Nacht der Museen 2026

The Kestner Gesellschaft is pleased to present Potentialities, a comprehensive solo exhibition by Richard Hawkins. The Los Angeles-based, internationally renowned artist has developed a unique practice since the early 1990s, which he himself describes as “a combination of historical research and boyish obsessions.” Collage—the merging of diverse elements—serves as the starting point for his paintings, AI-generated and edited videos, glazed ceramic reliefs, and sculptures.

Potentialities, his first institutional exhibition in Germany in over a decade, occupies the entire space of the Kestner Gesellschaft. The exhibition offers a comprehensive insight into Hawkins’s oeuvre through over 100 paintings, collages, sculptures, and videos from nine groups of works created over the past twenty years. The works combine art-historical references with elements of pop culture and explore the dynamics of desire and artistic obsession in multi-layered compositions that reference Pierre Bonnard, Forrest Bess, Japanese Butoh dance theater, and Antonin Artaud’s Theater of Cruelty.
The exhibition in Hanover is curated by Eva Birkenstock and organized in cooperation with the Kunsthalle Wien.

The newly curated archival presentation Passage IV. Missing Time accompanies the exhibition by Richard Hawkins and revisits the 1995 presentation Mike Kelley – Missing Time – Works on Paper 1974–1976/94.

For the Nacht der Museen 2026, the Kestner Gesellschaft invites you to a varied program:

6 / 7 / 8 / 9 pm
Performances by the Norddeutscher Figuralchor

6 – 8 pm
Open Workshop for Children

Starting at 6 pm
Bar, Tapas, and Music

6.30 / 7.30 / 8.30 pm
Guided Tours of the Exhibition