Richard Hawkins

Potentialities

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

Potentialities, Hawkins’s first institutional exhibition in Germany in over a decade, occupies all the galleries of the Kestner Gesellschaft. Bringing together approximately 100 paintings, collages, sculptures, and videos from nine bodies of work produced over the past twenty years, it offers a comprehensive overview of his practice. These works combine art-historical references with elements of popular culture, exploring questions of desire and artistic obsession through complex compositions. References range from Pierre Bonnard and Forrest Bess to Japanese Butoh dance and Antonin Artaud’s Theatre of Cruelty.

Richard Hawkins (b. 1961, lives in Los Angeles, USA) has had solo exhibitions at institutions including Kunsthalle Wien (2025/26); LOEWE’s FW24 Men’s Show, Paris (2024); Tate Liverpool (2014); Le Consortium, Dijon (2013); the Art Institute of Chicago and the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (both 2010); de Appel, Amsterdam (2007); and Kunstverein Heilbronn (2003). He has also participated in numerous international group exhibitions, including Artists Space, New York (2023); Bonner Kunstverein (2019); Kunstinstituut Melly, Rotterdam (2014); and the 2012 Whitney Biennial, New York. His work is held in major international collections, including the Art Institute of Chicago; Astrup Fearnley Museet, Oslo; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York; Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; Kistefos Museum, Norway; LOEWE Foundation, Madrid; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Nevada Museum of Art; Palm Springs Art Museum; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Walker Art Center; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Hawkins is a Professor of painting at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena.

The exhibition in Hanover is curated by Eva Birkenstock and organized in close collaboration with Kunsthalle Wien.

It is accompanied by the publication Richard Hawkins: Potentialities, edited by Eva Birkenstock and Michelle Cotton, with texts by Rhea Anastas and Kristian Vistrup Madsen, as well as an interview with Richard Hawkins by Bruce Hainley. The book is published in German and English by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther und Franz König, Cologne (designed by Dan Solbach, 38 Euro).

Richard Hawkins has created a limited-edition print as part of a new series of artists’ editions. Mystery Cult of Harpocrates (Hannover Version) (2026) reproduces his 2018 painting of the same name, included in the exhibition.