Eröffnung Armando

In the organizer's words:

From May 3, 2025, the Kunstraum Potsdam, in cooperation with the state capital of Potsdam and the Armando Foundation, is presenting the exhibition "Armando", a solo exhibition by the Dutch artist who died in 2018.

Visitors can expect an ensemble of sculptures, ceramic works, paintings, gouaches and watercolors that depict his life's work. His works are profound, sombre and emotionally charged and encourage viewers to engage intensively with themes such as guilt, memory, violence and human existence, just as he did in his artistic process.

Anyone who has ever walked along the "Walk of Art" in Potsdam will probably have come across Armando's bronze sculpture "The Warrior", which has been located on the Schiffbauergasse cultural site since 2014. The sculpture is now to be donated to the city of Potsdam, as it can be seen as an allusion to Potsdam's history as a residential and garrison city. Armando is regarded as a bridge builder between art, memory and history in the city and his work certainly stands for a critical examination of the past. To mark the donation, the Kunstraum is showing further works by the artist, who has had his studio here in Potsdam since 2008.

Armando, born in 1929, is known as a painter, sculptor, writer and musician. His work shows that he was a sensitive observer of his time. His early experiences during the German occupation of the Netherlands had a strong influence on his artistic work. He expressed his experiences through dark imagery and a reduced formal language. Whether in painting, sculpture or text - his constant aim was to formulate the unspeakable and make the "guilty landscape" visible: places that became part of the history of violence without being perpetrators themselves. Even after his death, Armando remains a voice against forgetting - haunting, poetic and uncomfortable.

Opening on 3.5.2025, 4 pm

Exhibition duration: 4.5. - 9.6.2025