Harm Gerdes

Mediterranea

Kunsthalle Darmstadt

31 January – 15 March 2026

 

The Kunsthalle Darmstadt is presenting the largest solo exhibition to date by Cypriot-German artist Harm Gerdes. Titled Mediterranea, the exhibition brings together around 20 large-scale paintings, most of them created in Athens over the past five years.

 

Many of the works are being shown publicly for the first time. In addition, Gerdes has produced a new series of five paintings especially for the exhibition, inspired by an Art Nouveau pattern from the Mathildenhöhe in Darmstadt.  Raised in Darmstadt, Gerdes studied at the Düsseldorf Art Academy, under Katharina Grosse. He has lived and worked in Athens for several years and has exhibited internationally. His practice is defined by a distinctive technique of pouring acrylic paint rather than applying it with a brush, resulting in compositions of striking elegance and intensity.

 

As curator Robert Fleck notes in the exhibition catalogue, Gerdes’ work “invents a new language” — one that reflects the visual conditions of our screen-dominated present without directly adopting its imagery, instead finding painterly equivalents for contemporary perception.