What does it mean to enter into a relationship with the world—with its landscapes, living beings, and histories? What happens when human beings and nature, body and environment, reality and imagination form unconventional connections? For nearly five decades, the multifaceted work of German-Austrian artist and philosopher Elisabeth von Samsonow has revolved around these questions. In a vivid visual language, she creates fantastical worlds, at times infused with subtle wit, in which bodies transform and human, animal, and plant forms merge into one another. At the same time, Samsonow develops performative and collective actions that conceive of art as a shared practice. Bringing together numerous works, including many being shown for the first time, this eponymous retrospective presents an oeuvre in which art, philosophy, feminist thought, and ecological engagement are intimately intertwined.

Bodies in Transformation

In 1990, Samsonow began working in wood; since then, sculpture has occupied a central place in her practice. Life-size painted sculptures emerge from whole tree trunks. Samsonow’s sculptural and painterly universe is shaped by whimsical metamorphoses: Human, animal, and plant bodies morph into one another, while figures from mythology encounter recurring motifs from Samsonow’s oeuvre, such as the Girl, the Horse, the Ponygirl, and the Pretzel. In Samsonow’s more recent work, the She-Eagle plays a prominent role, appearing both as a symbolic figure and as a real animal.

The sculptures suggest the possibility of emancipating themselves from their static form: they can roll, produce sounds, or emit light. In her performative works, Samsonow activates the sculptures through movement or by playing their strings, bringing her own body into direct relation with them.

A Conversation with the Earth

Elisabeth von Samsonow approaches the earth as a living, interconnected system and as a carrier of history and collective memory. Her practice increasingly extends beyond the studio into rural territories. With the project Goddesses’ Land, initiated in 2020, she responds to a landscape shaped by intensive agriculture and increasingly depleted soil. Through her painting, drawing, performative photography, and writing, this landscape becomes Samsonow’s partner in dialogue: What does this land mean? What does it say? And what relationships connect us to it?

Art, as proposed by Samsonow, becomes a way of inhabiting the world, creatively shaping it, and engaging with it through care. Reflecting these ideas, an open atelier developed specially for the retrospective invites visitors to respond creatively to the exhibition.

In Dialogue

A defining element of the retrospective is ten dialogues between works by Samsonow and masterpieces from the Heidi Horten Collection—including those by Francis Bacon, Georg Baselitz, Alexander Calder, Egon Schiele, and Ferdinand Georg Waldmüller—as well as the prehistoric Idol of Immendorf. The formal and thematic resonances that emerge among these artworks open new perspectives on Samsonow’s work and on the collection.

Published to coincide with the retrospective, this is the first comprehensive monograph on Elisabeth von Samsonow’s artistic oeuvre.

Curated by: Hana O. O. Haas and Rolf H. Johannsen

Exhibition design: tne next ENTERprise Architects Harnoncourt, Fuchs & Partner