰᴀᴄʜ ᴍᴀʟ ʙᴇɪ ‘ɪɴᴅᴇᴘᴇɴᴅᴇɴᴛ ᴡᴏᴍᴇɴ, ᴘᴛ. 𝟣’ ɢᴇʜᴇᴜʟᴛ ᴜɴᴅ ɴᴏᴄʜ ɪᴍᴍᴇʀ ᴋᴇɪɴᴇɴ ᴍɪʟʟɪᴍᴇᴛᴇʀ ᴡᴇɪᴛᴇʀ ᴀʟꜱ 𝟤–𝟣𝟧 [No. 1 is on view at Kunstverein Nürnberg!], 2025–2026, Lacquer, paper, epoxy, oil, coloured pencil, graphite, collage, fabric, ink and gouache on newspaper, newspaper on aluminium panels, each 150 × 120 × 7 cm

Installation views at the Kunsthalle:

Mathew Hale𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦)Opening Thursday, July 9, 6–9 PMUntil September 5, 2026 This summer at ...
03/07/2026

Mathew Hale
𝘚𝘱𝘰𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴 𝘎𝘦𝘯𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 (𝘍𝘢𝘤𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘪𝘧𝘦)
Opening Thursday, July 9, 6–9 PM
Until September 5, 2026
 
This summer at Sperling, we are proud to present Mathew Hale’s new suite of free drawings*, 𝘍𝘈𝘊𝘛𝘚 𝘖𝘍 𝘓𝘐𝘍𝘌, in its entirety. The four hundred pictures will be pinned up directly on the gallery walls allowing the visitor to enjoy them all at once, and echoing the creative environment of Hale’s studio.
 
Facts of Life are a series of spontaneously generated images made by an adult in relation to their childhood. Emptying his head, the artist begins to draw, and this is what has appeared; not truth, or innocence, but beautiful and disturbing surprises grown in the soil of truth and innocence.
 
To quote the artist Bruno Schultz: “To you I can reveal the secrets of these drawings. I always doubted that it was I who drew them. Sometimes they seem like unintentional plagiarisms. Something that was whispered to me, that reached my ear … as though a stranger had used my inspiration for purposes unknown, for I confess I have discovered the ‘real thing’.”
 
On Spetember 2nd, at Sperling, there will be a book launch to celebrate the publication of “FACTS OF LIFE: Drawn form forgetfulness by Mathew (and Mummy)”, X Artists’ Books, Los Angeles and Berlin, featuring texts by Rye Dag Holmboe and Julie Mehretu.
 
* “Free drawing” is the term coined by the psychoanalyst, writer and artist Marion Milner in her book On Not Being Able to Paint, when theorizing her practice of sitting down to draw with no prior image in her head, only to be led by her hand, eye and mind to produce something that was naturally significant, because not preconceived. Mathew Hale was Marion Milner’s assistant and friend from 1990–1998, the last eight years of her life.

Veronika Hilger𝙻𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚛-𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛-𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚒𝚜 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟻Opening, Sunday, June 28, 2026, at Museum Lothar Fischer (Weiherstr. 7a, 92318 N...
25/06/2026

Veronika Hilger
𝙻𝚘𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚛-𝙵𝚒𝚜𝚌𝚑𝚎𝚛-𝙿𝚛𝚎𝚒𝚜 𝟸𝟶𝟸𝟻
Opening, Sunday, June 28, 2026, at Museum Lothar Fischer (Weiherstr. 7a, 92318 Neumarkt i.d.OPf.)

Sunday, 11:30 AM, welcome by Dr. Pia Dornacher (museum director), introduction by Dr. Jana Baumann (Haus der Kunst, Munich ), opening by Martin Meier (Landrat/district administrator )
2:00 PM, guided tour of the exhibition with Veronika Hilger and Dr. Pia Dornacher

The Lothar Fischer Prize 2025 was awarded  to artist , who was born in Prien am Chiemsee in 1981 and lives and works in Munich. In recent years, she has expanded her painting practice to include sculptural works that captivate viewers with their organic forms and unique color palette. The multifaceted, glazed ceramics always enter into an exciting dialogue with the often surreal paintings. The pedestal, the application of paint, the space, and the viewer are always to be understood as a unity. Veronika Hilger’s exhibition, featuring around 50 works, will make a lasting contribution to contemporary visual art.

The exhibition will be on view until October 11, 2026.



1) Nachtmahr, 2026, glazed stoneware ceramic, 31 x 46 x 28 cm, photo: Veronika Hilger
2-4) Untitled, oil and acrylic on canvas (triptych), 190 x 390 cm, photo: Sebastian Kissel
5) Exhibition poster from Museum Lothar Fischer, installation view Perpetual Dawn, 2023, Sperling, Munich

The series „Storno please, neulich einfach mal bei ‘Independent Women, Pt. 1’ geheult und noch immer keinen Millimeter w...
19/06/2026

The series „Storno please, neulich einfach mal bei ‘Independent Women, Pt. 1’ geheult und noch immer keinen Millimeter weiter als 1-15“, 2026, presented at .social.club for the first time, originates in a deliberate pause.
 
Since June 2025, the artist has stepped away from his previous practice, worn down by the pressure to find aesthetic responses to a present that feels increasingly dystopian. He first gave up reading the news, and soon after withdrew from social media. Yet the newspaper, as a traditional vehicle of information, remains.
 
Each day, a paper is bought but not read. Instead, in the studio, it is subjected to a painterly, gestural process: using paint or previously gathered visual fragments, the front page is obscured, overwritten, or distorted. Headlines vanish, images are layered over or transformed into abstract compositions. The surface is worked until information gives way to painterly decision. Often, only the date remains – sometimes a few scattered words hinting at the original content. In this way, the newspaper becomes the site of a repeated, almost ritual act. The daily covering of its surface with ever more paint is less an act of artistic production in the traditional sense than a controlled refusal of legibility and fixed meaning in the face of an overwhelming present.
 
Meaning does not unfold as a coherent narrative, but emerges through the accumulation and compression of fragmentary, at times contradictory elements. Mounted on simple metal sheets, the newspapers are arranged in changing constellations. The choice of support also recalls construction hoardings – temporary structures onto which flyers, notices, and postings are pinned, forming their own localized circuits of information.

, 2026

Ana Navas explores office culture through objects, design, and clothing – asking how they shape ideas of authority, conf...
17/06/2026

Ana Navas explores office culture through objects, design, and clothing – asking how they shape ideas of authority, confidence, and control. Her 𝘗𝘰𝘸𝘦𝘳 𝘋𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 sculptures (e.g. 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘴) draw on the look of 1980s corporate fashion, when dressing “right” was closely tied to ambition and visibility.
Instead of showing just garments, Navas translates these elements into sculptural forms, turning them into objects that feel both familiar and slightly strange.
Presented at the gym of this year’s Basel Social Club, the works meet a second world of discipline and self-optimization. Office wear and fitness equipment suddenly speak the same language.
Between desk and workout, Navas shows how much our environments shape how we perform and present ourselves. More generally, the artist traces the genealogy of objects – their origins, their migrations through contexts, their subtle shifts in meaning (𝘉𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰, 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘐).

Ana Navas, 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘵𝘦𝘥, 2018, mat, plaster, textile, paper, metal, 193 × 65 × 5 cm (slide 1&3, photos Sebastian Kissel)
Ana Navas, 𝘗𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘦𝘳𝘢𝘴, 2018, carpet, cardboard, textile, leather, silver, 130 × 104 × 5 cm (slide 4&5, photos S. Kissel)
Ana Navas, 𝘉𝘪𝘤𝘩𝘰, 2023, acrylic on textile, plastic chairs, metal and plastic stand, cardboard, wood, 129 × 63 × 47.5 cm (slide 9, photo by S. Verdon)
Ana Navas, 𝘍𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘢𝘭 𝘛𝘸𝘪𝘯 𝘐,  (in collaboration with Toon Verhoef), 2023, chairbacks, vacuum cleaner, bijouterie, textile, acrylic paint, cardboard, 110 × 36 × 40 cm (10,11, photos LNDW studio)
social.club installation shots by Nicola Morittu (slides 2,8,12)
Slides 6 & 7 from the group show 𝘭à 𝘰ù 𝘭𝘦𝘴 𝘫𝘰𝘶𝘳𝘴 at CAN Centre d’art Neuchâtel , 2026, photos by S. Verdon

We are thrilled to be part of the fifth edition of .social.club, taking place through June 20, 2026, in a vacant multi-s...
15/06/2026

We are thrilled to be part of the fifth edition of .social.club, taking place through June 20, 2026, in a vacant multi-story office building just minutes from Basel SBB train station. Within this setting, we are presenting works by Ana Navas (born in Ecuador, grown up in Venezuela, based in Rotterdam), whose sculptural practice playfully engages with systems of display, design, and circulation, and Malte Zenses (born in Solingen, based Berlin), whose new series of reworked newspapers is a testament to daily work and withdrawal over the past year.

(slides 1, 3) & (slides 2, 4) at Basel Social Club 2026. Installation views by Nicola Morittu.

“This year’s edition reconsiders the workplace not as a site of production, but of critical reflection. Once a symbol of efficiency and growth, the office today reflects shifting realities shaped by digitalization, remote work, and artificial intelligence. Basel Social Club engages this condition through exhibitions, performances, music, gastronomy, and informal encounters that explore questions of labor, time, productivity, and rest.
Unfolding vertically across the building’s stacked floors, the architecture becomes part of the curatorial framework. Spatial layers and circulation routes echo contemporary notions of the “underground” — as both a site of cultural resistance and a metaphor for the hidden structures and tensions of late capitalism.
The building remains continuously activated throughout the week, with artists responding directly to its architecture and atmosphere. A dedicated night program expands the experience into the late hours, while an “Out of Office” zone offers space for pause and retreat.“

Kitty Doherty about her concrete poem, that served as a guiding theme in the development of the exhibition 𝒯𝓇𝒾𝒶𝓃𝑔𝓁𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝓈𝒽...
12/06/2026

Kitty Doherty about her concrete poem, that served as a guiding theme in the development of the exhibition 𝒯𝓇𝒾𝒶𝓃𝑔𝓁𝑒 𝓇𝑒𝓈𝒽𝒶𝓅𝑒𝓈 𝓉𝒽𝑒 𝒪 𝑜𝒻 𝓂𝓎 𝓂𝑜𝓊𝓉𝒽 by Anousha Payne: “Wrote this a long time ago, in a familiar moment of trying to speak, and be heard while speaking, while up against the many forces that pull and push and change us every time (all the time).”

On view in Munich until July 4, 2026.

is a concrete poet, writer, artist and researcher whose work centres around language. She creates concrete poetry and socially engaged pieces that explore articulatory and epistemic marginalisation, intermediality and hierarchy, gendered sound, and the role language plays in social and cultural constructions. 
She has been Editor-in-Chief for the Berlin-based literary journal FU Review since 2024. Her first concrete poetry collection, I make you make me sing, was published in 2023 by Paper View Independent Publishing. She is currently completing her MA in literature at Freie Universität Berlin, where she is researching concrete poetry and chronic pain. Her work has appeared in journals such as The Visual Poetry Times and aurapoesiavisual, turned into a poem-object for Oo Press, and featured in exhibitions in Berlin and Istanbul.

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EnhuberStr. 6
Munich
80333

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